I have been given "permission" to start writing my first paper in grad school. This paper will be on the stuff that I took to the meeting in Colorado in March and a little bit more. I am finding it very very very hard though to start writing it. Writing anything with my boss is a challenge for me. We have VERY distinct writing styles and neither of our styles suits the others at all. My drafts do not come back with editing on them, they come back with the same thing rewritten in my bosses words. This has been extremely frustrating for me over the past few years and I am not looking forward to the debates that will have to happen on this paper. I want to feel like my paper is MY paper- and I know that my boss is the "expert"-- but outside of the atrocious grammar I display on my blog-- I know how to write. If there is one thing St. Tim's teaches its girls-- it is how to write well. My writing is more clear and much more simple than my boss's. It gets the same points across, but in a much more reader friendly manner. I do not oversimplify things-- rather he tends to over complicate them with obtuse vocabulary and odd sentence structures. I really want to get this paper written and published by the fall-- I am just hesitant to start what I know will be an unpleasant couple of months to get it done. I need the authorship to get myself a job when I am finished with grad school, and getting this paper out would be a huge help with that as I will be first author.So really, I am just procrastinating on starting this paper til I haul in these last trailing bits of data that should be finished next week or so-- and then I have to knuckle down and get it written. I have figures worked out for the most part-- and I like doing that part and I am good at it! Its just this writing that is the big road block. Keep your fingers crossed that my boss recognizes that this is MY turn to write a paper-- and he has help EDIT it not rewrite it. That will be best for everyone's sanity.
(Photo is a sneak peek of part of one of my figures-- one mouse boob! in green!)
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3 comments:
I got all torqued up and thought it was thesis time. Then I realized it wasn't.
Repeatedly, I have told people the best thing about the schools you and your brother attended was the level of writing required.
Very exciting! Hmmm...no idea about the boss--but IMO the point of the paper is to communicate, right, not confuse people? That is the sign of good writing. I hope he clues in!
Oh, just wanted to also say...How sad that good writing is probably going out the window with all of the emphasis on standardized tests. You wouldn't know it from my writing lately, but I had an awesome English teacher in high school who really prepared her students to write well(ask Craig about her, she was a hoot!) I think more and more universities today are needing remedial writing classes, even as the standardized test scores go up. sigh...
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