It is difficult to think clearly and logically when everything that we write seems to come out jumbled and messy! This can be so dispiriting that we simply decide to stop writing. Of course, since it is impossible to get a degreefrom university without writing this is not a useful long term strategy to deal with writing issues. as a short tem strategy what it tends to produce is a great deal of writing that is done at the last minute, under pressure and stress as the deadline looms.
There are a number of little shortcuts that we can use to assist with clarification in thinking and writing.
First, don’t try to order thoughts, ideas, theories, or large amounts of information inside your head. It is too hard! That is why we invented writing, or at least academic styles of writing. So we can ‘dump’ the ‘mess in our heads and make a mess on the page,’as Bev Thiele always puts it to the Phd candidates. This then is the first lesson for gaining a sense of control over our thinking, use writing to express yourself to yourself.
Once we have a nice messy page, then we can begin to introduce order and clarity to it by rearranging and adding to the writing.
1 response so far ↓
Patrick // Aug 2nd 2009 at 2:01 pm
Improving your writing is of course critical and essential if you want to present yourself in a credible and informed fassion. This is fine and good if you are a native speaker and have a fair grasp of grammar! But what if English is not your first language? The art of writing can become daunting and frightening when it becomes more than just sentence structure and basic grammar. The though introducing critical thinking could be way beyond the realms of a basic grasp of the language.
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