A New Series on Scholarly Productivity: ‘Are You Writing?’ | Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Rebecca Schuman, received her Ph.D. in German from the University of California at Irvine in 2010. "Are You Writing?" is her new series on scholarly productivity, "Episode 1: This is an Intervention. Even if you’re (sort of) making your deadlines, your work schedule might be out of balance."
 

Photo: The Chronicle of Higher Education

I was not suited for academe in several — possibly important — ways. For example, I spaced out through every colloquium I ever attended, and will happily admit to never having read a single journal in my discipline cover-to-cover for "fun." But during the five years I was in graduate school and the five years after, I scrabbled around as an adjunct and postdoc — not to mention the five I’ve subsequently spent as a sort-of-full-time writer — the one thing I’ve never had a problem with is finishing my manuscripts on time and getting them published.

• I completed my dissertation in German in two and a half years whilst also learning to teach.
• I finished a monograph (which was immediately accepted for publication) in the two years after that, with a full teaching load of new preps and minimal institutional support.
• I wrote my first book of commercial nonfiction (and innumerable articles like this one) with a newborn baby and no child care.

And I did all of that punctually, with a little time left over to binge-watch TV and, in later years, to attend to the incessant needs of a teeny-tiny tyrant. I cannot possibly overemphasize the fact that I am neither unusually gifted nor very industrious nor really disciplined. I finished all of that writing with a deceptively simple system of doing just a little bit of work, mostly every day, and trusting that the "brilliance" (or acceptability) of the whole would come together through the drudgery of many, many, many (many) smaller, less-brilliant parts.

That’s the whole system. It worked, and it continues to work. Since 2013, when I landed my first of many postacademic gigs as something called a "dissertation coach" (for an established company in California), I’ve been helping other people do the same...

I wish the writing-coach profession didn’t have to exist. Because that would mean graduate programs routinely taught project management, long-term pacing, and monograph preparation. But I don’t have to tell you that most doctoral programs don’t teach any of those things.
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The Professor Is In: How to Discourage Sycophancy in Graduate School by Karen Kelsky, founder and president of The Professor Is In , which offers advice and consulting services on the academic job search and on all aspects of the academic and postacademic career.

"Deflect your doctoral students’ excessive praise by emphasizing that academe is a workplace — not a holy order."

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education