The Long Journey of Writing a Research Article

After submitting my research article, it truly felt like there was a massive weight lifted off my shoulders. After working on the article everyday for a good week and a half, I feel like I can finally catch my breath for a good day or two. Through my research article writing journey, I really learned a lot about myself and the things I love and hate to write. 
With this mammoth paper, I felt like I needed a plan of execution and an order to write all the components of the assignment. I decided my order would be figures and captions, results, wrap up methods, discussion, introduction, abstract, and then title. Below are my opinions on the writing process:

Figures and Captions: I definitely spent most of the weekdays working on this component. I honestly really enjoyed combining my figures and arranging the panels perfectly and redoing elements to make them more clear. In some ways, I felt like an artist working on this project. There was no procrastination to work on this part.
Enjoyment rating: 8/10
Procrastination rating: 1/10

Results: This section gave me mixed emotions. I really struggled to get started. The Eye of The Tiger was playing in my mind for half a day before I could get pumped up enough to start writing out the results. I also wrote a very comprehensive outline of the entire research article with little tips and things to keep in mind in order to put off physically writing out the actual results. Thankfully, once I got started, the words kind of flowed right out of me, and I had a really solid first draft in one sitting. After a session of office hours, I had cleared up many questions I had in my first draft, and draft two became something I was really proud of. 
Enjoyment rating: 6.5/10
Procrastination rating: 7/10

Wrapping up methods: With most of the methods done for homework, this was supposed to be an easy section. Unfortunately, I found that I much prefer writing methods for wet lab procedures rather than R studio procedures. In the process of writing out the tiny bit of methods I had left, I rocked back and forth in my chair about two hundred times. 
Enjoyment rating: 4/10
Procrastination rating 4/10

Discussion: There was nothing I hated more than writing the discussion. I think I was honestly a bit wiped out from the excitement of writing the results, that I did not have any more energy to be hyped up about the discussion. It took me half a book, a 7.05 pset, a long bike ride, 1 movie, and 3 episodes of The Office to stop procrastinating and just do the discussion. When I finally mustered up the motivation to write it, it felt like everything I wrote was word vomit. I redid the discussion so many times that I nearly threw in the towel. 
Enjoyment rating: 1/10
Procrastination rating: 8/10

Introduction: At this point, I really felt like I needed to pick up my pace a bit, so the first draft was cranked out almost immediately after the discussion section was finished. I am definitely not going to rave about this section, but at least it wasn’t the discussion. After sorting through my thoughts, this section was only half bad. 
Enjoyment rating: 4/10
Procrastination rating: 1/10

Abstract: This was a fun section to write. After doing really well on my data summary abstract, I felt excited to attempt another strong abstract. This section pretty much flowed like poetry, and it was done before I knew it. It probably also helped that this section was only 250 words long.
Enjoyment rating: 7/10
Procrastination rating: 2.5/10

Title: This was truly the home stretch. In a way, it was kind of emotional picking a title to represent the work I had spent so much time on. Once the title was picked, I put all the pieces together, and it was crazy to see the finished piece. After several sections made me wonder if I would ever stop procrastinating and finish the paper, I was relieved to have a finished product.
Enjoyment rating: 8/10
Procrastination rating: 1/10

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