{"id":1287,"date":"2024-05-24T18:57:22","date_gmt":"2024-05-24T18:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2024-05-24T19:29:29","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T19:29:29","slug":"getting-started-on-your-paper-the-skills-nobody-taught-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/2024\/05\/24\/getting-started-on-your-paper-the-skills-nobody-taught-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Started on Your Paper: The Skills Nobody Taught You"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Sooo\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

What are <\/span>you<\/span><\/i> avoiding right now?<\/span><\/p>\n

Come on. There\u2019s no way you\u2019re reading this unless you\u2019re avoiding something. You\u2019ve got an Overleaf document open. You\u2019ve copy and pasted the abstract that was accepted into the conference you applied to months ago. You\u2019ve got your literature review spreadsheet, your results, and code open. You\u2019ve locked in on your favorite song, \u201c<\/span>8 Hours Super Deep Brown Noise Sleep, Study, Focus NO ADS.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

And you\u2019re in another tab. <\/span>Any <\/span><\/i>other tab.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re anything like me, actually getting started writing is harder than any other part of the writing process. For most writing assignments in undergrad and through my masters, I would consistently find myself waffling through writing something, unable to focus and make significant progress. Suddenly, when the due date was upon me, I\u2019d finally find my focus, as the time pressure gave me no choice. One miserable all-nighter later? Paper done. Never punished.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Maybe this was sustainable when I was an undergrad, but I\u2019m old now. My body can\u2019t run off of stale brownies pilfered from free food events and tea flavored by the crusty remnants of previous cups anymore.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I have bad news: those habits are a large reason why focusing on starting writing is hard now. My brain has been wired to associate writing with painful crunches. Trying to start writing tells my brain it’s time to go into crisis mode, and the stress puts me off of it entirely.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I had to find another way, and you can too.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are 7 tips I\u2019ve found that are helpful for coping with getting started. Not all of these may work for you, since everyone is different, but you won\u2019t know until you try.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Understand why you can\u2019t focus<\/b><\/h2>\n

The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have a problem. We treat focus as something you choose not to do, but that isn\u2019t the case at all. If your solution to being unable to focus is to yell \u201cFOCUS\u201d at yourself, you just stress yourself out, which makes you want to relax, which puts you on Instagram, which makes you mad for \u201cwasting time,\u201d ad infinitum. Your limited focus is a <\/span>resource <\/span><\/i>that you drain the more you allow yourself to multitask.<\/span><\/p>\n

Set yourself up for success by <\/span>structuring your time<\/span><\/i>. If you have a set amount of time for working on something before you can take a break, it is easier to avoid doing your \u201cbreak\u201d things while working. I have <\/span>a little extension on my browser<\/span><\/a>, as well as <\/span>this website<\/span><\/a>, that I can click to start a 25 minute timer. During this time, I only work on a single task and mute everything else. Once it\u2019s over, I take a short break. I emphasize this to myself by listening to different kinds of music in work and break blocks. Building this habit helps disincentivize mind wandering.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can take this a step further by structuring your entire day. Break up projects and tasks and mark which hours you\u2019re going to work on each in your calendar. Extend this beyond work too \u2013 from 8-9 PM tonight, you\u2019re reading a book!<\/span><\/p>\n

When you do find your focus drifting during a work block, don\u2019t get mad at yourself, but also don\u2019t indulge it. You don\u2019t do things for no reason: whatever you\u2019re getting distracted by <\/span>matters. <\/span><\/i>Are you distracted by another piece of work? Makes sense: has to get done too. Are you distracted by a recommended YouTube video? Also makes sense: you <\/span>like <\/span><\/i>them. Don\u2019t punish yourself for liking things! Write down <\/span>what<\/span><\/i> you got distracted by, <\/span>why <\/span><\/i>(and yes, your why can just be \u201cI like Pikachu\u201d)<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>and then go through the list during your next break.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are interested in finding out more, in much more detail, I recommend <\/span>this YouTube video.<\/span><\/a> It\u2019s witty, well researched, and thorough, and discusses this better than I ever could.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b>2. Put everything you have in one place<\/b><\/h2>\n

Now that we\u2019re actually in a work block, what do we do? Don\u2019t just jump right into writing a piece on page 1 \u2013 that will land you in the frustration-distraction-anger-nothing done loop. Instead, let\u2019s do a productive thing that isn\u2019t the productive thing you\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to be doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Take out a blank document or a notebook and start noting what resources you have, where they\u2019re located, and a brief summary of what they are. These can be anything relevant to your task. Sure, you have your results and your literature review, but you also might have a slide deck on this topic you made for a lab presentation, or a statement of work from proposing the project. Assess what in them is useful and, more importantly, what is missing. Finding these gaps can be very helpful to give you direction on where to work from.<\/span><\/p>\n

Once you have all of your resources, put them into buckets. Which pieces are useful for which topics? You have some snippets of work that go into your methods. You have some data that you have half a plotting code written for that would go in this section.<\/span><\/p>\n

You can structure these into a flowchart if you\u2019re feeling really ambitious. Again, nothing too fancy. Mark how your ideas lead logically into each other and make notes on what\u2019s missing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

This is a model for an organizational flowchart from “How to Write a Paper” by Mike Ashby, another fantastic resource about the more technical aspects of paper writing. Ashby organizes the ideas and needs for the paper into different areas. All rights reserved by author.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Okay great. Guess what you just made?<\/span><\/p>\n

An outline.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. I tricked you into making your outline.<\/span><\/p>\n

Plenty of people find the act of \u201cmaking an outline\u201d useless, but, more often than not, it\u2019s because they were never taught how to properly make one. If all you think an outline is is INTRO METHODS RESULTS DISCUSSION CONCLUSION bulleted list, yeah, that doesn\u2019t give you any direction. By instead connecting your actual content to it, you make less of a map for your paper and more of a guided tour. This not only gives you important to-dos (concrete tasks beyond \u201cwrite a paper!\u201d huzzah!), but also gives you assurance that you have already done work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. Chunk your tasks<\/b><\/h2>\n

Telling yourself that today you\u2019ll work on your paper is nebulous and scary, but what about telling yourself that today you\u2019re working on three paragraphs of your literature review?<\/span><\/p>\n

As we have stated already with our foray into focus, the biggest hurdle to getting something done is multitasking. When you\u2019re facing \u201cwriting a paper,\u201d there are dozens of substeps you need to handle in order to get it done. If you end up spending 3 minutes on writing a lit review but then 2 minutes looking at requirements for the paper but then oh wait you need to spend another minute on rereading this one paper and \u2013 and \u2013 and \u2013\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, you\u2019re left with a bunch of disorganized notes all over the place. Odds are, you\u2019ll forget exactly <\/span>what <\/span><\/i>was done during this time and may need to do it all again. Be more disciplined and organized about this. If you\u2019re working on your literature review, that is <\/span>all <\/span><\/i>you\u2019re working on.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bonus to this tip is it works fantastic with tips 1 and 2. Tip 2 (sneaky outlining) gives you specific TODO tasks that can really easily be chunked into these microtasks. Tip 1 (focus time) suggests making specific blocks of time for yourself to do things. You can assign those chunks to 25 minute long work periods! Now you know precisely what you\u2019re working on, when you\u2019re working on it, and how long you will be working on it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b>4. Write it terribly<\/b><\/h2>\n

Have you ever noticed that it\u2019s a lot easier to criticize things than it is to make things? You can probably give me a hundred reasons why <\/span>The<\/span><\/i> Rise of Skywalker <\/span><\/i>was a bad movie, picking out specific scenes and plot points you would change if you could. But if I shoved you in a time machine, sent you back to 2018, and assigned you to write the ninth Star Wars movie from scratch, you\u2019d almost certainly fail, possibly just as spectacularly. Starting fresh is much harder than starting off a baseline.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You can make your own baseline: instead of writing something good, write your paper as bad as humanly possible to start.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was struggling on an introduction once and wrote this instead:<\/span><\/p>\n

Satellite data collection \u2013 what can\u2019t it do? It has blessed us mortals with the ability to spy on our marble from the heavens as if we were gods. Even blurry, smudged pictures taken from cameras strapped to pizza boxes delight and amaze. The curve of the Earth is more beautiful than\u2026 no, I shan\u2019t say it.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a usable piece of text, but you can break it apart to find what <\/span>is <\/span><\/i>usable in it. The ideas are in there: all you need to do is doctor them into something useful.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You can also turn this method down somewhat. Instead of writing poorly on purpose, word vomit. Rip the backspace key off of your keyboard and get typing. Do <\/span>not <\/span><\/i>let yourself edit as you go: just get it all down. Even if you have mistakes, keep going. Even write \u201coops nope not that.\u201d Get it all out of your system and don\u2019t care one bit about quality.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two main reasons that these methods are useful. First, as I said, ripping apart and editing things you know are bad is easier than generating new things. A blank page is terrifying, but a page full of words is progress. The other reason these methods work? You actually wrote something. You have now turned your brain into \u201cwriting mode\u201d instead of \u201cnot wanting to write\u201d mode. If you\u2019re familiar with brainstorming techniques, you may have done something similar. In effective brainstorming sessions, you always take \u201cno bad ideas\u201d seriously to a fault. You write <\/span>everything <\/span><\/i>anyone comes up with down, even if they are clearly just joking. The idea is to get everyone into a mindset where they\u2019re firing their brain up to think of things, which can then spark \u201creal\u201d\u00a0 good ideas. Writing is just the same way!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b>5. Don\u2019t start at the beginning<\/b><\/h2>\n

Introductions to papers get progressively more boring the longer you\u2019ve been in a field. If I have to read about how CubeSats have revolutionized space one more time, I might eat my computer. They are <\/span>necessary<\/span><\/i>: they ground what you are writing for unfamiliar readers and clear up common assumptions for experienced readers. This doesn\u2019t make it any easier for you to write it when you\u2019ve read the same type of intro over and over.<\/span><\/p>\n

Start anywhere else. I usually start with the literature review, since it requires me to think about the topic without having to think about my own work, where I can get caught up on little details. Maybe it\u2019s easier for you to start by summarizing an experiment or a result you have. This can help break up the writer’s block and get you writing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another reason that you shouldn\u2019t start at the beginning is to distribute your energy. Be honest with yourself about past papers you have written: have you <\/span>ever <\/span><\/i>allocated the right amount of time to writing them? You probably spend far too long writing and rewriting the beginning, while you feel like you have plenty of time to get the paper out. As you run out of steam as the due date approaches, your writing quality suffers. Shuffle up the order you write things so you can ensure that you keep some of that early-writing energy for every section of the paper.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Two

Typically, when we write a paper in order, our energy level decreases as we write. Because of this, the quality of our writing peaks at the beginning, which is relatively less important to the paper, and declines as we go. By mixing up the order we write the paper, we can ensure that some of that high energy is dispersed.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

6. Move your internal due date up<\/b><\/h2>\n

Oh, that paper is due in a month? Cool, cool, cool.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nah, it\u2019s due in 2.5 weeks now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wow, this sucks! Now you need to be a lot more efficient about getting it done. Now you need to pressure yourself into focusing. The way that you would\u2026 do\u2026 if\u2026 it was last minute\u2026 the only time you could write\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Haha, tricked your brain again.<\/span><\/p>\n

This one can be difficult to <\/span>actually <\/span><\/i>get done, since you are fully aware you\u2019re trying to trick yourself. (I know that Mary is a <\/span>liar <\/span><\/i>and that I can in fact have that brownie whenever I want it, thank you very much.) The exact amount of time you trim for your due date is difficult to figure out, but I\u2019d recommend trying to get it done in \u2154 of the time you actually have.<\/span><\/p>\n

With that extra time, you can <\/span>actually <\/span><\/i>do substantive edits. Give the whole thing a thorough read through and have better ideas about what needs punching up. It\u2019s even better if you can get your advisor extra time to read it. If you\u2019re really lucky, you might even manage to be able to use that extra time to relax. I mean, probably not, but it would be great!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/b>7. Talk about your paper with someone in a new location<\/b><\/h2>\n

If you are <\/span>really <\/span><\/i>struggling to get things started or to keep your synthetic due dates, turn to your officemate, your best friend, your milkman, your pet rock, <\/span>anyone,<\/span><\/i> and ask them if you can grab a coffee and summarize your paper for them. This is the same idea as we\u2019ve been saying: you\u2019re so caught in your own head about the topic that you can\u2019t figure out <\/span>how <\/span><\/i>to get the words out. You\u2019ve been working on this for so long that you\u2019ve forgotten that you enjoy the topic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But look at me: you are talking about the <\/span>paper.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

I know, breaks are supposed to be for resetting your brain, but all talking about other things does is make you not want to go back to work. Sorry I have to be a bummer here, but I\u2019m here to try and help you to write your paper. Go to a new location and set an end date for your chat. Just talk about it. The ins and outs, what you\u2019re stuck on. Treat your friend as a sounding board until you\u2019re thinking again. Set your synthetic due dates during this meeting, and check back in with them to show progress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Man, if only there was a convenient location on MIT campus where you could talk with a colleague about your paper. If only there was some resource where your colleagues have been trained to discuss technical writing at length. If only you could sign up for a half hour or hour long block to discuss your paper, no matter what stage you\u2019re at. Hmmm\u2026 oh wait, you could always go to the <\/span>MIT AeroAstro Communication Lab<\/span><\/a>!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That comes to the end of our list. Hopefully, some combination of these strategies will be helpful to you. In short, remember these two things:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Make specific time to do specific things.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Force yourself to get something out, written or out loud.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now, if you\u2019ll excuse me, I have a thesis proposal to get started on.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u2026 Sooo\u2026 What are you avoiding right now? Come on. There\u2019s no way you\u2019re reading this unless you\u2019re avoiding something. You\u2019ve got an Overleaf document open. You\u2019ve copy and pasted the abstract that was accepted into the conference you applied to months ago. You\u2019ve got your literature review spreadsheet, your results, and code open. You\u2019ve… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":1291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mitcommlab.mit.edu\/aeroastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}