Get your adverbs here

Scholars sometimes struggle with adverb use. So, for high-level guidance.......

Old School Instruction on How to Use Commas

Many scholars struggle with comma use. I hope this video, old school that it is, helps.

An Expert Take on Adjectives

Where Rich learned the power of adjectives. 

Friday Challenge: Short, Focused Writing Block

Its been a while since I have posted a Friday writing challenge. Here is a simple one.

Find one, small task to do on an article or your primary writing project. When I say small task, I mean specific; what is one paragraph where you can enter and generate new words. You don't have to complete the task, just enter it.

Set your timer for ten minutes, no more.

Breath for a minute.

Go.

How did you do?

Want to, have to?

Consider a piece of scholarship that you want to work on, not one that you have to work on. What would it mean to work on this now, in a manner that does not increase your stress, but instead feels life-enhancing?

Everyone Has an Opinion, But....

Every once in a while, I have to stop following someone on twitter. It does not happen often and is never for posts about political opinions or disciplinary differences that I do not care for, or other such disagreements. I try to allow space for such the diversity of ideas.

Yet, when I read scholars pontificating about writing or writing productivity, in an authoritative tone seeming to imply expertise about such, and when they clearly have written very little,  I just have to disengage.

There is a huge recycling of myths about the scholarly writing process that I find a wee bit offensive. Also, when someone tries to position themslves an expert on psychosocial barriers that blocks scholars in their writing, but they really have not worked through such things themselves, and are not trained in helping people change, I just lose patience.

I do not mean to sound snippy or snide, or like a know-it-all.  For twenty years, I have viewed myself as student of what it means to write and publish- I still have much to learn.  Heck, that is why I am studying for an MFA in Nonfiction at the age of fifty-two!

However, I have learned a few things from my years of writing and publishing, and from working intensively with other scholars as a mentor or coach.Yet, I am also not one to "suffer fools lightly." As such, it is best for me to just "step off" at times.

The lesson here, to the degree that I have one, is watch the advice you are taking.  Make sure you critically evaluate where advice comes from, and the impact that preforming  such advice has had on scholars, over time. Over a long period of time. The goal is to develop sustainable practices.

And this post I end, with....

IMHO

Reflective Colleague Assessment Tool

Many years ago, I started working on a reflective self-assessment tool designed to explore male friendships. Today, a client and I were discussion the importance of relationships in her life, and I thought of that work I had started many years ago. After taking a quick look at an old brainstorming document, I realized this might be a valuable aid toward helping academic assess the quality of their colleague relationships. I present this to you as a crude, undeveloped, certainly untested instrument that you may wish to consider as an exercise. It is a reflective tool, designed to help you consider who supports you, and who you support. Use the scale subjectively, and only as means of initial assessment and tracking, should you wish to engage in some work based upon your reflections.

Reflective Colleague Assessment

1)      List all the colleagues you currently have in your life.

2)      List the colleagues who are important to you, but are not currently part of your life.

3)      Rank the colleagues according to the categories listed below.

4)      Note which colleagues you will like to move from one category to another.

5)      Brainstorm what you might need to do to move a colleague to another category.

6)      What actions can you take to make this happen?

7)      What barriers and blocks might get in your way (internal and external)?

8)      What actions will you now commit to doing?

9)      Spend some time reflecting on this process.

Excellent	Good	Average	Below Average	Poor