The Write Idea

In the previous blog post, Nonto spoke to a very important concept of seeing feedback in a different light. Feedback in academic writing is very important to help you improve your written piece and notice some writing habits that you may have, that you may not have been aware of. While going through some of the feedback I received from my supervisor on one of my written pieces, a question came to me that I am sure many of you have had before.  How do I know that my writing is improving? My idea of improvement in writing practice is receiving a document with no comments at all. I have come to realize that is never the case. So how would I know that my writing is getting better? With many things that we do in life there are some indicators that alert us that there is some form of improvement. Think about exercise. When you embark on the journey of a new exercise plan within the journey there are indicators that improvement is happening such as an improved running time, increased flex...

I am, hopefully, not the only one who is constantly apprehensive about opening a document that has feedback from my supervisor. Given the long hours of hard work put into producing a well-structured argument or a rationally formulated piece of writing, perhaps our anxiety is justifiable. It is, however, a bother that the source of our anxiety when it comes to dealing with feedback is somewhat unknown. The long hours spent producing any piece of writing surely cannot be the only factor at play here, and this has led me to do some introspection in the hope of identifying the basis of this uneasiness we experience as soon as we get that email which opens with “…see my comments on the document attached…”. In my experience, it is the way we perceive feedback/supervisor’s comments that opens a gateway to all these “negative” thoughts and feelings.  Often, we feel personally attacked, sometimes a sense of not belonging may set in, and we may even find ourselves questioning our abilities. ...

How are you feeling today? What are your thoughts on your writing process at present?  You might be feeling confident and proud of yourself for the progress you’ve made so far and may even be motivated to take your target goals a step further. Someone else, on the other hand, might be feeling demotivated and finding it difficult to connect with their writing process. Neither one of these two states are a universal yardstick for absolute success or failure. In truth, they are the realities of us, as humans, journeying through life - one pocket filled with stories of victory and the other with the setbacks we’ve experienced. So, progress comes in many forms. For one person it might be finally coming to understand a journal article that was confusing, while it could be renewed hope for someone else and, for another, it could be making sense of their thoughts about a certain life event. Every form of progress is significant and being aware of this helps us to connect back to the bigger...

  Post by Dr Emmanuel Nwosu, a former FHS Writing Lab Consultant. When it comes to writing in academia, the biggest challenge is finding and clearly expressing your style (self). In the sciences (and especially Health Sciences), there are strict guiding rules for academic writing. Whether it is writing a research proposal, manuscripts for paper publications, policy briefs, portfolios, essays, literature reviews, etc., there are already existing formats and standards. It is often almost impossible to manoeuvre between these standards and introduce your style if you aim to have your piece accepted within the academic community.   Another challenge is that writing in the Health Sciences often tends to be about creating a “mini” version of the expert. For example, our clients working on research projects may agree with me that by the time your proposal or journal manuscript has undergone several reviews based on a supervisor’s feedback, it tends to have lost your flavour and loo...

Greetings fellow writers, Over the weeks we have shared with you our challenges, strategies, and in general, some advice for how you could be approaching your writing tasks. However, as we all know, we do not write in a vacuum , meaning that writing is always CONTEXT dependent. And, as we write to you every week, our writing has been shaped by our experiences, and the current climate and circumstances we are living in. Much like writing, we are always aware of the bigger picture as human beings, students and professionals. As you prepare for examinations, write your thesis or prepare your manuscripts, you are thinking about how you would respond as a health care professional or a scientist, and how you would incorporate your experiences into your writing, change your research design, etcetera.  For some of us, #BlackLivesMatter has made us more acutely aware of our African identity and the need to cite and highlight more African scholars in our fields of research. For others, it ...