Module 1. Revision (not editing) and the creation of value

• A holistic overview of what defines good academic writing (creating value for a community of readers) and how to get there through the revision process.
• Arguments for the importance of focus and its incompatibility with electronic media, especially when crafting a narrative through the revision process.

Resources (read/watch/listen)

• Larry McEnerny on the craft of academic writing
• Paper vs Digital: how to best revise
• Revealing what the internet is doing to your brain (‘The Shallows’ by Nicholas Carr)

Activities

1. McEnerny video and the value of academic writing

• Watch McEnerny presentation on academic writing and take notes. Take special effort to notice how this view on academic writing as a method of creating value for your scientific community differs from your previous understanding.
• Write a quick persuasive journal entry (only 1 paragraph) aimed at convincing your future-self of the merits of the value-focused perspective for academic writing. Precise polished writing is NOT the goal, the goal is to ensure that your future self (a month or year from now) will be convinced to spend effort tuning up their writing habits.

2. Highlight valuable words in your abstract

• Perform a ‘valuable’ words analysis of your manuscript abstract (jump to 31:30 in youtube video for description).
• Paste a highlighted version into a doc and submit to shared folder

3. Defending against the danger of distraction

• Read the paper vs digital and Shallows articles.
• Write notes to yourself (physical or digital or both) in appropriate places encouraging you to actually print out your drafts and give them your FULL attention during revision. No email, video, text, or other attention grabbing distractions.