What to say to a developing writer who is freaked out by writing

My top 7 list for advisors, mentors, and bosses supporting students and early career writers in STEM

We actually can help students and other developing writers get better at writing! (And we should.) (Image: wocintechchat.com)

Last week, I shared the FREE, evidence-based writing program I co-developed to support graduate student writers at my institution. As I wrote, in six weeks, we were able to achieve statistically significant improvements in students’ perceptions of themselves as writers able to improve at writing.

To confidently use the curriculum we report/offer in that paper, you might appreciate a bit more context. So, this week, I’m sharing several resources I think writing mentors [1] should read (or would appreciate reading) to enhance their approach to supporting developing writers. [2]

Hurdles to even starting to write

Demystifying Academic Writing: Reflections on Emotions, Know-How and Academic Identity from Cameron et al. 2009.

Excerpt from the abstract: “Writing is the foundation of academic practice, yet academic writing is seldom explicitly taught. As a result many beginning (and experienced) academics struggle with writing and the difficult emotions, particularly the self-doubt, that writing stirs up. Yet it need not be like this. In this paper, strategies are discussed for attending to the emotions of writing, and developing writing know-how and a stronger sense of identity as a writer.”

Working to overcome those hurdles

Meaningful Results with Limited Resources: Evidence from a Program to Support Graduate Students’ Scholarly Writing by Fisher & Merkle et al. 2024.

Excerpt from abstract: “We developed a campus-wide, six-week learning community and certificate program intended to increase students’ self-efficacy in academic writing, using readings, reflection, and discussion among graduate students. Pilot results from 32 participants indicate that a noncredit-bearing, short course can have positive impacts on graduate students’ emotions about writing, their literature management approaches, awareness of the social context of writing, and their understanding of writing resources and academic voice. Potential exists for this low-budget model to be applied more broadly and thereby improve efforts to retain and support graduate students.”

Pair this with the first suggestion, and you should be able to develop an actionable plan for what you can actually do with/for the developing writers you support. In particular, as I noted last week when I wrote about the Fisher & Merkle et al. (2024) paper, we provide supplements with our full curriculum and reading list. You could absolutely just port it into your lab meetings or weekly staff development trainings.

Keep going

1. Anne Lamott’s “shitty first drafts” [3] and/or Stephen Heard’s “Don’t stop writing in the chasm of despair.” Like many of the items on this list, you could certainly share these with your students. But, I’m starting the list for you with them because they are an important reminder of how hard it is to get started and keep going with writing. And, these observations come from prolific, well-regarded writers (Lamott and Heard, I mean). If it’s this hard for them, how hard must it be for the developing writers we work to support!? We can be better writing mentors when we remember to keep in mind that we (mostly) can have confidence there’s an end in sight for a given writing project. After all, we’ve been through this before, multiple times, and the writing project is usually finished out. That context and assurance is often not available to the developing writers we help, and so we need to remember to provide it to them.

2. The importance of stupidity in scientific research by M.A. Schwartz. Your students should probably read this, too, and not just because it’s only one page long. The transition from being good at memorizing/knowing facts to being good at asking nearly-impossible questions plays a major role in students self-doubt. And if they feel like they must know and get it right before they can write…well, they’ll never start writing.

Finding personal satisfaction/developing your own writing style

Check out some excerpts from two books by Helen Sword: Stylish Academic Writing and Writing with Pleasure.

I know it sounds like a lot to say both of these books. But truly, if you skim the table of contents and index of each, you’ll probably easily spot sections that would be relevant to your needs. These books, and the rest of Sword’s ouevre discuss researched insights into how academics write. Sword is particularly candid about the reality that all writers struggle (regardless of how prolific or advanced in their career).

Her work also offers a wide variety of resources/advice for how to ‘meet academia halfway’ with writing style and finding something to like about writing (a recommendation I also stand by). Basically, if you’re looking for language to assure or advise students working through misconceptions like “all academics write the same, why can’t I!?” or “no one seems to struggle with writing except me,” Sword’s work can help.

Writing (and mentoring writing!) isn’t impossible if you’re burnt out, but it’s so much easier when you’re not

Sustaining Your Well-Being in Higher Education: Values-Based Self-Care for Work and Life by Jorden Cummings

While not a book specifically about writing, this short book is not not a book about writing. Students’ mental health is very much on the line as they wrestle with the grueling productivity/publication expectations of modern academia. A productive way to help your students see writing as an essential (but not all-encompassing) part of their development as a researcher is to help them see their research as a part of their life; this book affirms that approach with accessible, direct language and useful reflection/planning prompts. A meaningful way to advocate for a sustainable workload would be to read through this book with your lab (like a journal club).

Actual facilitation/lesson ideas

Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom by John C. Bean and Dan Melzer (alt. link to 1st edition on Internet Archive)

This book is the go-to writing instructor’s guide, if you want evidence-based advice rooted in 50+ years of research into how to actually teach people to write (aka, the fields of Writing Studies and Rhetoric & Composition). You’ll get a lot out of reading it cover-to-cover, but you can also “shop” the index and table of contents for topics most immediately relevant to the struggle you’re helping a developing writer overcome. The other, vital, thing this book can do for you is expand your vocabulary around writing as a craft and the practice of revision/writing feedback. That is, there are a lot of concepts and practical applications from these fields that we rarely encounter in STEM. Having them available to us expands our capacity to clearly, accurately identify and discuss what might be holding a piece of writing back.

Leveling up

If you get through this set of resources and you’re still looking for more support, very soon you’ll be able to read a book my co-author and I have spent three years creating just for you!

Seriously.

We wrote Teaching and Mentoring Writers in the Sciences because we kept wanting to refer our colleagues to a book that would genuinely help them efficiently and effectively support developing writers in the sciences. But, that book didn’t exist. So, we wrote it! You can pre-order the book here (use UCPNEW for 30% off!), and in the meantime, check out the writing sections of my archives and Steve’s archives if you want more. (Or just reach out to us!!)

How about you?

Have you sought out resources to help you help developing writers? Why/why not? And if you have, what are the resources you’ve found most useful as a writing mentor?

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[1] Writing mentors is a frame that my co-author Stephen Heard and I settled on to concisely encompass the many, varied titles people may hold while helping developing writers (e.g., faculty, staff, advisor, mentor, boss, senior colleague, etc.). We discuss the connotations of this phrase in detail in our forthcoming book Teaching and Mentoring Writers in the Sciences (pre-order your copy here for fall delivery from the University of Chicago Press; UCPNEW for 30% off!).

[2] As with writing mentors, the phrase developing writer encompasses a range of roles a writer may hold while building their skillset as a scholarly writer. These could include, but aren’t limited to, undergrad or grad student, postdoc, early career research/lab staff, technicians, early career employees outside academia, junior colleagues, etc. (Of course, we’re all developing writers in a sense, but the spirit here is to recognize that students aren’t the only developing writers than might benefit from your writing mentorship.)

[3] Quick head’s up that Lamott mentions suicide in a tongue-in-cheek way, but we should absolutely not underestimate the depths of despair that students can experience about their self-perceptions (and real experiences of negative feedback!) relating to their writing.