Breaking the Ice: How to Start a Piece of Academic Writing
By: Esther Wermer
We’ve all been there. The paper is due tomorrow. It’s midnight.
You thought about starting it last week, but after five minutes of staring intently at the blinking curser, you allowed yourself to reach for your phone. Someone came into your room, and then the paper was forgotten altogether. Now the deadline is approaching quickly, you still have no ideas, and your stress has elevated to a level higher than the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1–9). You are at the point where you just need to write something, and every single word feels like pulling teeth. By the time you hit the word count, you are so dead that you hit submit without even a second glance.
Surely, this is no one’s ideal writing process, but unfortunately many of us are well acquainted with it. Knowing where to start might allow you to start without the pressure of a deadline and save you the rushed, miserable writing-to-the-deadline experience. But if the paper is due at midnight, these tips will still help you write a better paper more quickly.
1. Start on physical paper. You let yourself make more mistakes and can interact with your writing to a greater degree by writing on paper. Of course, you can switch to your laptop once you push past the initial lack of drive on a topic but handwriting some of your brainstorming and drafting can actually save you a lot of time.
2. Write a research question. Think about what you specifically want to address based on the assignment and formulate it as a specific question. Note that broad questions make it more difficult to narrow the scope of your writing.
3. Answer your research question in the form of a succinct thesis. You can always revise it later, but it helps to have a rough draft that drives your paper and gives you a sense of how to organize your thoughts.
4. Outline. Various papers will require different amounts of outlining based on the knowledge you bring into the topic and the type of paper you’re writing. Typically, it is helpful to write out the main points of your paper (in order), and then form those into topic sentences.
5. Make Notes. Jot down where you need further research and search the library website for books and articles that could add to the content of your paper. If the library at SBTS does not have sources on your topic, consider trying other resources at your disposal, such as Google scholar or University of Louisville’s library.
6. Talk about your ideas to someone else. Verbal processing can be extremely helpful in narrowing your topic and deciding what to include in your paper. Your friends and classmates might also have a good idea of what source materials are available on your topic.
7. Write. Take time forming your sentences into organized paragraphs with specific topic sentences. Unless it’s right before the deadline, don’t pressure yourself to be perfect. The most important thing is having your thoughts somewhat organized and having strong arguments.
The writing process will probably vary some from assignment to assignment but having a general idea of where to start will hopefully allow you to put pen to paper more easily.