#madwriting in the real world – write-ins and writing workshops.

By Rebecca Williams (@volcanologist)

One of my favourite Twitter things is the #madwriting hashtag. Got 45 minutes you want to dedicate to some paper writing? Tweet it, set goals, get some allies and then dedicate 45 minutes to uninterrupted writing. Get that abstract written, that paper started or even do some #madediting and get a manuscript ready for submission. Our ever increasing workloads mean that writing up our research for publication gets shunted for delivering lectures, designing lab practicals, endless admin tasks, long, drawn out meetings and often, even more meetings. Yet, publishing papers remains one of the most important outputs of our work – grant money aside, it’s what academics are most judged on. #madwriting helps find some time to get some writing done.

Recently, I’ve been involved in some real-life #madwriting sessions. I’ve been to THE GEES Network Writing Workshop and a GEESology Writing Group Write-In. Ultimately about academic writing, both had different aims and both were successful. 

THE GEES Network is a network that I got involved in when I was working as a Teaching Fellow. It is a support network for teaching-focussed academics (either those on teaching-only contracts, or those who identify as teaching-focussed). The recent workshop was part of a two-day professional development event where I was talking about taking the step from teaching fellow to getting a teaching & research lectureship. The writing workshop aimed to get together some people who were writing papers on pedagogy in GEES, or themes around teaching in Higher Education. Before the workshop participants expressed an interest in a theme and then joined up with other participants who wanted to write on the same theme and put a draft paper together. Some were already working together, others forged new collaborations. It was particularly aimed at helping those who were publishing in this field for the first time. We read each other’s drafts (in vastly different states of completion, but that didn’t matter), discussed possible destinations, research methods and how to present our data. This was particularly useful for those of us used to discipline-specific publishing.

The GEESology Writing Group Write-In is completely different. This is more like a real-life #madwriting session. We’ve done two write-ins now – one was a full day write-in and one was a half day. What we do is book a room OUTSIDE of our department. We don’t go far, just to the Student Union building who have some nice rooms with decent views across campus. We gather together and set our goals for the day. Some people need to start papers, others need to get them ready for submission, others need to write grant proposals. Goals are normally a word count, or a page count, or a section. We then get going on a set period of time of uninterrupted, no talking, no email checking, non-distracted writing. Normally we do 45 minutes, or an hour. Then, we take a short break (15 mins), review how it’s going, maybe grab a coffee or eat some of the goodies that some good soul has normally baked for us (thanks Jane!). Its important here to celebrate achievements,  no matter how small.

Then repeat. Then repeat again, and continue repeating for however long we have. At the end of the day, goals are reviewed and stickers given out to the successful. Reflecting on what we’ve achieved is motivating and helps the momentum spill out into the rest of our day or week. We find that getting a good, quiet, airy room away from our department with access to coffee works best. Going somewhere specifically TO WRITE certainly helps concentrate the mind. Sticking to the blocks of time and making sure everyone has a break after each block prevents writing burn out and helps make writing enjoyable. It also helps to celebrate those small goals – each paragraph contributes to an eventual paper!

I have found both of these workshops really useful. One actively used the group to help discuss our manuscripts and improve our papers. The other used the group for support and motivation. Both achieved their aims equally well and I’d recommend either approach though I think that the writing workshop is most suitable for research groups. The GEESology write-ins have proved so popular that we’re planning on running half-days weekly through the summer....we’d better get baking!

Overcoming being a volcanic island

or how I wrote a grant proposal using social media.

by Dr Rebecca Williams (@volcanologist)

I’m a bit of a volcanic island. A lone volcanologist surrounded by a sea of brilliant researchers, but all in different fields. Once my research portfolio develops, I see some great collaborative research with some of them in the future as I stretch and grow my own research interests. But for now I need to consolidate my expertise in volcanic processes.How can I do this as a lone volcanologist in my department?

I manage to stay connected to the wider volcanological community through conferences, being a committee member of the Volcanic and Magmatics Study Group and increasingly through social media. I’m not going to use this blog to extol the use of social media for academics as plenty have done that well, I’d suggest reading some of these blogs (e.g. by Carole McGranahan , by Jude Dineley, how tweeting can improve your h-index or this for the real beginners guide). But I did recently write a big grant proposal for some awesome science and social media had a huge role to play in getting this done.

A while ago, on Twitter, I got into a conversation about terminology surrounding ignimbrites (the deposits from pyroclastic density currents; more on those another time) and some of the new conceptual ideas about pyroclastic density currents. It became clear that another tweeter @orbitalpete shared my views, but from a different perspective - he was an experimentalist whereas I'm a field volcanologist. Over the next year or so tweets bounced back and forth, dream research proposals discussed (mostly, as I recall, based around excellent ski locations) and general discussions about the science were had. I knew of Pete’s work, had followed it, but we’d never met despite crossing paths at conferences and being undergrads at the same department, albeit separated by a couple of years. Then, when I finally got a position where I was eligible to be a PI (i.e. apply for research grants of my own), the reality of actually doing some of that dream research emerged. The conversation moved to email and a skeleton proposal was thrashed out (and I hasten to add, the ski locations were dropped).

Next came the mammoth task of writing the proposal (see @volcan01010’s blog for an idea of how mammoth these are) made trickier by the fact that my collaborator was a busy post-doc in France. We needed to both be able to work on the proposal when we had time, at odd hours, whilst making sure that we were always using the most up-to-date version. I decided to venture into googledocs. I’d used it before to share spreadsheets with students, but I’d never created a proper document in it before. We started off with a skeleton plan and over a couple of months fleshed out the sections. Each of us wrote in a different colour so we could keep track of new text. Googledocs continuously saves itself so you are always working on the most recent document. No need to bounce files back and forth over email. You can add comments onto the document and googledocs emails you when you get a reply. You can even both work on it at the same time; your changes are saved simultaneously and it is disproportionately entertaining to watch your colleagues cursor move across the screen and new text magically appear in the document. There is even a chat function so difficulties can be discussed while you both look at the work on screen. A system developed where we would read each others ‘finished’ sections and change the text colour to black when we were happy with it. Before our eyes, a full proposal quickly emerged. We used the word processor for the document, the spreadsheet for the budget and used it like a dropbox to share images. When it was all completed, it was easily saved into a .docx format for final tidying up ready for submission. This has been one of the easiest collaborative projects I have ever done. I can’t recommend using googledocs enough.

And that grant proposal? After a brief wrestle with Je-S, it is now submitted and in the hands of the reviewing gods. I'll be sure to blog all about it if the application is a success!