Reverse Order Outline and Anthropologists on writing…

Hi all,

Today I discussed the reverse order outline. Here is some more on this useful strategy, which is also called the “after the fact outline) (see here)

Turns out you are not the only Anthropologists thinking about your writing. In fact, at this very moment there are a large number that are actively reflecting on their writing habits and practice,  and keeping each other accountable!  For example, check out the project over at Durham University (in the UK)  (EDIT: I just noted these old links aren’t working…stay tuned, I’m hoping to find all of them!) This website is dedicated to, “supporting social science researchers who are seeking to engage more effectively with the practical and intellectual issues that arise in the quest to produce texts that are engaging, accurate and analytically insightful.” There are lots of things that might be useful, including a section on graduate students chatting about the thesis writing process. I wanted to draw your attention to the section on “writing on writing”, which includes some interesting short pieces on the writing process. There are quite a few Anthropologists involved, and our old friend the sociologist Howard Becker also appears.  This appears to be mostly qualitative writing, but may be of use to the most quantitative amongst you as well. Some highlights:

Marilyn Strathern (a big name in Anthropology if you haven’t heard of her) on the “data-theory gap”

What initially may appear to the young research student as a gap between data and text changes colour over time.   Habituation to writing creates other kinds of gaps, such as that awful one between everything one has already written and a new venture, or between the magnitude of the field of enquiry, the heap on the plate, and the bit one wants to bite off for now.   I describe one particular gap just as I find myself often describing it to students who seem cast down or a bit low or even depressed about writing.  I am sure there are times when my comments come over rather unfeeling, as not caring enough about the state they are in.  I think that is because I want to say that, while I am sorry if someone is feeling miserable, it doesn’t help for me to feed it with commiserations.  Rather, what I from my own moods can tell them about what may be happening (sometimes not always) is that the gap opening up between what needs doing and the capacity to do it can actually be a prerequisite to writing at all.   Similar gaps can make people stumble at any point or in any corner of their lives; for the would-be writer they can be the threshhold of creativity.

Tim Ingold on handwriting:

I am saddened by the rule, observed in my own institution as in most others, that requires students to produce work in a standardised, word-processed format. I am told that one reason for this rule is that it allows work to be checked for originality, using anti-plagiarism software. From the start, students are introduced to the idea that academic writing is a game whose primary object is to generate novelty through the juxtaposition and recombination of materials from prescribed sources. Word processors were expressly designed as devices with which to play this game, and it is one that many academics, having been trained in its conventions, are only too keen to carry on. But the game is a travesty of the writer’s craft. Contrary to university regulations, I encourage my students to write by hand, as well as to draw, and to compare their experience of doing so with that of using the computer. The response has been unequivocal. Handwriting and drawing, they report, re-awaken long-suppressed sensibilities and induce a greater sense of personal involvement, leading in turn to profound insight.

Medical Anthropologist Arthur Kleinman on “searching for a voice”:

But perhaps my strongest advice on writing comes down to these two recommendations. First, if you are going to write, then write. Write every day. Write when you are most wide awake. But write. And edit yourself (and do so severely) and rewrite. Second, aspire to prose that is arresting, prose that is beautiful. Most of the time, like me, you won’t achieve it. No matter, it is the journey of aspiration that counts, that lets you weigh the best words of strong writers and test them against your own strengths, that lets you experiment, eventually comes to burnish and improve what you do write. And that will matter for your readers and ultimately for the writer in you.

…and finally, Becker on some [more] “words on writing”:

The most common faults arising from such causes these days include the piles of unnecessary bibliographic references decorating academic writing and the incessant use of passive grammatical constructions. Authors generally insert those unnecessary references because the item has turned up in a bibliographic computer search or because some critic has said “You haven’t mentioned So-and-so, who has also written on this subject.” It’s far easier to insert the whole list the search engine turned up or to mention So-and-so than to make the perfectly good argument for not doing so you might have ready. I solve this problem for myself by insisting that every reference in what I write contain specific page numbers–not the whole article or book, just the pages relevant to the point where the reference has been inserted. Occasionally I do mean to refer to the whole book or article but usually not, there’s just a paragraph or sentence that’s relevant and I have the page number to put in. I generally suspect, perhaps unfairly, that authors who don’t provide page numbers haven’t read the item they’re citing.

There is lots more there, so do take a look (again, I’m hoping to find archives of these posts!)