Research Writing: Form a Writing Group to Boost Your Productivity

Posted by Lesley McCollum

You’re probably in the middle of one right now. You may even be avoiding it by reading this instead. It’s that writing project that's always in the back of your mind. With research proposals, journal articles, literature reviews, and dissertations, writing is a big part of research. It unites all grad students and faculty — whether you study Cancer Biology or Anthropology. Unfortunately, most of us are also guilty of not making it a priority. We like to think we’ll find time for it — in between our experiments tomorrow, or after we’ve read just a few more articles. It can temporarily relieve the pressure to put it off for later, but the problem is, that free time never appears. Too easily, any spare time gets sucked up by the pile of other tasks on our to-do lists.

To increase your writing productivity, you need to make time, not wait until you find it. A great way to do this is to form a writing group. Meeting with others for a designated writing time will boost your motivation and keep you accountable to accomplishing your writing tasks. It also provides a built in team for editing each other’s work and receiving feedback.

Ask around to other grad students or faculty at UAB — you know they will be working on a writing project too. Try mixing up the disciplines in your group. Having colleagues that know your field can be great for providing feedback on journal articles, but having someone outside your field can provide a useful perspective for writing assignments targeted for a general audience. The style of your writing group will be unique to your needs - find something that works for you.

Ready to start your group? Look for the WriteNow toolkit on the FastDrafting Resources page, provided by Dr. Jennifer Greer at the UAB Graduate School. It provides helpful tips for getting started. Also, watch for the WriteNow workshops happening later this Spring to learn about forming your own group and other strategies for boosting your writing productivity.

Have you formed a writing group? Please share how it has impacted your writing success in the comments!