Dec 15 2008
Writer’s Block and Organising Information
Writer’s block - this has to be the writer’s worse enemy. It is so frustrating to move from having a myriad of ideas swirling around in your head, to sitting in front of a screen, or page, and suddenly it seems nothing will flow! This is particularly exasperating if you have a piece of assessable writing to complete - especially if the due date is looming.
One suggestion to help overcome writer’s block in this case is to read through your research carefully. As you do, certain phrases or quotes will stand out for you – copy or paraphrase these onto your page and remember to include your referencing, using whatever referencing style you are required to use. This allows you to ‘see’ the information you have found to be most important and informative in answering your question. Next, cut and paste the paraphrases or quotes so that they are in a logical and coherent order to support what you want to say.
Doing this takes your focus off the fact that you have writer’s block, which prevents you going into that awful panic stage that can be SO destructive and make you an extremely ineffective writer, and also lets you re-visit your information and make a more considered response. In fact, I would strongly suggest that this is a great way to write most of your papers – however without a looming due date you can do this at a much more leisurely pace. If you follow this method you not only organize your information more effectively, you have your reference material already included (no more searching for reference details to include in your List of References of Bibliography) and if you have a number of papers due around the same time it makes the entire process much more efficient and workable!
