Every time I visit a Maya ruin in
Mexico or Central America (a favorite vacation spot), I am awed by how much planning
went into each and every building. I guess if you are designing a temple for
the gods or lugging heavy stones across a steamy jungle to please a king who
will toss you into the sea if dissatisfied, you perform well. In fact, most
graduate writers can probably identify with these kinds of high stakes! As you
can see by the photographs from the ancient city of Tulum, overlooking the
Caribbean on the eastern Yucatan Peninsula, Maya architects and builders put a
great deal of thought into the structure of their classical buildings (below left) from the location to the essential supports, such as columns and arches (below right, from another ruin at nearby Coba).
Although no architectural blueprints, drawings, or models have survived the
passage of time, the Maya clearly knew to "begin with the end in mind,” as modern life/work
guru Stephen Covey advised in his popular book, “The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People” (https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php.)
So how do you begin with the end in mind on an academic writing project? One of the smartest things you can do is pre-write the abstract, or overall summary of the article, early in the writing process. This advice usually perplexes writers because they are taught to write abstracts at the end of the process. But that sequence doesn't help them see the whole story structure when they need to see it most, when they have to organize mounds of information, when they must be able to see the end in mind. To help writers pre-write, I developed a simple tool, called the OJISH Model, for fastdrafting abstracts in 10 minutes. Of course it takes longer to flesh out and polish what you can draft quickly. But I challenge you to give OJISH a try. See if it doesn't help you jumpstart a writing project --- and structure a research narrative as strong and sound as any ancient Mayan masterpiece.
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