Preparing to write - some useful preconditions A real deadline Cranking up takes place (Woods 1996, 2006) Thinking underway but continues during the writing Already read a lot of the relevant literature Any fieldwork data sorted out and in an easy-to-use state A draft structure and conceptual framework Some clear time/space but not too much

What gets in the way of writing Routine tasks with earlier deadlines Things you dont need to do in your home A parrot on your shoulder saying youre no good; youre no good… Memories of past writing difficulties Worrying about who will read it and what theyll say Not knowing what you want to write Not having read and thought enough Thinking of it as a long difficult voyage rather than a set of easily managed short journeys

VOICE SHARING PURPOSE PROCESS PRACTISE PRODUCT who is it for? to communicate, limit jargon (explain concepts?) assembling parts; reading what others say & using own data drafting iterations of theory/data write regularly; the more you write the better you get (not necessarily?) ACADEMIC/WRITINGACADEMIC/WRITING good writing should be an aspiration for everyone find your own style (how to choose & just one style?) take a position/so what is going on? (tell story?) criticality not advocacy (even in ethnography?) reveals the taken for granted learn how others write (how?) basis for dialogue (with whom?) COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICAL

Thoughts on the process of academic writing Writing a conference paper with a tight deadline (perhaps data not yet fully analysed, reading and writing quickly, provisional approach); maybe focusing more on the presentation than the paper per se. Use presentation slides to re-organise paper? Turning a conference paper into an article (choosing a journal, reading relevant papers in that journal, taking account of conference and critical friend comments, ensuring data quality is good, reshaping arguments and conceptual framework) Getting comments back on submitted paper - making sense of contradictory views, new reading to do, new ideas to absorb, slicing data differently or reducing/increasing data used, re- organising paper structure, reshaping conclusions, often cutting back on length. Rewriting is often slower than first writing.