Author: emlynn

To plan or not to plan summer writing projects, that is a critical question:

Let’s not pretend. All research and scholarly writing projects need a plan—a systematic way of coordinating tasks through time to help you manage what can often feel unmanageable.

We could go into our summer months without a writing plan, but, knowing the benefits and how writing planning helps protect our summer fun time, why would any of us really want to?

Before the glorious and distracting months of summer are upon us, we will benefit greatly by taking some time (10-30 minutes) assessing where we are in relation to our current writing projects and goals. No matter what those are or what career stage you are at.

Early career scholars and senior scholars alike benefit from reflecting at the close of the spring semester on what they accomplished and what they will either put on hold or continue to work on over the summer.

Your summer writing plan can be as simple as putting a current project on hold. Taking care to leave notes and information that will make your fall return to the project easier. You may also be less tempted to worry or ruminate about the project if you know it is well contained—awaiting your return.

Your summer writing plan can be as complex as creating a list of tasks associated with each section of each article, chapter, proposal, or other project you wish to complete by August and then mapping a path to completion on your summer writing schedule and calendar. Not for the faint of heart.

Many of will plan somewhere between these two options by identifying a project or two that has been languishing or ready to start and that we will pick up with renewed energy.

Again, take a few moments to sketch a plan in a form that works for you—or if you do not yet know what works for you, experiment! Summer months are a fabulous time to practice and learn about you as a writer, today, as you are.

Writing retreats are also a great way to build planning and build writing into your summer. Low-stakes and just the right amount of social pressure to get some good progress made.

The payoff for planning your writing is that you can also plan for and take summer vacations! What rest or recreation adventures will you take this summer knowing that your writing projects are progressing as you wish?

Until we meet again, may your writing be brief, frequent, low stress, and highly rewarding!

CFGP: Call for Gold Papers

CSU Gold Papers is a graduate student and postdoctoral fellow publication hosted by CSU Writes. A riff on the familiar “white papers” that present summaries of emerging topics of interest in a field of research or scholarship, Gold Papers publishes original summaries of research or scholarship written by CSU graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

If there’s an emerging topic in your field you wish to explore further and to share with readers, submit a proposal to write for the Gold Papers!

If you wish to build your communication skills by writing to non-expert but interested readers, submit a proposal to write for the Gold Papers!

If you geek out about writing and want to connect with like-minded researchers, submit a proposal to write for the Gold Papers!

And, if you enjoy reading about what’s going on at the far reaches of research and is of interest among CSU’s graduate students and postdocs, you definitely need to check out CSU’s Gold Papers!

Buddy and Ami, your accountabilibuddies from CSU Writes, are here to tell you about show up & write.

Call for summer show up & write. proctors. If you want to show up and write over the summer, you can connect with other CSU writers and have additional accountability to ensure you “show up” by proctoring sessions. Reach out to CSU Writes to sign up: https://csuwrites.colostate.edu/show-up-and-write/

This semester’s CSU Writes book club participants read How to Talk to a Science Denier (2022) by Lee McIntyre, which draws on both his personal experience attending a Flat Earth convention and academic research to outline the common themes in science denialism. These themes are present in misinformation campaigns, such as the tobacco industry’s denial of the link between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950s and the anti-vaccine movement today. The result is – as one participant eloquently put it – a series of “ethnographic vignettes” that challenge our idea of how we might engage with science deniers and why it is important that we must. McIntyre’s book provides a nuanced and introspective view of the divisive rhetoric used in debates surrounding science denialism.

We would like to express our gratitude to all the participants who read the book and engaged in conversations on this increasingly exigent topic. The participants came from various academic disciplines, including but not limited to political science, atmospheric science, English, education, and clinical sciences.

If you have an interest in joining our future book club events and have any suggestions for topics or books, please let us know by emailing csuwrites_mail@colostate.edu.

CSU Writes is offering writing retreats this summer for faculty, junior women faculty, and graduate students. These retreats offer designated time and space for faculty and graduate students to make great progress on summer writing projects in a supportive environment. Join us!

FACULTY WRITES SUMMER 2023 WRITING RETREATS

Weeklong Retreat: All Day 8:30am–4:30 pm (In Person)

• May 30 – June 2

1.5 Day Retreats: Thursday 12:00pm–4:30 pm, Friday 8:30am–4:30pm (Virtual on Zoom)

• July 6-7
• July 20-21
• August 10-11

Junior Faculty Women’s Writing Retreat

• June 12-14, 8:30am–4:30pm

Weeklong Women Faculty Retreat

• June 26-30, 8:30am–4:30pm

Register here.

GRAD WRITES SUMMER 2023 WRITING RETREATS

Weeklong Retreat: All Day, 8:30am–4:30 pm

• May 22-26 In Person

1.5 Day Retreats: Thursday 12:00pm–4:30 pm, Friday 8:30am–4:30pm (Virtual on Teams)

• July 6-7
• July 20-21
• August 10-11

Register here.

Announcements, junk mail, task reminders, meeting requests, birthday greetings, job applications, and, even better, job offers!

All come to, and sometimes flow out from, our inboxes. It is easy to feel distanced from the digital communications that make up much or our daily lives and work. They come from “out there” somewhere.

If we become distant, however, we forget that very often on the other end of those emails are people, colleagues, and friends about whom we care. Those folks are our community and those who contribute to the quality of our lives—for more hours than we anticipated. We, too, contribute to the quality of their lives. This is the interactive exchange point where email can remind us about the power of communication for research and scholarly writing!

The first rule of great communication is: “It’s not about you; it’s about them.” It’s a great rule for research, scholarly, and grant writing, too.

What do they need to hear, learn, and know? Why is it important? And, how best will they hear the message?

Email, because it is one of our most consistent forms of textual communication, is a great reminder that when we write to an audience, we write to someone specific—on the other end of the message who has an inbox much like ours.

Reach out, connect, and share in meaningful ways. Via email, your scholarship, or in meetings.

We all long for connection.

Buddy, your new accountabilibuddy from CSU Writes is here to tell you the benefits to CSU Writes workshops.

Grant writing is a distinctive style of writing that “requires its own unique skillset” according to grant writer Michael Carolan. It is also a process that can feel arduous and solitary. However, there are skills, tips, and tricks that can strengthen our grant writing. CSU Writes reached out to several of CSU’s grant writers to get their perspective on regular writing for grant writers.

• Michael Carolan: Associate Dean of Research and Faculty Development for the College of Liberal Arts
  • Department of Sociology
• Dinaida Egan: RAO Associate Director
  • Research Acceleration Office
• Jeffrey Wilusz: Professor of RNA Biology and Virology
  • Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology
• Andee Kaplan: Assistant Professor
  • Department of Statistics
• Izabela Ragan: Assistant Professor
  • Department of Biomedical Sciences
• Rodolfo Valdes-Vasquez: Associate Professor, Graduate Program Coordinator
  • Department of Construction Management

Here is what they had to say.

Audience and Storytelling

Michael Carolan emphasizes the importance of audience in grant writing:

When writing grant proposals, it is important to know that you are writing to an especially diverse audience. Reviewers could very well be outside of your discipline. And if targeting foundations, reviewers many not even be within academia. This skillset takes time to develop, which I found is best accomplished by practice, practice, practice.

The more we write, the better we can learn about the complexities of the grant writing audience. Related to knowing your audience, telling a story is another way to connect with that complex audience. Dinaida Egan illustrates the importance of telling a story in your grant writing:

In my mind, the most effective grant writing is similar to the art of storytelling but, for grant writing, that story has to have a fluidity that can easily pivot in voice and focus from one funder to the next. The only way to do this with ease is to regularly write the evolution of that story, so that it flows quickly onto paper with clear impact for that specific reader’s (funder’s) goals.

Grant writing is not strictly administrative. It involves a complex understanding of the story you are telling and who you are telling it to.

Evaluating/Reevaluating

Grant writing is a complex endeavor consisting of many moving parts. Jeffrey Wilusz highlights these complexities:

Effective scientific research endeavors involves staying abreast of the literature to establish a clear foundation / premise of you project, having several focused interconnected and well-developed aims to test innovative hypotheses, and always considering the impact of the end points of your proposed study on the paradigms of the field. Simple right……

The key to navigating these complexities, according to Wilusz, is a constant process of evaluating and reevaluating:

The most effective way to accomplish this and keep your ideas/project as dynamic and cutting-edge as possible is to continually be thinking about your project and evaluating/reevaluating your approach in light of new data, ideas, and pitfalls that arise along the way. Doesn’t it seem suboptimal, therefore, to think that you can simply devote a focused block of time just before a submission deadline to consider all of these things in depth and get them effectively down on paper for a grant application? Thus one simple way to contribute to the effectiveness of your science – and prepare better grant applications – is to have a regular writing practice for your research project and associated grant ideas. You have regular lab meetings and daily informal discussions with lab members – why not also have regular ‘meetings’ with your computer keyboard and create/update/tweak what you perceive as the significance, innovation and approach to your research? Pat Summit, an amazing basketball coach, I think summed it up best when she said, “Success is a project that is always under construction.” Write on.

Here we see concrete steps of how to continually evaluate and reevaluate our work during the grant writing process.

Blocking Off Time for Regular Writing

Several of our respondents emphasized the importance of making time in our busy schedules dedicated to grant writing. As Andee Kaplan notes:

The value of having a regular writing practice blocked out on my calendar with other writers expecting me to show up cannot be overstated.

Izabela Ragan reaffirms this:

In my line of work, grant writing is critical. I have learned that having a regular writing practice helps to keep momentum on the writing. I have found that regular writing leads to more substantive and creative work, which in turn produces stronger proposals.

As these grant writers indicate, the importance of protecting time is of the utmost importance.

Support from Others

While grant writing can have its challenges, a great way to overcome is through the support from others. Andee Kaplan describes the importance of breaking out of our solitary writing caves:

For me, grant writing can be a somewhat torturous experience and having others there experiencing the same pain helps me to remember that completion (and success!) are possible. I have my most productive time during shared writing spaces and am very appreciative of the support that CSU Writes provides.

Regular writing for grant writing can (and should!) involve support from others. One great way to receive such support from others are using the resources provided by CSU Writes. A testimonial from Rodolfo Valdes-Vasquez illustrates what these resources can provide:

The CSU Writes’ regular writing sessions have helped me to move forward with multiple writing projects, including research proposals. As a participant in these sessions, I have applied some tools shared during the retreats and workshops. For example, I use shared planning tools to understand my writing process better and evaluate it. I also enjoyed the supportive atmosphere. Having writers from multiple disciplines during the writing sessions has also benefited me in learning from other perspectives and being accountable for my projects. Thanks to Kristina’s leadership and CSU Writes, I have completed various manuscripts for conferences and journals, most of which have been accepted.

As these grant writers have generously shared with us, grant writing is no simple task. However, developing skills such as knowing your audience, evaluating/reevaluating your work, and blocking off time for regular writing can make the grant writing process more manageable. Additionally, utilizing resources such as support from others and the resources CSU Writes has to offer will help establish regular writing for grant writers.

For more information on how CSU Writes supports grant writers, please visit our Grant Writes page.

As professional writers, finding an ideal place to work is crucial to the writing process. Here at CSU Writes, we want to know where YOU work best.

Please send a photo of your writing workspace and one sentence telling us why it’s your favorite place to work to csuwrites_mail@colostate.edu by March 10th, 2023.

We look forward to seeing where you work best!