Writing in Social Spaces

A social processes approach to academic writing

Rowena Murray

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317627128
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Writing in Social Spaces addresses the problem of making time and space for writing in academic life and work of the professionals and practitioners who do academic writing'. Even those who want to write, who know how to write well and who have quality publications, report that they cannot find enough time for writing. Many supervisors are unsure about how to help postgraduates improve their writing for thesis and publication. Whilst the problem does presents through concerns with 'time', it is also partly about writing practices, academic identities and lack of motivation.

This book provides a research-based, theorised approach to the skill of writing whilst retaining a link to writing practices and giving immediate yet sustainable solutions to the writing problem.

It supplies new theory and practice on:

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• socializing writing-in-progress and writing with others

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• exploring the alternation of conscious and unconscious, internal and external processes in academic writing whilst in a social grouping

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• Applying social processes in the writing process

Using case studies and vignettes of writing in social spaces to illustrate the theory in practice, This book is a valuable resource for academics, scholars, professionals and practitioners, as well as researchers at all stages of their career, and in all disciplines.

Chapter 1

Socialising writing

Writing as a social act

This chapter lays out some of the ideas I want to develop in this book, defining some of the terms I will use in this discussion. The aim is to make the concept of social writing accessible to academics, researchers, professionals and practitioners in different fields and disciplines.

Key messages

• Seeing writing as a social act means analysing the role of audiences, readers, peers, colleagues, teachers, managers and others in our writing, acknowledging their influences on our writing and understanding how we might manage or negotiate those influences.

• Making writing a social act involves writing activities that create regular planned and spontaneous interactions with some of these people.

• These conversations and relationships can be embedded in the writing process.

This book builds on a series of investigations in which I gradually became aware of the social component of writing. These studies showed how this social component – ‘social’ in many different senses, including social support, talking about writing, sharing plans and achievements – came to be the focus on my research and my writing.

In the first of these studies, I simply wanted to define the required skills and strategies, but I found that social support for writing was very important too. At that time I had developed a six-month writing workshop for developing skills and strategies and began to explore the extent to which people continued to use them after the workshop was over. What I discovered was that they could find no time at all for writing in their workplaces (Murray 2012a; Murray and Newton 2008).

My next study investigated what was stopping writers using strategies they knew would help them to make time for writing. I discovered that the problem, for some, was ambivalence towards scholarly writing: those who did not value journal article publication privileged other tasks and/or other types of writing, although many did not describe this as an active process. They felt they had been forced out of the scholarly writing ‘game’ (Murray 2007a).

I then investigated writing retreats – one way of directly addressing the need to create time for writing was by going off-campus and having dedicated time to write. I found that academics and professionals could privilege their writing at retreats, but that a retreat’s impact was not always sustained, as once they returned to their workplaces they reverted to previous habits and allowed other demands to take up all their time – though that is not always how it was expressed. Again, a strong sense of lack of agency came through in interviews in this study (Murray and Cunningham 2011; Murray and Newton 2009).

The role of social writing was confirmed by a study using containment theory to explain that writing retreats work by containing writing-related anxiety, making writing the primary task and preventing anti-task behaviour (MacLeod et al. 2012). The leadership function in such social groupings was explored in further analysis – groups require structure and leadership and the collective, tacit or explicit agreement to work with that structure and leadership (Murray et al. 2012). However, it was still not clear whether they transferred these benefits to their workplaces to solve that problem.

The ongoing challenge of ‘not having time to write’ required a new intervention, one that could be used in academic and professional workplaces. I developed a behaviour change strategy using motivational interviewing to help writers identify discrepancies between their writing goals and their behaviours. The ‘writing meeting’ that I developed enabled them to align their values with external demands and provided social support as part of this process. These meetings helped writers to manage competing tasks in order to find time for writing (Murray and Thow forthcoming).

The persistent challenge of competing tasks impinging on writing was the focus of a study of ‘disengagement’, a component of highly productive academic writers’ time management strategy (Mayrath 2008). This study showed that academics and researchers felt they had to disengage from all other tasks in order to engage with writing. They said that physical, cognitive and social disengagement from other tasks was needed in order to engage with writing. I created a model for engaging with writing in order to show the role played by social writing activities and relationships in creating, and protecting, dedicated writing time (Murray 2013a).

More recently I found that it is possible, after all, to transfer strategies learned at structured writing retreats to other environments, including academic and professional workplaces, by forming writing micro-groups. This study offers a solution to the ‘time’ problem: these micro-groups write in many timeslots and spaces, but always with people who buy into the social writing model. While writing with others is not for everyone, it can solve the problem of ‘not having time to write’ (Murray 2014).

Talking about writing

The common fixation on finding writing time relates to the invisibility of the act of writing. Where can we see people writing? How often do we see people writing books and articles in offices and departments? Do we hear people talking about writing? Is writing time in our workloads? Are writing-only spaces provided in our workplaces? In this context, we must construct our own writing time and space, and meeting regularly to talk about writing is part of this process.

Talking about writing can be developmental. Writers can rehearse their arguments, but they can also review their practices and construct new ones. However, I wrote this book because so many people tell me that constructing their own writing practices is not straightforward, though they know that they are supposed to find it straightforward.

I want to document the struggles that many bright, enthusiastic, hardworking people have with writing. I want to report on activities that people tell me make writing more manageable. This will include making sense of the struggles – exactly what are the difficulties? – but, more importantly, I will outline ways we have developed to make writing more enjoyable. There isn’t much talk of ‘joy’ or ‘pleasure’ or even satisfaction when people start to talk about writing. Instead, there is plenty of anxiety, guilt, fear, self-censorship, anger and frustration.

Yes, they do want to ‘just get on with it’, but there are too many competing tasks, all laid down in workload allocations, often in specific numbers of hours. However, the act of writing is generally not included in workloads, which means that there is no allocated, dedicated writing time, and there are no deadlines for writing. This means that writing goes is not prioritised, since, naturally, professionally and quite rightly, we do the tasks that have deadlines before tasks without deadlines.

This book is not about diagnosing writing hang-ups. It is not about developing a therapeutic process. Nor is it about yet another way of monitoring writing. In the context of research assessment, many of us feel that collaboration, generosity and good will – so important for research – are not fostered. For many, research assessment is decimating nurturing processes. This is why social writing is so important at this time. The social writing processes that I have developed and used over the past twenty years place people on an equal footing. These social writing spaces generate good will, generosity and sharing. They initiate research dialogues and collaborations. This can be an antidote to the competitive, managerialist, capitalist discourse that purports to foster collaboration but is experienced as competition.

Developing writing relationships

As people write in groups, they begin to develop relationships around writing. They develop relatedness around writing. This sustains a new discipline and pacing for writing. This builds coherence around the act of writing. For example, the following extract from an email, from someone who was kind enough to give me feedback on the draft of a chapter, actually tracks my own evolving argument: yes, social writing practices work, but only if there is a commitment to these practices. We need to see our writing, therefore, not just as a form of active participation in a collective of one kind or another but as an expression of our commitment to writing. This means committing to the social performance of writing and experiencing the benefits that this brings to our writing, in terms of productivity and pleasure. It is not just that we ‘do’ social writing, but that we are social writers.

Why the long quotation? Because this type of material sheds light on what people do and what they think about what they do when they are trying to write. It also sheds light on the social writing model in practice, with suggestions on why and when it might work and fail.

This individual is one of those who has attended a writing group for many years, has facilitated writing groups, attended writing retreats and organised mini-retreats for colleagues. These experiences give this person a different perspective from those who have never done their writing this way, but these points are all the more valuable for that.

There are some people in my department tasked with developing research culture … An opt-in informal mentoring system started, and other things. One of those things was a ‘writing circle’, and a colleague and I facilitated it. We set a schedule (which, instead of every Wednesday afternoon was those Wednesdays that didn’t compete with the departmental research seminar series – and we made this explicit). We provided a nice snacky treat and a space (a room, the same room every time … [in] our building). We made sure that one or both of us was there every time. I think as many as 9 people said they would be interested in being part of this, which is why we went to the effort of putting it together.

I think a total of 3 people (in addition to both of us) attended the session – a total of something like 8–10 scheduled writing sessions. One person went once, and another attended twice. That’s it.

We also sent out reminders the day before, so people remembered it was happening. A few people emailed early on saying they couldn’t make that particular session, for whatever reason. But even that stopped midway through.

My gut feeling about all of this is this: people have to commit, and they have to hold up their end. If it’s impersonal – an email that goes round inviting folk – then it’s too easy to abandon the plan when tired, fed up, feeling pressure from other demands or whatever.

However, over that same time period, the colleague I was organising this with and I had scheduled other writing sessions in our diaries for just the two of us, and we managed to do most of those. Also, another colleague and I scheduled a couple of sessions that fit our respective diaries, and, again, we managed to do most of them – not all, mind you, but most.

I think the experience of doing retreat is an important component, but also there has to be a commitment part – that by not turning up (or by cancelling), you’re letting that other person down (or at least, having a less positive impact on them than if you hadn’t cancelled). I think pairs or groups can informally come together and make this happen … But when it becomes a formal, institutional thing, it’s too easy to opt out, which is why I think we had such a poor turn out. So … I would even emphasise the relational bit further.

Should we read this as a reminder of the potential risks of formalising social processes? Or should we interpret it as a reminder that there is no one way of writing that will suit everyone? Or should we, as suggested, ‘emphasise the relational bit further’? Is it really about the importance of not only collective activity but also collective commitment? Will this relational, social model only work for some people? Will it be rejected by others/many/most? How can we know? Will fear of rejection, or fear of failing in setting up a writing group, for example, put some people off even trying to do social writing?

I think the valuable point that my colleague’s email will help me to make here is that social writing is not just about the individual – there must be relationships – writing-oriented relationships – for it to work. Otherwise, we will only have the individualist model. We can understand why that individualist model is so powerful: because we are assessed as writers as individuals, and the dominant conceptualisation of writing is still that it is a solitary act, the work of an individual mind. Even in disciplines where research is done and published by groups, there will still be individualised assessments of performance.

The social writing model works both for and against this model: for, in the sense that we are writing, we are producing written outputs and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Series editors’ introduction
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: making writing relational
• 1 Socialising writing
• 2 Becoming a writer
• 3 Becoming rhetorical
• 4 Skill
• 5 Structure
• 6 Productivity
• 7 Disengagement
• 8 Containment
• 9 Leadership
• 10 A framework for social writing
• Conclusion: concept + experience
• Appendix: programmes and templates
• Bibliography
• Index