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Writing
up Research
The
Basics of Good Writing
So you're going to sit down at your
computer, go through your notes, and in a few hours produce a piece of research writing.
Right? Wrong!
It is impossible to start from
nothing and produce a good piece of writing, because it is very hard to organize
your
material and write at the same time. If you are working out which piece of research
to talk about next and worrying about verb agreement, you are less likely to produce a
good piece of writing.
Here are some suggestions:
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Plan your
writing. Before you start
writing, find a way to organize your material so that you know what you are going to write
about, in what order, and what you're going to say. Try writing an outline. Trying writing
your ideas down on the back of an envelope, or a piece of old paper. It doesn't have to be
beautiful, it just has to help you think about what you are going to say. Use whatever
method works for you, no matter how strange! |
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Ignore the language!
When you plan your
writing, don't worry about the language. Concentrate on what you are going to say.
Write in notes so that you don't have to think about verb agreement. Don't waste time
worrying about spelling. You can think about all these aspects of writing after you've
decided what you are going to say. If you spend a lot of time fixing all the
prepositions and conjunctions in an early draft you are not going to be willing to cut out
paragraphs or sentences that you later realize aren't necessary, or to change them
substantially. So don't put a lot of effort into proofreading until you are sure
that what you want to say is the best you can come up with, then you can spend more time
on fixing up the writing so that the punctuation, spelling, etc. is correct. |
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Write and rewrite! More experienced
writers rewrite more times and more substantially than less experienced writers. Are you
surprised? Good writing takes time for everyone. The better a writer you become, the more
you will see that the first thoughts/ideas/writing that comes out of your head and onto
the page can be improved. So give yourself time to rewrite so that your readers see the
best of your thoughts and writing, not the best you could come up with at the last moment. |
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Find readers! ask people to read what
you've written. Ask friends, ask professors, ask your writing advisor in languages. But don't
wait until your writing is "perfect" because then if people suggest changes you
won't want to make them! Give people drafts and let them know what sort of feedback you
want: comments on organization? on ideas? on your language? on the technical aspects of
what you've written? |
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Keep writing!
Good writing takes practice. The
only person who can make you a better writer is you. So work at it, show your work to
other people, and rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. |
There are plenty of writing
handbooks and guides available. They can give lots of useful hints and tips, but if the
methods they suggest do not work for you then use a different method: there is no one way
to write. Of course, the way you write depends very much on what suits you, and what suits
the particular piece of writing you are working on.
Back
to the Writing up Research homepage
The
Basics of Good Writing
How to
reference
References
(for works cited in Writing up
Research)
Useful
writing links
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