Tag Archives: academic writing

What’s your best writing advice?

When I was doing my PhD, we would go on a yearly writing retreat with all the PhDs of the department. It was a fun event where all of us would bring something particular to work on, and we simply worked on it all day. A small team took care of food, we went forContinue reading “What’s your best writing advice?”

Story. Story. Story?

When you’re writing a scientific paper, what’s on your mind? What are you thinking of? What are the aims? I find myself in a shift of attitude when it comes to writing. When I wrote my first paper(s), I had no clue what I was doing. I was summarizing everything I did, and not necessarilyContinue reading “Story. Story. Story?”

Hard work

It was a long day today. We made great progress on the harvest of our light pollution experiment. All aboveground biomass is now harvested, and scans of leaves were made for specific leaf area measurements. We got about two-thirds through the root washing for the belowground harvest. It was a tough day, but all inContinue reading “Hard work”

The to-do list

Three days! That’s the amount of time I spent ‘out of office’ last week. Still working, albeit from a mobile office on location. I reviewed some papers, worked on conceptual figures for a paper I’m a part of, and even looked at some data. It was, however, also working remotely, with limited (mobile) internet access.Continue reading “The to-do list”

An anxiety-free Monday

Regular readers will know that I hate Mondays more than any other day of the week. Somehow the relaxation over the weekend pretty reliably convinces my brain that it’s completely stupid, and doesn’t know shit. On Sunday evenings, I already feel the nerves for starting up again on Monday… What if I fuck it allContinue reading “An anxiety-free Monday”

Write, rest, edit, rest, edit, (…), submit!

I ended this rather productive day today with a supervision meeting. In this case, it concerned a PhD candidate I co-supervise, together with a colleague in the UK. This particular project is almost coming to an end. Around the new year, the three-year contract will run out. Having said that, the candidate is in aContinue reading “Write, rest, edit, rest, edit, (…), submit!”

A recipe that works

I have heard so many times that people use particular excuses for why they don’t write, or struggle at writing. “I cannot write”, or “I suck at writing”. Or the best one, “yeah, I suffer from writer’s block”. Hell no! No you don’t. You can write, and the only reason you suck at writing isContinue reading “A recipe that works”