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| Resolving a Research Writing Block |
| Imagine that you are writing a political science paper on back-channel diplomacy. The topic is "Nixon's Opening toward China." Your professor admires that act of diplomacy, and she has presented material in the course to indicate that it depended a good deal on back-channel negotiations. There's not much time so you decide you won't need to plan extensively; once you get going, there will be plenty to say. How far back should you start? What about Nixon's long history as an anticommunist, and then his sudden turn toward China? You realize immediately you'll have to push these questions aside until you've compiled a basic narrative of the steps that led to the change in policy. You've read Nixon, and now you read Kissinger's huge book. Much of the opening was back-channel diplomacy, but you can see that your narrative, based on different, sometimes contradictory versions, is becoming increasingly complex. In five rough pages you have only the barest outline. By the time you have to start writing, you realize you have too much to say, and time is running out. What should you do? Is the narrative itself going to have to be the paper? But the professor already knows the sequence of events. What is your paper about? You started with admiration for the policy, but something is missing. You're blocked; you need to talk through the topic with an objective listener. Even (or perhaps, especially) a person unacquainted with the subject can help you rediscover your subject by asking you to explain it in simple terms. Such an objective listener might ask, for example, why the policy worked, and whether back-channel diplomacy was the only way to accomplish the opening toward China. Were there any longrange disadvantages? In answering these questions, you recall that you were fascinated by how well back-channel diplomacy fit the personal styles of both Kissinger and Nixon. Shouldn't this be included in your paper? And why that policy at that moment in time? As you think aloud, the listener may ask you if you really need to know why, in order to explain how. In the ensuing silence, the question seems unnervingly rhetorical. But how much of the opening to China was a domestic political move? Could Nixon have done anything that wasn't political? Was it a strategic way to shift attention from other issues? Was it an attempt to form an alliance against the Soviet Union? Was it a combination of all those things? "How are you going to work all of that into a twelve-page paper by Friday?" your objective listener asks. Suddenly, you're impatient to get back to work. What about other examples of back-channel diplomacy? How much background do you have to give? You didn't think all of this through because you took the success of the opening toward China for granted. If you spend too much time on the background and the narrative, you won't have any space left over for your own ideas. "When doesn't it work?" your listener asks. "Has back-channel diplomacy ever backfired?" "Of course. Selling arms to Iran, for example. When it goes wrong, it's really a disaster! Maybe I'd better include a section on that. I don't know. She's never mentioned it in class. Maybe back-channel diplomacy has to be conducted with the right people at the right time. Maybe there are times when the risks aren't worth taking." "Well," your listener says, "I don't know anything about backchannel diplomacy, but if it worked for Nixon and not for Reagan, that's interesting in itself." "Yes," you say, clarifying at last a thesis about the relationship between personal style and back-channel diplomacy, "but Reagan is not my topic." This is probably as much help as you need. Your objective listener is missing the point, your point. Although you're grateful for his time and effort, now you have to get back to work. The conversation has returned you to where you began, only now you have a better sense of direction, based on active ideas of your own that you lost sight of as you became immersed in conflicting details and interpretations. In a long-term study, a scholar might try to resolve the conflicts about what actually happened, and when. But that's not your paper either. You want to write about the relationship between policy and style as it is exemplified in back-channel diplomacy. Talking through the block with an objective listener has given you back the paper you wanted to write. |
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