STALLING OUT
“Writer’s Block” is basically a convenient excuse that comes up whenever someone is struggling to make a desirable amount of progress on a written project. Writer’s Block is, in an academic sense, a fiction. It is a meaningless excuse that ignores the reality of academic writing.
Overview:
It is likely that during the course of a writing project, a writer will get frustrated or tired. This happens with almost any job or task. However, professional cab drivers don’t get to complain about ‘navigation block’ and lawyers rarely talk about ‘cross-examination’ block. The reason is obvious—because the requirements of a job are requirements. This is why few professional writers actually talk about writer’s block as a real thing.
Typically, stalling out happens in one part of the process. For example, someone working on a feasibility study might struggle to explain the technical aspects of a project. Likewise, a lawyer might struggle to think up the perfect phrasing for a particular argument. However, in such cases the professional simply works around this difficulty.
Academic writing has the same potential for ‘working around’ the supposed inability to write.
Application:
College students are prone to accept writer’s block as a reality because it is convenient and because they do not know any better. However, academic writing is way too complex of a task for the entirety of it to suffer at one time.
Consider when a student complains that ‘I don’t know what else to write.’ Even if this is true, so what? The student could still revise or edit what is already written. The student could work on formatting or constructing the works cited page. Finally, the student could actually go out and read more about the subject, thereby learning more about the topic and finding ‘what else’ there is to write!
What to Avoid:
Don’t believe in writer’s block. On a pragmatic level, it is almost always possible to work on some part of the paper (getting closer to one of the writer’s goals, namely being done with the project). On an educational level, student writers need to develop the ability to focus on a problem and overcome it. Finally, professional workplaces to not accept the notion of ‘worker’s block,’ and students need to develop more real-world attitudes.
“Writer’s Block” is basically a convenient excuse that comes up whenever someone is struggling to make a desirable amount of progress on a written project. Writer’s Block is, in an academic sense, a fiction. It is a meaningless excuse that ignores the reality of academic writing.
Overview:
It is likely that during the course of a writing project, a writer will get frustrated or tired. This happens with almost any job or task. However, professional cab drivers don’t get to complain about ‘navigation block’ and lawyers rarely talk about ‘cross-examination’ block. The reason is obvious—because the requirements of a job are requirements. This is why few professional writers actually talk about writer’s block as a real thing.
Typically, stalling out happens in one part of the process. For example, someone working on a feasibility study might struggle to explain the technical aspects of a project. Likewise, a lawyer might struggle to think up the perfect phrasing for a particular argument. However, in such cases the professional simply works around this difficulty.
Academic writing has the same potential for ‘working around’ the supposed inability to write.
Application:
College students are prone to accept writer’s block as a reality because it is convenient and because they do not know any better. However, academic writing is way too complex of a task for the entirety of it to suffer at one time.
Consider when a student complains that ‘I don’t know what else to write.’ Even if this is true, so what? The student could still revise or edit what is already written. The student could work on formatting or constructing the works cited page. Finally, the student could actually go out and read more about the subject, thereby learning more about the topic and finding ‘what else’ there is to write!
What to Avoid:
Don’t believe in writer’s block. On a pragmatic level, it is almost always possible to work on some part of the paper (getting closer to one of the writer’s goals, namely being done with the project). On an educational level, student writers need to develop the ability to focus on a problem and overcome it. Finally, professional workplaces to not accept the notion of ‘worker’s block,’ and students need to develop more real-world attitudes.
