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Showing posts from May, 2012

How to Make Peace With Your Internal Editor (And Whether or Not You Should)

At Academic Ladder, we emphasize the importance of identifying negative self-talk when it arises during a writing session and silencing overly critical inner voices.  We talk about replacing the negative self-statements with positive ones, and re-framing what our internal editors are saying.  This is especially important to do when writing a first draft, or when freewriting, because stopping every few words to edit is neither efficient nor effective. But what if it's hard to speak back to those negative voices because deep down in your gut you really believe they're right ?  What if there's some truth to what your inner critic is saying?  This is a hard one, because sometimes it's difficult to separate the negativity and criticism that comes from fear or pain from the more protective voices of caution.  There are times when it may be necessary to listen to those cautionary voices rather than shut them out entirely. For instan

3 Secrets to Doing Well this Summer, Even if You’re an Academic

Untitled Document Ah, Summer! At last, many of us academics have the promise of unstructured time……… and the peril of unmet goals. Yes, we were often the children who loved school. After all, we kept on going for years! Yet we treasured summer vacation for its slower pace, tempting activities, exciting adventures, idle laziness. Summer in an academic life holds such promise ! Many of us have put off all of our writing goals until this magic season. We anticipate: Fewer external commitments! The chance to structure the days as you wish! Extended time in library or lab! You can finally get that project fully under way! Opportunities for projects! Time with friends and family! Vacation! Travel to family or exotic locales! But summer brings perils as well. Summer break for an academic writer is not the same today as those glorious memories of childhood summer vacations. The promise of limitless time to accomplish our greatest dreams often is not fulfilled. What hap

Summertime, and the Living is Easy--Or Not

                                                                                                                                                          So it's finally summer.  You've turned in your grades, you've finished TAi ng that horrible class that took all of your time, and your department is winding down its endless meetings.  Now you can get down to your own writing, right?  You can finally work on your own work that you've been putting off because you had to get those papers graded and go over all those tests.  Well, yes and no.  If you've been teaching this academic year and have minimal teaching and administrative responsibilities this summer, then yes, you will have a great deal more time.  But what you probably won't have is a lot more  energy .  In fact, you'll probably be a bit burned out, or experiencing some version of  Academic Exhaustion syndrome .  In that case, seriously consider taking some sort of break to mark the end of the term