How to find time to publish - Tara Gray from New Mexico State Univerrsity

I am sitting here on a Sunday morning at the last session of what has been an amazing conference. Walking in juggling yet another cup of Starbucks Coffee and a bowl of yoghurt and muesli...I will post more about individual sessions I have attended over the next few days.... but this one was the one I was waiting for;

How to be a prolific scholar by Tara Gray from New Mexico State University

Tara presents the premise that we should write for 15 - 30 minutes a day and keep records and tell someone

Find the time - write for 15 - 30 minutes a day, 7 days a week. If you write it will stay in your head for 24 hours and that is all. Do not wait until you have big blocks of time to binge write...it will never come. But Boyce in his research says do not write for more than 3 hours a day or fatigue sets in...but there is an opposite position of course.

Find a place - a quiet comfortable ... I am thinking in my office first thing in the day...sign on the door telling people when I will be available.

Stop interruptions - things are urgent but they can often wait 15 - 30 minutes. Reward yourself with checking emails. DO not check emails first. Writing is the Rocks and emails are the Sand....make sure you have your Rocks in place and emails are the Sand that fills the gap. Put a note on your door stating people should come back in 30 minutes.

Record and share daily keep - keep a record a writing log and write in teams and email your team mates daily with just the time you spent writing in the subject matter. You need to do it everyday so someone care that you are writing every day. People who do this in some research wrote 290 pages a year rather than just 17 pages from those who did not keep a record. Find a coach and keep them for life.

One of the questions she asks is how would your life be different if you started writing daily for 15 - 30 minutes? Wow if that meant I could produce 290 pages a year, I might actually achieve that promotion I am seeking, the innovative teaching I think I engage in would be tested and published. Tara then asks us to reflect "does it make sense to write everyday"...yes it does because trying to find blocks to binge write when my head is clear enough to think and I do not need to wait for large blocks of time to appear is not working....Louise Porter one of my undergraduate lecturers once said to me if you are doing a little of something and it is not working ..why do you think doing more of it will work...try something different. Those words are very relevant here.....

What can we give up to gain that 15 - 30 minutes a day? Are these things getting in the way going to bring more gains than spending 15 - 30 minutes a day writing.
What can we gain?

Boyce who also wrote about says do the same thing with preparing for teaching...spend 15 - 30 minutes a day rather than doing it all in one hit.

The literature review does not have to be finished first...like emails it will never be finished...
streamline your literature review. As students were are taught to read to learn...now as an academic I need to read to write...find answers for blanks (citations needed).
Same with research....try to streamline research, write throughout your project.....
Organise your writing around key sentences....tell us what
Start with a working thesis....In this paper we.......writing without a thesis is like shooting without a target...

Tara then talks about writing....putting a key sentence in each paragraph...keep to the subject after telling it was the key is...what is important needs to be in there...

A section needs a key sentence as does a paragraph....read you paper backwards looking for those key sentences...if you look for the key sentences by reading from the beginning you are just reading your paper.

Tara has ideas about using key sentences as a way of working with dissertation students. Share early drafts with non experts and later drafts with experts.