I really appreciated how Helen Sword demystified academic writing by incorporating other voices and perspectives; it felt like we were hearing from a wide range of academics who were coming from varying professional positions, disciplines, and countries (I found the insight from scholars in the sciences particularly interesting!). The book managed to be descriptive rather than strictly prescriptive, while still emphasizing that good writing relies on concrete habits and attitudes.
The section on “Writing for Others” really had me thinking about how we can reconcile academic work with social community during a time of pandemic. I miss the days of going to a cafe with a friend and working for hours on our separate assignments, pausing to chat or take a walk or smoke outside. That kind of activity seems so impossible now, and to be honest the thought of translating it to Zoom remains unappealing to me. So much of our social lives and our academic lives has already converged on Zoom and on screens—I don’t want yet another virtual obligation or structure! It feels like these days, even as the social realm remains important—in fact, has become more important—I’m actually turning to it as a respite from writing rather than a co-constitutive element of it. When writing I phone or visit with a friend and take that time as an opportunity to be resolutely unproductive. This produces a lot of catharsis and emotional relief, but also now that I’m more or less doing school full-time, I miss the feeling of working and thinking with others for extended bouts of time outside the format of a seminar.
Inspired by Joseph and Alessandra, I took the digital BASE test (results below); predictably, my least developed angle was the emotional one. I’ll confess that I don’t necessarily approach academic writing as an artistic craft. Or, to put it in a maybe better way, I have fewer hang-ups about academic writing than I do about the writing I do for non-academic publications (criticism, essays, etc). The latter I regard as far more personal and expressive of my particular stylistic or aesthetic sensibilities. Meanwhile, I tend to view academic assignments as jobs to get done—I of course care about them and want them to be as good as possible, but they’re not these intense, potentially damning reflections of myself the same way that my other writing is. I also think that this other (non-academic) writing is more bound up with my professional and financial stability, so my relationship to it is necessarily more fraught. For that reason, I don’t necessarily feel joyous about my academic writing, but I also don’t feel super distressed or angsty—compared to non-academic writing, the highs aren’t as high but the lows are thankfully not as low either.
Though Sword’s discussion of a daily writing practice was intimidating, it’s something I now want to try. Lately I’ve become too ritualized of a writer, to the point where if conditions aren’t perfect I feel like writing becomes impossible. I think I need to move beyond this kind of precious relationship, so I appreciated Sword’s approach to the artisanal/behavioral aspects of writing, which renders the act less sacrosanct and almost more like a daily chore.
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