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Home  Research writing tips The Quick Writing Process The Personal Discovery of Meaning for a Public Audience
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The Personal Discovery of Meaning for a Public Audience |
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The pulse of any research writing project is the writer's passion for the subject. Writing assignments on demand in school or at work without the personal commitment of the writer often become chaotic or mechanical. A project that reflects the writer's conscious decision to discover and present meaning takes on a life of its own, with internal coherence and sustained energy. Readers are especially sensitive to this commitment, or the lack of it. If, out of confusion or conflict, the research writer avoids defining the connection between material and commitment, or else comes to it too late in the writing process, then he or she can only give the project a superficial unity. The reader is left with the impossible task of assembling the fragmented argument around a latent or unarticulated thesis. This is especially true when there is an obvious tension between the writer's selection of material and his or her conclusions. Whatever the subject, however limited or complex the presentation, your reader needs a sense of your active connection to the life of your argument. Some people are interested in everything they read. Others habitually skim, or look through the introduction and conclusion before deciding whether to continue. At times, the writer knows his or her fate in advance: a research report at work will be filed away; a term paper will not be returned with any comments. Even so, the most efficient, effective way to do clear, powerful research writing on time is to discover the inner, active life of your project--why, and how you care about the subject and the reader-- and to integrate those concerns into your work. This is where the skill, craft, and art of writing coincide. Recording data for an accident report requires discipline; evoking the power of a dream requires intensity. But research writing combines the clarity of analysis with the power of conceptual thought; and the relationship between details and concept must be demonstrated thoroughly in a process that continuously engages the reader. Experienced research writers have a feel for their own kinds of question, the level of generality at which they are comfortable drawing inferences, establishing connections, and making assertions. This kind of confidence arises out of experience with the organic development of ideas: how one piece of information settles and reacts with others. Research scientists and disciplined artists proceed with patience and concentration, as evidence gathers into explanation. The issue in research writing is not an unattainable conclusiveness, but an enduring passion for inquiry linked with the satisfaction of communicating discoveries. Most people do not have much experience linking the two. Instead, they fall victim to one of the familiar anxieties: "I have so much material that I don't know what to say!"; or "I have so much to say I don't know where to begin!" To avoid this, research writing requires an initial working principle for filtering facts, opinions, theories, and raw data. With QUICK WRITING PROCESS, the provisional thesis provides that principle, enabling the writer to sift through readings, interviews, or experimental data for support or refutation of an idea or concept. Then, this material is constantly tested as because-clauses. Does the passage support or refute the provisional thesis? Does the evidence elaborate the thesis or point to a more clearly defined one? Research writing requires this kind of prior commitment. In theory, the scientific method instructs us to gather as much information as possible without, for the moment, ruling out things that cannot be explained. But most works of art ( Henry James' "germ" of a novel, for example), and most scientific experiments begin in hunches, theories, or images of a product that establish direction. Good research writing capitalizes on what the writer knows as he or she searches for meaning. The process requires conscious choice about scope, scale, and style, time and space, and the efficient gathering, sifting, and integrating of material.
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