Revise with Me: Foot Dragging and Argument Refining
Are you working on revising writing for publication? Hey, so am I! And I’m writing a blog series on the revision process. In between my freelance editing work, I’ll be turning a dissertation chapter into an article, and I’ll write about the joys and challenges of writing and editing as well as any tips and strategies I employ (successfully or not) along the way.
Before I started revising a dissertation chapter into a journal article, I thought that maybe this revision work might be a little easier, because I’ve already defended, I know what part of my dissertation would best serve for publication, and I no longer have the pressures of a grad student. And it does feel different! However, even though a lot of the pressures I last faced while writing are gone, it turns out that I still have barriers to writing and there is still some reluctance to get started! This post is about that reluctance and the argument refining work that actually got me started this week.
Figurative foot dragging
An early sign of reluctance to write, for me, is foot dragging. A writing task is on my list. Maybe I’ve been good and I’ve laid out a writing goal for every day of the week. Maybe I’ve been really good and blocked out specific times to work on those tasks. Good infrastructure! But if I know I’m scheduled to write and then, when the time comes, I deflect by choosing some other (usually easy and unimportant) task, this is foot dragging, and it can be a slippery slope.
Getting over it with scheduling and goal setting
Usually I get around this barrier with a combination of factors: scheduling and goal setting. I need to make sure that my goal is clear and that I have set aside a specific time to do it. I find my brain to be more cooperative in the morning, and if I have been dragging my feet on a task, I might set it for my first or second order of business for the following day. This way, I mentally prepare to jump right into it and I get it over with early in the day. So after a cranky work Wednesday, I would agree to start this task at 9am on Thursday.
I’m not going to devote a lot of time to it, though; if I have been dreading it, I want to make the work goal so specific that it can be achieved ideally in 15–25 minutes, or 50 minutes at most (that’s two pomodoros). I’m not going to finish everything in that short of a time, but the idea is to get yourself into the task and create some momentum to build on. SMART goal making is important here, because a poorly defined goal is definitely going to result in foot dragging.
Refining my article’s argument
My task this week was to work through part of Week 2 of Wendy Belcher’s Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks. Week 2 is about “Advancing Your Argument,” so as I read through the first pages of the section, there were a few opportunities to articulate and then re-articulate what I thought my article’s argument was, and then some very helpful ways to test whether it really was an argument, not just an observation, a claim for significance, or a statement of variables, for instance.
I set aside two pomodoros (25-minute work sessions, with a 5-minute break in between) for reading part of this chapter and I did the exercises that Belcher suggested along the way. Then I devoted one pomodoro to testing and restating my argument. Setting a time limit and a clear goal made the barrier to these tasks fairly low. Ultimately, it wasn’t even that painful—which is a classic sign that not sufficiently setting a timeframe and a SMART goal caused me to drag my feet on an otherwise achievable task.
To be totally honest, I ended up doing the two reading pomodoros one day and the argument refining the next. And I even dragged my feet a little writing this blog about it. It wasn’t perfectly executed, but I did get there in the end, and I do believe in the power of good goal setting and scheduling.
My argument held up against many of the tests listed in the book except for the variable test. According to Belcher, sometimes we state the variables of our argument instead of identifying how they are related. The variable test made me take the argument I had initially written and strengthen the verbs. I need to be very clear about 1) what the film is doing and 2) why it is important, and the two-sentence argument I ended up with was definitely an improvement on what I had initially. (Ideally, I would put both arguments here to show the difference, but I can’t do that with material I intend to publish. However, if you are interested, Belcher has a lot of great examples!)
I had never done this series of tests on an argument before, and I found the process to be very helpful. I’m not finished with the argument chapter, but I’m curious what the result of the argument refining process will be on the organization of the paper, as well as whether it will help me decide what I need to keep and what I need to cut from this chapter. I will need to cut about 9,000 or 10,000 words, which is a considerable amount, but I suspect most of the content marked for omission will be extensive close readings.
SMART goals, time limits, momentum, and strong arguments
These are some tools I have had up my sleeve this week, but if you are working on revising writing, I’m curious what your experience is, too. How do you typically get over barriers to starting work you’ve been avoiding? What’s a good tip you have received about refining your argument? Let me know in the comments below or via email.
As an editor, I find that refining other people’s arguments and essay structure to be much more straightforward than working on my own writing. If you could use help with that, do contact me, and I’d be happy to learn more about your project.
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