How is Science?

“The writing process” by Jack Mack

- write 1-2 sentences
- re-read sentences
- erase most of first sentence and re-write
- think “I should find a citation for this”
- look up a citation by attempting to search through all the published literature in the discipline looking for the single most relevant example
- find an interesting article and begin to read it
- get inspired by some idea that is completely tangential to the original topic. write it down, don’t want to forget!
- get up to get a drink of water, think about new idea
- look in fridge
- “ugh, how long has this been in there?”
- put that back in there
- remember something I need to fix/buy/etc.
- write that down on a piece of paper somewhere
- think, I need to get back to work
- return to computer
- re-read sentences
- think “those are some pretty decent sentences.”
- oops, the verb tenses don’t match the rest of the paper
- change verb tenses
- think, “what was I going to write next? I had an idea.”
- check original outline
- see a topic on my original outline that I haven’t covered yet. “that’s ripe for some writing, maybe I can put that in here.”
- no, I can’t. it doesn’t make sense here
- start a new paragraph and write it down anyway. “I’ll use that later.”
- notice how much I have left to do
- “okay, let’s get down to business”
- get up to go to the bathroom
- pee, thinking “man I drink a lot of water when I write”
- realize that all the water is gone, so refill the cup
- notice dog
- scratch dog
- ask dog how his day is going
- tell dog I love him
- receive blank look from dog
- think of the perfect next sentence
- thank the dog
- return to computer
- forget perfect next sentence
- re-read sentences
- look at list of tangential ideas from “inspirations”
- none of that matters with what I’m writing
- look at outline, books, and journal articles until I see something related to what I’m writing
- in reading it, realize that some famous author has already written exactly what I’m writing, but better
- re-think entire topic/paper/career
- “whatever, I’ll just cite this and say that mine is adding something to it”
- find a relevant quote and use it as the next sentence
- write another sentence
- continue writing sentence
- continue, thinking “man, this is kind of a long sentence”
- remember something I previously read that I should cite in this sentence
- find reference I remembered
- cite it
- put a comma after the citation
- add the contradictory point to the other half of the sentence
- read sentence of extraordinary length, riddled with commas
- “this sentence is too long, I need to split it into two sentences”
- realize all my sentences are too long
- also they all use the same parallel construction
- also also they are all in the passive voice
- think “whatever, all stupid science writing is in the stupid passive voice and I like it anyway.”
- feel guilty because of Grammar
- page back through the paper and find a long sentence to split into two
- “now I have created two new sentences!”
- repeat