How do I Become a Better Writer?

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Ask Five. My name is Monica Molinero, and I am your host, and today I'm joined by Elizabeth. Elizabeth, do you mind introducing yourself to our audience? Sure. Uh I my name is Elizabeth Horniak Bell. I'm a third year PhD student at the Institute for Health Sciences Education at McGill.

I am trained also as an occupational therapist. I've practiced for over thirty years, mainly in pediatrics. Amazing. Thank you so much for joining me today. You're very welcome. I'm wondering if you can introduce the question that our five had to answer. Sure. The question that we asked our participants today is: how do I become a better writer? Very important question. Let's see what our five had to say. So today I'm joined by

Mariam Wagner. I'm from the Institute of Health Sciences Education at McGill University. I'm an associate professor there and I'm also the co-associate director of graduate programs. Beth Cummings. I'm an associate member of the Institute of Health Sciences Education and an associate professor in general internal medicine in the Department of Medicine. Carlos Gómez Garibello. I'm an associate professor at the Institute of Health Sciences Education at McGill University.

I also are an associate member for the Department of Surgery and the Assessment Lead for Postgraduate Medical Education, all of those affiliations at McGill University. I am a an occupational therapist by clinical background, so that's many, many, many years ago.

But I am now an associate professor in the School of Physical and Occupational Therapy at McGill University. I also hold an appointment at the Institute of Health Sciences Education in the same faculty of medicine and health sciences at McGill. And I am also a researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Uh Research in Rehabilitation, so one of the largest rehab research centers. in the country. Um, yeah, I think that's that's who I am.

Hi, I'm Darusha Nadu. I'm a clinical psychologist by training, but currently I'm Canada Research Chair in Equity and Social Justice in Global Medical Education at the University of Ottawa. Um and I'm a South African.

So Miriam, on the theme of writing, how do I become a better writer? I think you have to recognize that becoming a better writer is a lifelong process. Um, that's number one. Second of all, I think it's really important to read. Read a lot. And that doesn't mean you won't only have to sit down and read, um, you know, peer reviewed publications and you know, high quality journals, but it's about reading anything and everything. Magazines are good, websites are good.

Fiction is good, nonfiction is good, pop fiction, anything that you like. Reading is really important. That's number one. Second of all, um, practice providing feedback to other people. One of the things that helped me understand writing quite a lot was to work as um

A peer mentor in a in a in a writing center. I did that for five years during grad school, where I would receive you know, papers, dissertations from everything from, you know, things that I'd never heard of before to things that I was really familiar with, and that practice of Trying to provide constructive feedback to someone else, thinking about how can this person improve their writing really helps you understand how to become a better writer.

And it's about knowing your audience. Who are you speaking to? At the end of the day, you're telling a story. So how you construct that story. Um it's it's it's up to you, but you know, it's about having a beginning, a middle and an end, and um doing that as m c cleanly, as clearly as you possibly can. How do you get over writer's block?

To be a hundred percent honest, it's really hard for me to distinguish between writer's block and procrastination. So perhaps a better question would be, how do you get over procrastination? Um, I recognize a long time ago that I work very well with deadlines. And so I think it's for me personally, it's about finding someone to whom I need to be accountable. So whether that's a colleague, whether that's a team of people, whether it's

I don't know, a student, whomever it is. Um, for me it's about accountability. And I think that that's um there's no universal or generalizable answer to that question. I think we're all different. we all have different things that motivate us and it's about finding what motivates you and what motivates you to write. Um and I think and that can be chocolate as well. Like it's it's whatever um prompts you to to go over that that it's

I wanna talk about the procrastination piece a little bit more. Okay. And not necessarily just about your procrastination, but I know that for me when I'm procrastinating on a piece of writing, it's usually because I'm scared to get started.

And that's where the procrastination starts. Once I'm in the midst, once I have some words down on the paper, for me it's much easier to then pick it back up and try to get more words on the paper. But when it comes to actually getting started, I feel like the procrastination is almost associated with a fear in some way where or an anxiety where it's like,

I don't know if I can do this. What happens if I sit down and nothing happens? And so I'm wondering if for you in your experience, if it is kind of like about getting started or is it just about getting the thing done? I think for me it's simply because it's so difficult. I equate writing with thinking. To me they're they're almost inseparable because as I write, I come up with new ideas. Those new ideas force me to go back and revise

What I've already written. And it's such a grueling, arduous, exhausting process, which is what prompts me to procrastinate. Because So many other things are easier to do. It's easier to answer emails. It's easier to have a meeting with a student. It's it's just about anything is easier than writing because for me it's so intertwined with thinking. Um and that's actually what makes it so phenomenal and awesome and amazing, but but for me that's the root of the procrastination. And I think um

It's really important to identify what that root is. So if for you it's fear, that's perfectly legitimate and makes perfect sense to me. But I think half the battle is knowing what is the cause of your procrastination, because that's then how you can address it.

I do have one other question about writing specifically, and that's about feedback on your writing. So you said much earlier that you can't take feedback on your writing personally. And I was wondering if you can talk to me about that a little bit. So I love feedback. I love it as a construct. I love it as an action. I love to teach it. I love to think about it. And I think that feedback is something that

we all as a society are afraid of regardless of whether it's in an academic context or, you know, any other context. Like how do I look today, right? Like and if someone says, Well, I wouldn't wear that shirt What do you mean? Why why don't you like it? Is it the color? Is it how it fits? Did I gain weight? You know, all of those fun things.

But ultimately I think we always need to remember that feedback is not personal. It's not about you as a person. The hopefully the person, people who are delivering feedback to you. are doing it from a place where they want you to improve your work where because they want you to advance. They want you to meet your goals.

They want to help you achieve your goals through the feedback. So the more you remember that the feedback is not personal, it's not about your aptitude or ability or competencies, but it's a really powerful mechanism for you to improve. then it's no longer like a hit to your self confidence, but a way for you to become even better than you were before. So Beth, how do I become a better writer?

Oh practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. Don't be afraid to write it and throw it out and write it and throw it out. But I would encourage you to not throw it out and save it under a new file name. Or like a scrap folder or something like that. In a sense,'cause sometimes the idea that you put down the first time that you want to throw out actually becomes the idea you want to get across and you just didn't write it.

the right way and then you get so focused on the writing you forget the idea. Um so it's really good to keep the drafts and It's handy that it's not actual paper that g gets crumpled up and thrown in a bin now and it's just a virtual folder on the desktop, um or laptop. But I think Um, one part is just start and write. The other is write with different people if you can and be on different teams.

Um obviously I think reading helps with writing. The more manuscripts you've read of different types and and ideally in the journals you want to publish in, the more you get a sense of um style and things that that matter. Um Another thing that really helps with writing, I think, um, which I just said in a in a different way, go back to your initial research proposal that you submitted to uh ethics for approval.

uh or to the granting agency or to peer review or wherever you've already submitted um because the paper should be in there.

And all you should need to do pretty much is fill in the results and make it sound better. But if you've done that really well, you already have your story for the manuscript. And when it comes to writing the the proposal for the first time, I think you have to think a bit about what's the idea I want to communicate to these people and how do I take that new idea in the framework of the last grant proposal I submitted or the last

um ethics submission that I did so that I already have a bit of a framework for what I want to say and I'm not spending time struggling over the structure of the document and I'm more focused on the the thoughts that I want to put in in the first place. Um And I think to me the last part of it is take all feedback eagerly. um when you're writing. Take the feedback even when you're working with three people and one person says,

take out this sentence, I don't like it, and then the next person rewrites in the sentence and then the person after s adds in the comments, Well, the sentence could stay, or you could actually consider adding in this word. And like in the end you kinda like, I don't know. Um but I think that all of that's really important. And I think all that's really important'cause it really makes you focus on what you want to say.

And why is there disagreement over this thing? Why do we both want it in and out at the same time, even though we know what we're trying to do? So a follow up on that then. Writer's block. Can you tell me a little bit about your experience with it? How you get past it if you do experience writer's block? How do you deal with it when you come across? I don't think I've had right like fear of the blank page kind of writer's block. I don't think I've really had it because

I just don't start with a blank page. Like I never start with a blank page. I always start writing from something, whether it's um a pr a previous ethics application, as I as I mentioned, if I'm if it's ethics, or whether I input into my draft of the manuscript to start off. the ethics application or grant application, because that takes away the fear of writing the wrong sentence first.

I think um so I kinda trick myself into never having a blank page so then I don't have fear of the blank page. Um and when I get stuck, I just kinda take a step back and I think about why I'm stuck. And what I'm actually stuck about. Am I stuck about what I want to say or am I stuck about how I wanna say it? Because those are two really different problems.

And if I'm stuck about how I wanna say it, then sometimes the solution is a conversation with different people about if I say this, what does that mean to you? Do you understand what I'm talking about? Would that speak to you? Well, that expressed clearly the idea that I have.

Um and if I'm not sure about what I wanna say, then I have to think about why don't I know what I wanna say? Is it because the results aren't clear, or is it because I haven't decided what story I wanna tell about these results, or I'm not clear about what audience I'm writing for? So I sort of try to to boil it down to w w what is the problem, why am I stuck and um what are the potential then solutions to the different types of stuck um that I can be when ready.

So Carlos. How do I become a better writer? Oh my god. Do you you don't have the answer for me? No. Am I supposed to? I don't consider myself a good writer. Oh, it's so difficult. I mean I think that there are different things that I have learned in my life, right? The first one is that it requires a certain degree of Um It's a difficult question. But because I think that

Yeah, I'm gonna change my answer because I think it depends on each person, right? I think that there are some individuals like for example Stephen King, the author, like although this he's like a prolific writer. And I think that the guy what he does is like to have like an schedule from

I don't know, six AM to n ten AM to write every single day, like whatever, right? And I think that it was similar to, for example, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, like another writer in like a Nobel Prize winner from Colombia. And the guy had like the discipline to write like in the morning, so in the afternoon, whatever, so all the time, right?

for a for some people it works that way, right? So you s have like the I don't know, I have allocate and I know people who have allocated like say Tuesdays mornings to write and you write and it's your discipline and it's part of your kind of your mental um uh scheme to to do it in that way, right?

Other people are more about like, uh well, the deadline is coming and you have to do it and and and again that's probably your your your style is probably my style and and I have to cope with that and I I don't have the expectation of having like this Tuesday blog in order to write because I won't do it because it's not natural. It doesn't come natural with my way of thinking, I guess, which is pretty messy. But for other people and what I uh what I do know

Right. And I do know is that there is never that kind of a muse of inspiration, you know, that's the it's really romanticized version of literature that thinks like, oh So the writer was uh wandering about life and then it came from somewhere this mus and he was invaded by this presence and started writing this beautiful poem. No, I don't think that that exists in that in writing. I don't think and and some people have the um

expectation that that to happen. And I'm talking about like academic writing. So it's like no, I I really need to find the right condition for me to write in terms of my mental space and stuff. uh has never happened to me. I think that is more something that helps me to be a better writer is actually again going with an outline. But it works only for me. Other people doesn't work at all is to have like subtitles.

Like when I'm writing, for example, some sort of a document, I start with writing the subtitle, which is an outline, and then I start like enriching each of those subtitles and merging ideas. And reading and going back and and read again. Right. So that's what works me as an strategy to become a better and more clear writer. Obviously, obviously, one another alternative that I really encourage people on how to become better writers is to read a lot.

And I think that that's really important. And again, it's not just for the Stephen Kings of the world or the Gabriel Garcia Márquez of the world or for any writer on the world, but it's for anybody. whose part of their work is to uh is to write like uh academics, right? Or students doing their their PhD or their master's um um programs, right? Is to read. Because by reading, you again are getting like that kind of a rhythm of what are the different things that you have to say, right?

Something that I do, and because more most of my papers are more like based on statistics and numbers, what I prefer to do is to start with the methodology. For example, because again, The worst thing is something that you can have as a writer is that that block of the blank page, right? So you already have that uh where to start, right?

And again, I think that what works for me is to start with something that is more kind of um is easier for me and that easier uh component is the methodology. Because you have already in my again, it's this is more about like quantitative statistics. uh sorry, um methodologies. So I have collected the data, I have analyzed the data. So that's information that already exists. And then I start like writing the methodology. And then I start I go with the results.

And then I start obviously with the introduction, right? But it's and then it's going to see, oh, I'm I found this in the in the results. But uh that's something that I haven't uh addressed in the introduction. So I need to add that to the introduction. So that is how it works for me in one of those papers that is really heavy from a quantitative perspective, right?

But when it comes to more qualitative research, I don't know. I think that I really admire uh qualitative writers like qualitative researchers who write because that is by itself it's amazing what they do. How would you answer this question, Aliki?

Yeah. That is my objective in life, in my professional life. many ways, many ways. First you read, read, read, read, read. You just read. And This thing about academics have no time to read, the moment that we get to a point where we say we can't read anymore, we really need to put up a mirror and say, Why aren't we reading?

So the best one of the best ways. So there's many ways. The first one is to read. The second one is to write. I know cliche, probably everybody tells you, write, write every day if you can, write a paragraph, write every week if you can't every single day. The other good w the other important way to improve your writing is to get feedback. So I love for my close colleagues that I trust that I know are not out to

hurt my feelings, so to speak, to say, whoa, this is a very long sentence, right? Get feedback. So I have these long-winded sentences and I have a colleague who always says to me, what he does is he highlights the text and he puts in the margins. 67-word sentence. And it just essentially tells me. So I love getting feedback from better writers than me, right? But even my students, even my grad students, sometimes they'll say to me, I don't understand your feedback.

And it's because I'm going fast and because it's truncated, but they also deserve that I write clearly for them. So writing often, writing bits and pieces, I think we shoot ourselves in the foot if we say, let's take one full week and just write. You know, write a paragraph every day if you can. Get feedback from people and and you know practice writing, writing papers, writing grants, getting your colleagues. I'm not one to really write in groups. I think it's easier for me to write alone.

Um, but I love writing papers with other co authors and we're not in a rush and we say, Okay, we're right now I'm writing a conceptual paper. It might take two years. I hope not. But we're writing a very difficult conceptual paper that I think is a bit risky in terms of some of the messages. And so one of the ways that I think I can improve my reading is to have diversity in the co-authors. so that I I we can minimize or mitigate.

any messages that might not be unclear, particularly when you're writing conceptual papers. And when you're writing more methodological or empirical papers, Same thing, you know, who's really strong in backgrounds, who's really strong in discussions? And I love that, right? I like to tell my co authors

Oh, you know, Monica, you're my super duper reflexivity qual researcher. You know, look at the pos look at the positionality and go ahead and tear it apart, right? And it's an endearing expression, right? Go ahead, I give you full permission. Um, most people are so kind, so collegial. You know, I don't get it, Aliki. This is not clear. It's a 67-word sentence. So I'm really fortunate because my colleagues give the best feedback. So write, write often, get feedback, practice.

and develop a little bit of a thick skin. It's very difficult to accept feedback on your writing, right? We know that. And so I've learned that I have shortcomings, that I write long sentences. I've also learned that because my mother tongue is Greek, And the first language I learned after that is French. I've learned over the years to understand what that means in terms of my writing, because I think in French and I write in English.

So a little bit of introspection and insight about the writing crack. I know I'm invoking my inner Lorelai Lingard. Lorelai, if you're out there, I listen. Um it's it's not just sit in front of a computer and write. I think you need to you need to be reflexive about what you're good at and what you're not and seek it out. So now I'm just at a point in my career where

I'm older and hopefully a little bit wiser and I have more confidence. I know what I'm not good at and I'll say, Monica, that section. Please go. Tell me what do you think. Is it clear, right? Um I seek it out. Because I want to become a better writer. No ego. No ego. That's it. Those three things.

It sounds so simple when you say it like that, eh? No, it's not. It's years of it's years of experience and turning on that computer and looking at The red, you know, the story I always tell was the story of one of my PhD supervisors. who wrote to me in red bold comments in the discussion of my dissertation, you are over egging the pudding. I had to go back and look at it and I say, okay, it's a little bit You know, it's a little bit graphic, I can think about it, but

First of all, I remember being so hurt. You know, he really thinks I'm overdoing this, right? So they're because writing isn't just about the words. You're conveying a message. So you're being evaluated at on two things. The clarity, the content, you're understanding. which is a much harder pill to swallow than, well, your sentence is too long. Cut it in in half, right? And so that's why feedback is so important. And writing is a very personal thing. So I understand when grad students tell us

I cried for three hours. N mine I hope not. I I I really go out of my way to try to be constructive. But writing is a very personal thing. Right. And it's I prefer to be told, well, I don't think this idea has legs in terms of the next project. than to be told your your writing is unclear, right? It's a very personal thing. Two levels, understanding and then the actual writing and the communication. You see why it's

It hurts us so much when we get feedback. So I think there are ways to make it better. It takes time. It takes time. So Terusha, how do I become a better writer? Oh, this one I love. I love it.

So my I always tell people and it might may or may not be true, but one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, that I'm a researcher is that it gives me the opportunity to write. I absolutely love writing. And And because people have asked me that question, I've had to think about it. But for myself, I don't have to think about it. It is something that I. That just comes and that I just do. Um so, and maybe because I I spend a lot of time planning and so.

When people think of writing, they think of it as sitting in front of your keyboard and typing out that structure. But writing is a process and that's what intriguing and delicious and beautiful and colourful and wonderful about it. And if it's not a process, then you're not doing research and you're not changing yourself and you're not changing other people.

I was talking to a colleague the other day about a writing retreat that I went to earlier on when I was changing my career from being a a psychologist to a writer and I sat next to someone who was a four professor and a very good writer and she was on the program because she was a good writer. And I watched her write something, one sentence, and she must have changed that sentence about ten times. And just looking at that loan made me realize why she was a good writer.

Because she was so careful about how she restructured that sentence. And that's stuck in my head. And every time I rewrite a sentence, I don't feel frustrated at myself. I feel so excited. I'm always like, Oh, what what a privilege to be able to think Of what a word will do to someone. So I have lots of notebooks, and this is my writing process. You become a good writer because it's like being an artist again. You have to have the eyes and the ears for it. You have to listen to words.

You have to go around listening to how people speak and what that sounds like and what makes you feel like and how they talk about things and remember it. Everything fits into each other. Um, I have notebooks and I draw visuals and I'm I listen to how people speak and I and I uh make notes in different kinds of ways with stickers and highlighters and I do it on on iPads as well, but that's not my that's not my rough stuff. And the rough stuff is is the good stuff.

So I write a lot. How do you become a good writer? Is it you you you do things graphically and you draw pictures and whatever speaks to you? I also take time out from writing. So I I run and I do crafts. So you have to you have to change your your direction because that gives you the spark in your writing. So you have to go away from your writing. It's essential.

So I find that when I do my long runs, like great ideas come into my head. Or when I'm doing crafting or when it when I'm in a a museum. So you have to move away. You have to do things graphically, you have to move away to something very different. Um so that some uh d ideas come to you. You can record them on your phone or you can I've written them on beach sand, like like written it on the sand in the beach, at the beach.

So you have to do that. You have to speak to other people at different times in the process. You have to collaborate with people that write differently from you and then insist at some point that they actually write what they're saying. Because people have great ideas, but then they don't write. And probably the most important thing, and if you haven't done this already, you need to catch up, is to read. You have to read and

And I find with my kind of work it's not about reading of course you have to read journal articles, but that's for information. I read many novels. I read the voices of people. And it might Actually it's it's the same for everyone, whether you're a scientific researcher, because we're all ultimately doing research about people. So you have to care about what people think and how they are and how they live in the world. So about many years ago I decided I wasn't going to eat.

So I read only very good writers who are difficult to understand, who take you through the lives of people. And I'm lucky that because of my work and it's about the experience of people this writing is very important. So I've just been re-reading again uh Margaret Atwood's um Handmaid's Tale, and it is graphic and prophetic.

and futuristic and and wonderful. Um so Graphically writing down what you need to write, talking to different people, um, doing different things, going way off track, reading, reading, reading for ideas, not for content. What else do I do on my writing? I practice it a lot. I write different things, doing other kinds of writing. So I write poetry and um uh public intellectual pieces and um

writing in global health, psychology, and uh medical education. Psychology's the hardest because psychology is really picky about how they write. So those are the things that I do. Um I think if you speak to different writers, they they write in different ways. I also write differently in different spaces. So I'll use artistic writing in um

in academic spaces. I'll shift things around, like bring different kinds of writing into different spaces. I could talk about this for the whole day, because this is my favorite bit. So Elizabeth, what'd you think?

I really liked what everyone had to contribute because everyone had such a different perspective, but some of it was actually quite similar and they there's some of the insights kind of um they really resonate with me as well and kind of what I've been hearing and experiencing. So what I heard was read. write feedback. Those were my big kind of takeaways. And uh I thought that was great as a PhD student I'm reading quite a bit.

And I was really grateful to hear that it doesn't have to always just be in my field or, you know, it can be with other interests, it can be it could be poetry, it could be something else that speaks to me just to read widely. Um, the writing piece I thought was again something that we're encouraged to do and to to write often.

I thought it was wonderful that people did acknowledge that uh we all come from a different place. So all we need to also think about ourselves and be introspective and reflect on, you know, what works for me as as a writer. Some people need to be scheduled, some people need to get up and walk. And that's what I actually like to do. I like to get up and walk and I like to kind of ri pause and reflect and walk away from the work and then come back to the work and and start afresh.

Sometimes I will even do um like Tarusha said, um, with uh with crafting or like painting or something, that will also help give me some new ideas. So I was actually grateful for that kind of a different unique way of kind of participating in. how to become a better writer. Um in regards to the feedback, I thought again, feedback I think is a crucial thing to have to develop your writing skills. And I heard a variety of

kind of perspectives on how valuable feedback was. And I do agree feedback is valuable. But it is also hard. Some of the participants did say it was hard. And as a as a PhD student, especially coming at fr as a clinician where I didn't do a lot of this kind of writing, I found it's especially difficult to come into um a whole brand new space. and then experience this this feedback and that kinda the red line. And like, wow, you know.

I didn't know what to do with that. And so I had to learn and I had to pause and reflect and think, Okay, I'm here to learn, to develop the skill and yes, it's hard, but you know take it as it is, it's to build me and to build my skill set and to move forward. So I think, you know, all those things, read, write, feedback are really great. And but to also know yourself and generate the insight.

I think there was one area that I could have maybe um offer as another suggestion is that Uh there was this this um suggestion about evaluating or giving feedback to your peers on their writing as well. And I thought sometimes we don't have those networks. Again, as a clinician uh coming in, I didn't know anyone here.

I didn't maybe have as many trusted peer networks. I actually used, you know, for example the Writing Center, going there to be able to get some feedback from um individuals there who could help support my writing. So there are other resources also in the community if you don't feel comfortable, for example, going to maybe, I don't know, a supervisor or a peer you don't know very well. So those are all the op other options as well.

That's a really great last point because I think we often take that for granted. Like most universities or research centers have some sort of resources that are dedicated to writing and they are so underutilized but so helpful when it comes to writing up your dissertation or writing up a paper or

just getting started on like doing a literature review or how to start organizing that kind of information. Like there's so many pieces of advice and different kinds of resources that you can get from those places that

don't get taken advantage of as much as they should. No, exactly. And it gives you different kind of insight from different people. Um some of our speakers also talked about that as is like working with a diverse team. And so when you go to a writing center somewhere different, they also have these

you know, value different perspectives as to, you know, how you can tweak it or to help speak to your audience. That's a great insight. I appreciate you bringing that forward and bringing it to light for this episode that so that everybody could see it. And for everybody else that's been watching, thank you so much for tuning in to Ask Five. We hope to see you in the next episode. Ask 5 was created by Meredith Young, Monica Molinero, and Tamara Carver.

Hosted by Monica Molinero, produced by the Office of EdTech, and financially supported by the Institute of Health Sciences Education and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at McGill University. Thanks for listening.