Although I firmly believe that writing is a social practice (we write to be read and in response to contextual conditions), a good portion of our writing time is often done alone. Many of you will know that I’m very interested in ‘procrastination’ in academic writing and what this means. Often procrastination is touted as a lack fo self-disicpline and I honestly think that poor self-disicpline is not a characteristic of most graduate students. The graduate students I see are, in addition to studying, working, looking after families, volunteering on student and other committees, and generally leading exceptionally busy lives. I think procrastination has less to do with individual personality traits and more to do with the nature of academic writing. I’ve made this argument several times – in my book “Productive Writing” and in various presentations.
Recently, I’ve become interested in what individual writing processes look like and what this can tell us about procrastination. By chance, I came across this YouTube video made by a student on his writing processes. It has made me think about the way I write: when do I pause? how often do I edit? when does writing flow? Have a look and see what you think.
Cecile
Cecile Badenhorst 