Tweed Editing's Blog

Tips, Strategies, and Updates for Academic Writers

How I Self-Revised My Dissertation, a Video Presentation

by | Jul 11, 2011 | ,

Self-Revising the Dissertation

Today, I’m proud to share with you a project that’s been on my mind for a long time now: a video presentation detailing the steps I took to revise my own dissertation. Sometimes it’s difficult to dive right into revisioning and redrafting (the components of revising) because there’s no clear first step. Every PhD has found a way through the mire; as I’m in a position to share my approach, I’ll do just that.

Revising from the Standpoint of a Developmental Editor

To bypass the hemming and hawing that can accompany the academic revision process, I ultimately drew on my training and experience in developmental editing. That approach allowed me to accomplish several important tasks all in one phase:

  • solidifying the argument from the ground up and restructuring accordingly
  • sharpening the thesis and its many permutations
  • addressing faculty feedback
  • polishing the writing
  • adding almost 100 pages of content

I emerged from this process with a defense draft of my dissertation that was stronger than the previous version in every way. To accomplish such a total overhaul, I had to have a way in; otherwise, it would have just been too daunting to start.

Sharing My Revision Experience

I surprised myself with how much I was able to improve my dissertation in a span of two months, so I have for some time known that I wanted to dissect and relate my experiences for others’ benefit. It’s what we all do: having accomplished, we look back and extend a hand to those who are following the same path.

The resulting twelve-minute video presentation details the process I used so that you can employ the tactics when next you face a draft—dissertation or otherwise—that needs serious attention. I call it “How I Self-Revised My Dissertation.”

Now, I’m firmly convinced that writing should be a collaborative process. As I even wrote in the acknowledgments of my dissertation, single-person authorship is something of a myth. Why the peculiar “self-revised,” then?

Certainly, I didn’t update my draft in a vacuum. Addressing the feedback of my committee, for instance, was a highly involved step in the process and one of the most meaningful. I use “self-revised,” however, to emphasize that the video includes tips that anyone can employ, regardless of outside feedback and guidance—or lack thereof. In other words, you can do this.

At this link, you’ll find a fully narrated strategic plan derived from the process I followed. I show how I diagnosed, dissected, nested, and fleshed out my dissertation draft, which, quite honestly, had major problems. (That’s why we revise: early drafts tend to bite.) The video is closed captioned, too.

My idea is that you can watch, take notes, and decide which steps fit your project, approach, and timetable. Then you can really get cooking on your next draft!

Resources

In the video, I mention several resources for you proactive revisers out there:

These and other tools are available in the Tweed resource library. And, as a handy bonus, this is a handout of the slides from the video presentation.

Just Move Forward

That’s what I want for us all: the cessation of ceasing, the end of stagnation. There is always a way to move toward our goals, but sometimes—especially when we’re going through a process for the first time—it’s not immediately clear. We have to wade in, and that’s all I describe in this video: how I assessed the situation, waded in, and lived to tell the tale.

After you watch, please let me know what you think! Email me or leave a comment (here or on YouTube).

Concentration Tips from Your Media-Saturated Academic Editor: Part Two

by | Jun 28, 2011 | ,

Academic Editing Concentration

Last time, I shared with you a couple of hard-earned, concrete tactics that I deploy in my quest to remain productive, focused, and fulfilled. As a result of those and other habits, I’m mostly successful in reaching my work objectives.

I promised that I’d explain the overarching, undergirding system at work in my methods of concentrating and being productive. That makes up the second half of this post, but first I think it prudent to explain how I measure the first downs of my working routine. (The painfulness of that metaphor relates directly to my superficial knowledge of sports, especially American football. Bear with me, folks. I’d never leave such a clumsy figure of speech in a manuscript, but the imagery seems to fit this topic.)

Work toward Output, Not Time

Lots of productivity guides suggest setting time goals. The very influential Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day is one of them, and I do suggest that dissertators check out that book. The logic is this: once you get started on an unintimidating, timed goal (e.g., fifteen minutes of writing), you’ll keep going and achieve your big dreams. This is undeniably much better than never starting a project because it is too daunting when taken as a whole.

At times, that strategy has worked for me. Usually, however, I have to work toward an output goal: writing two hundred fifty words, editing five pages, drafting one blog post, emailing three university presses.

Working toward output instead of time keeps me project focused, which allows the work itself to motivate me. And that means that I enjoy myself in the process of an assignment, not just in its completion.

I do still utilize time to structure my productivity, but my method is quite the reverse of the Pomodoro Technique, for instance. I set a timer during my breaks, not during my work. Instead of beleaguering my working mind, the of the fruit-shaped kitchen timer on my desk ticks annoyingly only while I’m playing hooky.

I often use this reverse-Pomodoro tactic to restrict the breaks during which I’m reading my RSS feeds, which can go on much longer than intended. The alarming buzz of the timer shakes me out of my daze and helps me understand how quickly time passes when I’m, well, wasting it.

Receive, Engage, Produce (REP)

To be totally honest, I’m not happy if I’m just editing all day. I’m also not happy just to read all day, or write all day. I want to do all of these things, and I’m no good at one if I don’t do the others. I think of these kinds of work as receiving, engaging, and producing.

Henceforth, I pronounce my system REP. (It’s a grammatical shapeshifter, too. REP can stand for “receiving, engaging, producing” or “receive, engage, produce.” Impressive, no?)

Maybe your go-to trinity of receiving, engaging, and producing isn’t the same as mine. Let me brainstorm some other types of REP in which I and others may engage:

You’ll notice that I haven’t included processing activities—sorting this, transcribing that. That category of tasks is important, but it doesn’t necessarily require concentration. All three levels of REP work, on the other hand, are more demanding of focus and thus, I think, more rewarding. Processing is something I do when I’m avoiding REP.

My point is that whenever my focus suffers, when motivation wavers, I can take stock of the REP proportions. Maybe I have been doing too much reading and consequently feel unproductive; perhaps I’m so hungry for engagement that both reading and producing feel hollow.

Because I’ve already established for myself that every piece of the pie—the receiving, the engaging, and the producing—is worthwhile and depends on the others, switching up the mix of REP work in my day or week recaptures my focus and reconnects me to the feeling of being useful.

What conceptual device do you use to regain concentration?

If you feel so inclined, please share this blog post with your friends and colleagues, academic or otherwise. You can even use the Facebook and Twitter buttons below.

Academic Editing Newsletter

Concentration Tips from Your Media-Saturated Academic Editor: Part One

by | Jun 23, 2011 | ,

Academic Editing ConcentrationI edit for psychologists, but I’m not one of them. I’m also not a productivity guru. But lately I’ve realized that I do have my own tricks for staying on task and getting things done.

Let me address the big picture. I’m pretty in touch with the fact that I have a life of some luxury. I may not have monetary wealth, but I’m overeducated and a member of the creative class. Most of my clients and colleagues are in similar situations. This means that, by and large, I work on projects that I enjoy on some level. I decide what work I do and when I do it.

With that freedom come the known dangers of derailment and avoidance, and I’m not above either. Media—all kinds, but especially the at-my-fingertips, online variety—is what tempts me. We talk about our media-saturated culture; I’m a media-saturated citizen. My curious, sponge-like spirit is the same that led me to pursue a life in scholarship and research, so I expect many of you academics reading this share the propensity to seek out and consume news, culture, and even asinine Internet babble.

Search it out though I have, effective anti-procrastination advice is hard to find. Realistically, I suppose, not all productivity devices work for everyone, and the trick is to find the ones that fit my particular personality and circumstances.

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the concrete methods that I use to keep on task and stay happy. As a result, I’m pretty darn productive. The following tactics work for me, but I make no bones about my idiosyncrasies.

Prioritize Two Very Different Projects

For the duration of any working period, I like to have two assignments, tasks, or activities already prioritized. That way, when one becomes too repetitive or loses my interest, I have another important undertaking already set up and ready to go. In the professional life I’ve crafted for myself, the following project pairs could be effective:

With the exception of cleaning the bathroom, all of those activities further my professional goals, tackle current editing projects, or both. The pairings are different enough, however, that they complement one another and exercise my brain in refreshing ways.

As an aside, I’ll confess that housekeeping is enough of a life challenge for me that it qualifies as serious work. I sometimes use housework as a carrot during particularly difficult professional projects. For example, if I copyedit ten dense pages, I can go scrub the tub. This motivates me in a few ways: (a) when compared to manual labor, thorny manuscripts seem inviting; (b) activities such as mopping the floor give me a sense of accomplishment, and I bring that victorious spirit back to the computer; and (c) sometimes physical, nontextual work shakes loose some great ideas and leads to conceptual breakthroughs.

Predetermine Some Diversions

By diversions, I mean leisurely sidetracks. When I tire of the project in front of me, I often find an excuse to visit the Web. The initial reason for browsing may be professionally legitimate: What does Brian Garner advise regarding this use of jargon? Is Cold War really capitalized?

Too often, though, I end up scrolling through the bottomless pit that is my RSS reader. One way to avoid such time-sucking sites is the Firefox extension LeechBlock. I recommend it.

In addition to that automated restriction, keeping hard-copy reading material nearby proves helpful. This tactic works best if I determine in advance the distraction to which I’ll resort. One day, it might be this week’s (or, more likely, last month’s) New Yorker. Another time, it’s the novel I’m trying to finish. Maybe it’s a catalog or tabloid—I read those, too.

Regardless, reading printed text on paper gives me focus and, again, a sense of accomplishment. I truly have stacks of newspapers and magazines waiting to be read and discarded. Making a dent in said piles is a welcome achievement.

It’s also a good thing for writers and editors—especially for us academic types—to read widely and often. I don’t want to wade too deeply into the controversies surrounding electronic text’s predominance these days, but I do sing the praises of print material, at least in the context of productivity and concentration. Please forgive the forced metaphor, but if I don’t feed my mind with un-hyperlinked text once in a while, my work starves.

My Overarching, Undergirding System

Actually, I’ll tell you about that in the next post. (A preview: I call it REP.) For now, I’ll sign off and hope that these two tips have been eye opening and useful to you. I’ve fought for the self-awareness that led to these strategies. May you not have to fight so hard or so much.

What are your hard-won concentration procedures?

If you feel so inclined, please share this blog post with your friends and colleagues, academic or otherwise. You can even use the Facebook and Twitter buttons below.

Academic Editing Newsletter

Style Sheets for Academic Writers

by | Jun 20, 2011 | ,

Style Sheets for Academic Editing

Tweed provides a style sheet with every completed editing job. The writer can use the style sheet as a guide to the edits I’ve made and as a crib sheet for cleaning up future documents even before they’re edited.

But What is a Style Sheet?

A style sheet is a record of types of changes made during the editing process and often covers the following aspects as they pertain to the document at hand:

  • capitalization
  • hyphenation
  • use of italics
  • spelling
  • punctuation
  • formatting

Usually, a style sheet only includes decisions that differ from or are more specific than what can be found in the prevailing style guide (in publishing, it’s often The Chicago Manual of Style).

For Tweed’s purposes, however, I include not just a list of terms and ad hoc rules but also some guidelines that I think will benefit the writer as he interprets my edits and goes on to other writing projects.

Sample Style Sheet for Academic Editing

Sample Academic Editing Style Sheet

This is a sample style sheet (PDF), mocked up from work I’ve done on a wide variety of projects. Despite the disparate content, this sample gives you a sense of what a style sheet is and what it can do for you as a writer.

I usually phrase entries as sentences so that they are most useful to writers. It must be said, however, that no style sheet is a replacement for a style guide or mastery thereof. I don’t list every editing decision that I make; I focus on the ones most important for the document and hand and that I think a writer could rather easily understand, research more thoroughly, and deploy on her own.

Thus, Tweed style sheets are somewhat unlike those that are used internally at publishing houses. My hope is that these documents make post-editing work rather swift for writers, and many of my clients have gone out of their way to confirm that the style sheets are useful as they move forward in their professional writing lives.

I also use style sheets when I’m writing and revising my own scholarship. During your next big academic undertaking, I suggest you try putting one together for yourself. Even if it’s pretty basic, a style sheet will streamline your process. Your future publisher will notice that you’ve paid attention to consistency in your document, and that can only bode well for you in the acquisitions (or peer-review) process.

Academic Editing Newsletter

Alternative Dissertation Binding: Blurb

by | Jun 6, 2011 | ,

Alternative Dissertation Binding with Tweed Academic Editing

UPDATE: Blurb has created a Microsoft Word add-in that’s designed to make this process much easier. It’s only for Windows environments right now, so I (a Mac user) haven’t tried it. But it looks very promising.

About one year after first Blurbing, I’m realizing how beneficial it is to have a handsomely bound volume. I’m revisiting my dissertation, this time as if I were reading a book off the shelf—in fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing. And I’m able to see just how strong the research and writing actually are. It’s great motivation for moving on to publishing articles from chapters and putting together a proposal for presses.

By the time I finished my PhD, my university had done away with hard-copy dissertation submissions. All I had to do was generate a PDF of my work and upload it to the UMI ProQuest servers for inclusion in its database. The process was easy enough, but it was hardly what I would call tangibly satisfying.

Online submission freed me to have a little fun with the dissertation binding.

I looked into traditional binderies that offer embossed leather covers—in boring typefaces, with lengthy turnaround times, and at high prices. I peeked at what mass-market services like FedEx Office and the UPS Store could do for me. Those options were cheap but even less aesthetically inspiring.

Then I noticed Blurb.

At first, I thought of it as one of those websites that produce glossy photobooks (which I happen to love). But then I noticed its black-and-white-text format for hardcover books made of words (and grayscale images, if desired). Blurb construes itself as an author-producing enterprise, so it produces bookstore-quality books. In other words, Blurb’s oriented more toward bookmaking than toward scrapbook-making.

However, I expressly did not want to self-publish my dissertation.

This endeavor was just an exercise in quirky dissertation binding: no ISBN required or desired. After all, I still need to generate some publishable journal articles and a monograph from this baby! Luckily, Blurb’s not that kind of service. (I hear, however, that ISBNs can be acquired elsewhere and added to Blurb books.)

Satisfied that I could keep my dissertation unpublished but still have it bound by Blurb, I chose the 6″ x 9″ trade format (the other option is a 5″ x 8″ pocket size) and set to work.

Now, Blurb offers three different avenues for putting content on pages. Because I have an almost 300-page document with hundreds of footnotes, the online layout gizmos were not going to suffice. So I took heart that Blurb accepted PDFs, which are easy enough to create on my Mac.

Here’s where Blurb’s veneer of simplicity really broke down.

The PDF-uploading feature is really best used by designers—or by those who have Adobe Creative Suite, at least. I consider myself a pretty capable nonexpert computer user. I’m not afraid of fiddling with files and programs, but Blurb does not make it easy to export from Microsoft Word—which is a common word-processing program among Blurb’s client base, I would think.

It’s not PDFs but PDF/X-3s that one must export. I had honestly never heard of this high-tech format before embarking on what I mistakenly thought would be the rather simple process of binding my dissertation. I’ll spare you further detail, but I created over thirty PDFs of my text and cover image before I finally had a successful upload, one that met my own and Blurb’s quality standards. I actually made myself an instruction sheet detailing my workaround for the problem of not having Adobe Creative Suite.

With the content and cover set, I ordered a couple sample copies and crossed my fingers. I needn’t have worried: when the samples arrived, I was elated.

These were books that I could be proud to give to my dissertation committee and loved ones.

The matte covers feel rich, and the off-white stock inside is really dreamy. I designed a faux-vintage cover from a public-domain image of an old cloth book cover and overlaid it with semi-transparent text of my own. To commemorate my accomplishments, I also mocked up some inserts that recall yesteryear’s library due-date cards.

All told, Blurb allowed me to bind my dissertation in a way appropriate for a momentous occasion and executed with a sense of humor. There’s even a fun preview widget for sharing online:

At this point, I can’t really recommend Blurb for dissertators because the process involved several hours of trial and error on my part. I truly hope that Blurb will make uploading complex text and crafting covers easier for those of us without industry-standard design software.

If you do decide to go the Blurb route, I recommend signing up for the newsletter, as it sometimes includes discount codes.

I’m interested: what other methods of dissertation binding have you tried?

Tweed on Twitter