“I’ve been routinely doing 10-15 writing sessions per week!” – Case study with Researchers’ Writing Academy alumna Dr Kate McAlpine [Blog + Video podcast]

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This blog post is based on my podcast interview with Dr Kate McAlpine, an alumna of the Researchers’ Writing Academy. To listen or watch the podcast, click play on the YouTube video above or listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. 

In this interview, Kate speaks about how she experienced the Researchers’ Writing Academy, what made the biggest difference to her writing and how she made time to take the program. The latter is, I think a very, very important point because that’s what you may be wondering when you’re buying an online academic writing course: Am I actually going to use it when I’m already a busy Assistant Professor? 

So, without further ado, let’s jump into the conversation with Kate:

Hello, Kate! Thank you for joining me today, I’m super excited to talk to you! You were a member of the Researchers’ Writing Academy until very recently. Can you tell the listeners a bit about your research position, where you’re based, and what your research is about?

The thread through my research is about learning from young people and other underrepresented groups how to thrive. That takes the form of research on violence prevention in East Africa, on what makes good education and a lot of participatory action research with young people. 

That’s exciting and such crucial work. I know you are travelling a lot – it’s always been fun seeing where you’d be calling from when we were seeing you on live calls. 

Yeah I’m a bit of a global nomad with itchy feet. 

Why Kate decided to join the scientific writing program

Back when you decided to join the Researchers’ Writing Academy, what was your motivation? What struggles did you experience regarding writing papers and getting published?

I think there were two things going on. One is that I was finding it very hard to carve out time for writing. I’m sure that many people share the same experience. And I think probably it was because I wasn’t identifying writing as being part of my core purpose.

And then the second thing was just very much in terms of skills, not really knowing how to write for journals. So even though I do a lot of client reports, the feedback I was getting from journals was that you’re writing as if you’re writing for an NGO and you’re not writing for an academic audience. And I didn’t really know what to do with that feedback because I was unsure what an academic audience required.

I mean, I find a lot of academic writing so terribly boring and dull that it didn’t really seem like a thing to aspire to. Mhmm. But I was like, I’m not gonna get published unless I learn this art. So that was the motivation, really.

That’s super interesting because I hear this a lot from people who have experience with other types of writing. Some people really struggle with being too wordy, and too flowery. When you then start with academic writing, you may just not get how to hit the right tone for a journal article.

Yeah. It felt like nothing I wanted to aspire to. 

I totally get that because the quality of a lot of papers out there is just, mhmm… nothing to aspire to. So it’s hard then to know, ‘well, what is actually good academic writing?‘

Yeah. It’s very hard to know because there isn’t much of it around.

How Kate approached the scientific writing course and material once she was a member

When you then joined the Researchers Writing Academy, what did you do first? What was your approach to tackling the program?

So, I’m a consumer of educational content. I spent a weekend and just went through the course from start to finish and took notes and set up the Trello boards and, you know, went into planning mode. And I think that really worked for me because it’s almost like the content primes you. And then you need to work out how to put it into action. That’s how I approached it.

Oh, that’s really cool that you dedicated this one weekend to the course and went through it all in one go. 

Yeah, I liked that a lot. Because I think often it seems like, oh, I’m taking a course. It’s gonna be this big thing. When will I find time to actually watch the lessons? But actually all I need to do is cut out this weekend once, these two days, and go through it.

And I think that the way you communicate it, that it is a writing formula, I really wanted to know then ‘okay, what’s this special sauce?’ And I wanted to know it quickly.

Oh well, good that the phrasing of ‘Journal Publication Formula’ (the name of the online academic writing course members of the Researchers’ Writing Academy get access to) worked to intrigue you! Did you have any concerns before you joined? Was there a moment where you weren’t sure if it’s going to work? 

I mean, it was quite a serious outlay for me to pay for it. So I was concerned whether this would be a course that I’m going to pay for and not really going to fix my issue.  But it was an investment in my professional development. And I think maybe that’s what sort of informed my approach of ‘okay, let me suck the marrow from this quickly’.

But really, those concerns were alleviated very quickly once I started to engage with the material.

That’s amazing to hear. I think this is a common concern and I’ve had this experience as well where I’ve bought a pricey online course that didn’t deliver on its promise. That’s a really, really annoying feeling so thank you for sharing how you worked through it and that it was quickly alleviated. 

Apart from the course, how useful did you find the other elements of the program? 

I think the other elements of the program are where the course comes to life. Because it is the accountability from working out loud that makes you put the content into practice.

I think if I had just done the course and hidden away and not taken advantage of the Accountability Club, of the community, of the co-writing sessions, I wouldn’t have systematically applied what I learned in the material. So I think that that design element that you have really is powerful.

I’m glad to hear that because that is exactly how I intend the experience to be!

How the academic writing program changed both Kate’s relationship with writing and her publication output

And so then you start to get this positive feedback loop of, ‘oh, that wasn’t so bad’. So I started thinking, ‘I’ll probably do 2 writing sessions a week’. And I carve my writing sessions now into 50-minute increments as you advise.

But, you know, routinely, this summer, I’ve then been doing 10 to 15 writing sessions a week because, 1) I’ve had a lot of writing to do, but, 2) it’s that I’ve got that really workable formula now. 

So I think that’s the big thing that’s changed is that I’m writing and I call myself a writer and I’m churning out stuff. But I think that in the early days, the most useful thing was the process. So, I think, the most useful trick you have is that Submitted-in-8-Weeks Trello board. And the ability to plan out a paper. Having a roadmap is so, so useful. And I now use that pretty much for every bit of writing, whether it’s a client paper, whether it’s a journal paper, whether it’s a conference presentation. I use that process. 

And then I have a separate Asana planning board for each writing session. I think it’s been very helpful in building the infrastructure that you need as a writer.  

A lot of Assistant Professors have a lot of bad emotions connected to their writing, and the fact that you’re not writing enough can feel horrible too. How did writing feel for you, Kate? 

Writing just felt like such a drag. It was a source of procrastination and I felt guilty that I was procrastinating. 

Exactly, that vicious circle is so common. Thank you for sharing your fantastic transformation. 

I do feel quite transformed, actually. Yes, I really do. 

You know, even my relationship with feedback from journal articles has changed. I actually got some feedback today that was ‘this needs major revision’. And in the past, I would have then said ‘oh, I’m not gonna bother. I’m just gonna set it aside. I can’t face going back into this body of work’. 

But this time, I was actually quite resilient and robust. I was like: ‘Okay, take a deep breath. Look at what they’re saying. Yep, this is possible. Let me bring in a co-author to work on it with me.’ Now I can rebound back from that feedback rather than saying, ‘oh, I’m not a writer because the journals asked for major revisions’. 

That’s an interesting mindset shift! You’re so right because I think when we’re in the state where we feel awful about our writing, we don’t feel competent in it. We don’t have this resilience. All our energy goes into the negative feelings instead of into actually solving the problems. 

And getting major revisions is the most normal thing in the world for researchers! I mean, it depends on the field, but I’ve almost never heard of an article that just got accepted without any revisions. Even minor revisions are from my experience super rare. So getting asked to do revisions is just what happens as part of the publishing process and it’s important knowing that that’s just the next step.

Yeah, the Researchers’ Writing Academy has completely pivoted my relationship with writing. I used to hate being edited because I thought, ‘it’s gonna lead to more bloody writing’. And now, actually, getting edited is quite a nice thing. Other people having eyes on you is generative. It’s not just creating another burden. 

We were talking about the other elements we have in the Researchers’ Writing Academy earlier, and you mentioned that you attended co-writing sessions. We facilitate multiple co-writing sessions per week. Do you remember how often you attended them? 

When I was in a settled week, I try and get a couple of those in. Getting these 2 hours of regular writing per week was already worth so much. Actually, that’s the thing I’m missing now that I’m graduated – the community! It was just really nice to be writing with people from your team and other members.

Did you also attend our writing retreats where we write for longer time spans? 

Yes. Those writing retreats were great. They were a really good way of mobilising around a big piece of work. So I did a couple of them, and they were superb. It’s like this creative boost. Like, other people are working on their things. We’re all writing.

And I got much more work out there thanks to the program! I think I’ve done four papers for conferences as well in the past year. 

Oh, wow. You had a lot of output, Kate! 

Yeah, no, I’m churning out quite a lot. 

Note from Anna: If you got curious about the Researchers’ Writing Academy, I recommend watching our free training class (it’s free and takes about 1 hour). 👇🏻

Amazing! Which aspect of the Researchers’ Writing Academy did you like the most if you had to pick? What were you most excited about? 

I think the Journal Publication Formula. I mean, it sounds so stupid, but I had never thought about starting to write my paper from the point of view of what are the key findings. And I think it’s great to start from the key findings, then articulating the problems and then scaffolding your literature review around the problems to get the Introduction. 

So that was just like a big aha! Otherwise, I think the bit I enjoyed most was the community. 

Kate’s recommendations for those who want to take an academic writing course

Would you recommend others to join the Researchers’ Writing Academy?

What would you say to someone who’s on the fence of joining who isn’t quite sure if it’s the right thing for them? 

I’d say, try and reflect why you’re on the fence, what’s keeping you from stepping into being a writer. You’ll need a bit of a shift in your identity. You will dedicate a lot more time to writing. And it may be that you’re on the fence because you’re not quite ready to commit to those things.

I love that answer. I’ve been thinking a lot about more subconscious blocks that we have that prevent us from doing things we want to do. Often we make up excuses like “I don’t have the time to take a writing course” but in reality none of us have time for anything extra. Just like you were super busy and still managed to find time to learn and apply the course material. On another podcast episode, I’m sharing a technique that helps with uncovering these more subconscious blocks.  

There’s a really interesting model that you might be interested in about this. It’s by Kegan and Lahey, and it’s called competing commitments. It’s actually a process that you can work through to understand exactly this. I say I want to do this, but my behavior indicates that I don’t want to do this. So, what’s going on unconsciously? That is actually the barrier to my change. That might be really useful as a preliminary step for people to go through.

Oh, thank you, Kate. It’s been amazing having you as a member, and we do miss you.

I know. I might come back! I’m doing co-writing with my sister-in-law at the moment. It’s not quite the same.

Haha! Yeah, we’d love to have you back. 

If people want to learn more about you or your research, where can they find that? 

Well, thank you so much for taking the time.

No, thank you for everything, really. I miss the Researchers’ Writing Academy too.

Anna’s note: If you want to know more about the Journal Publication Formula, the method that helped Kate be a super productive academic writer who enjoys the process, I got you. I created a whole training that’ll show you exactly what’s included in our academic writing program and help you decide whether it’s the right choice for you.

Just click the orange button below to watch it now (or save for later)!

 

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