Explorations of Empirical and Formal Research in Political Science
While taking a break from cleaning up the data appendix to my dissertation last night, a friend shared a link for Dissertation Haikus. Instead of returning to work, I immediately submitted mine and it is now posted. For now, I will just assume that summarizing my research into 17 words is a kind of productivity.
Writing for Social Scientists by Howard Becker is a book I would strongly recommend to any graduate student who is about to begin the prospectus and/or dissertation process. This book is not solely about “how to write” in the sense of making outlines and editing. Instead, it is about how to overcome the obstacles people create for themselves before writing. There are many obstacles to writing. These obstacles include having a tidy desk, making sure the right music is available to listen to, making sure no one else is around so that complete concentration is possible, and making sure to Continue reading A Draft is Just a Draft (as in writing, not the “Oh No, I am going to war” type)
Ever the connoisseur of writing strategy and style, I have encountered enough advice and discussion that I could probably change my dissertation topic to the analysis of the modi operandi of academic writers. I’ll stick with my current dissertation topic for now, but some of this advice needs to be shared with as many interested people as possible, such as that from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The handouts they have created offer valuable advice for academic writers at all levels. Of the most useful for my purposes has been the handout on Continue reading Strategies for Writing: Advice from the UNC Writing Center