Helen Sword > Quotes

“For the rest of us—members of that peculiar, prosaic species classified by Pierre Bourdieu as homo academicus9—dwelling poetically could mean gauging the dimensions of our own habits and mindfully inhabiting the rhythms of our writing lives: taking pride in a beautifully crafted sentence, lingering in the hallway for a friendly chat with a colleague, and working with our neighbors to rebuild our academic habitus into a place of possibilities.”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“A PhD student approached me after a writing workshop to recount his tale of woe. “I write these messy, incoherent first drafts,” he lamented. “They’re absolutely awful! Then I have to work on them for hours and hours to bash them into shape. It’s such a frustrating process, and so discouraging. My PhD adviser is a really good writer; she makes it all look so easy. I wish I were more like her.” I didn’t get a chance to interview the student’s supervisor; but if I had, I can guess what she might have told me. Probably something like this: “I write these messy, incoherent first drafts—they’re absolutely awful! Then I have to work on them for hours and hours to bash them into shape. Writing can be a hard and frustrating process, but for the most part, I really enjoy the challenge of honing and polishing my sentences until I get them just right.” Same story, different spin.”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“academic writing is a process of making intelligent choices, not of following rigid rules.”
― Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing

“To be a successful academic, it is not enough merely to have mastered the craft of writing intelligibly. You must also be creative enough to produce original research, persuasive enough to convey the significance of your findings to others, prolific enough to feed the tenure and promotion machine, confident enough to withstand the slings and arrows of peer review, strategic enough to pick your way safely through the treacherous terrain of academic politics, well organized enough to juggle multiple roles and commitments, and persistent enough to keep on writing and publishing no matter what. So how do academics gain this formidable set of skills, if not through formal training?”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“First, lucky people notice and act on chance opportunities in their life, creating strong social networks and holding themselves open to new experiences: I was lucky; I went to a grad school that was very open to risk taking and very open to freedom. That was at McGill back in the 1960s. I think they almost had a culture of risk taking, and my supervisor used to tell me, “Just have a go. It doesn’t matter if they reject it.” (Michael Corballis, Psychology, University of Auckland) Second, they trust their intuition: I’m a big fan of following serendipitous encounters: you leave no stone unturned and follow all kinds of paths even if you don’t really expect much there. Some of them of course don’t pan out well, but occasionally, you really get rewarded. (Ann Blair, History, Harvard University) Third, they persevere in the face of criticism and rejection: When I first started getting published in medicine, I was accused of being fluffy, Mickey Mouse. All kinds of awful criticisms were made of my work and my writing—“This isn’t medical,” “You can’t publish this kind of thing as medical research.” The more I received that criticism, the more absolutely determined I became to overcome it. (Gillie Bolton, freelance writer in literature and medicine, United Kingdom) And fourth, they transform bad luck into good by seeing the positive side of unlucky events: I absolutely subscribe to the notion that any feedback is a blessing. I don’t actually care how negative the feedback is; I just keep thinking, “Gosh, this could only strengthen my paper for the next place I’m going to send it to.” (Shanthi Ameratunga, Population Health, University of Auckland)”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“Productivity, I discovered, is a broad church that tolerates many creeds. Some successful academics write daily, others sporadically; some at home, others at work; some on trains or airplanes or during children’s sports practice, others in distraction-free environments; some on a word processor, others in longhand or using voice-recognition software; some whenever they have a few minutes free, others only when they have cleared hours or days of uninterrupted time. Some map out a detailed topic outline before they start writing; others write to discover what they have to say.”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“First, they employ plenty of concrete nouns and vivid verbs, especially when discussing abstract concepts. Second, they keep nouns and verbs close together, so that readers can easily identify “who’s kicking whom.” Third, they avoid weighing down their sentences with extraneous words and phrases, or “clutter.” Far from eschewing theoretical intricacy or syntactical nuance, stylish academic writers deploy these three core principles in the service of eloquent expression and complex ideas.”
― Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing

“Academics identified by their peers as stylish writers for other reasons—their intelligence, humor, personal voice, or descriptive power—are invariably sticklers for well-crafted prose. Their sentences may vary in length, subject matter, and style; however, their writing is nearly always governed by three key principles that any writer can learn. First, they employ plenty of concrete nouns and vivid verbs, especially when discussing abstract concepts. Second, they keep nouns and verbs close together, so that readers can easily identify “who’s kicking whom.” Third, they avoid weighing down their sentences with extraneous words and phrases, or “clutter.”
― Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing

“To be a successful academic, it is not enough merely to have mastered the craft of writing intelligibly. You must also be creative enough to produce original research, persuasive enough to convey the significance of your findings to others, prolific enough to feed the tenure and promotion machine, confident enough to withstand the slings and arrows of peer review, strategic enough to pick your way safely through the treacherous terrain of academic politics, well organized enough to juggle multiple roles and commitments, and persistent enough to keep on writing and publishing no matter what. So how do academics gain this formidable set of skills, if not through formal training”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“Stylish scholars, my colleagues told me, express complex ideas clearly and precisely; produce elegant, carefully crafted sentences; convey a sense of energy, intellectual commitment, and even passion; engage and hold their readers’ attention; tell a compelling story; avoid jargon, except where specialized terminology is essential to the argument; provide their readers with aesthetic and intellectual pleasure; and write with originality, imagination, and creative flair.”
― Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing

“To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, Phenobarbital,”
― Helen Sword, The Writer's Diet

“Of all the myths surrounding academic writing, the fallacy of effortless productivity is among the most persistent.”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“Perhaps what we need is a radical reconceptualization of time: not as an adversary to be vanquished (a race against time) or a criminal to be tracked down (fugitive time) or an employee to be disciplined (time management) or a commodity to be squandered (wasted time) but as an expansive, fluid entity that will always resist our efforts to contain it. Time can enrich our lives (quality time), transport us to new places and paces (island time), and help us out in moments of need:”
― Helen Sword, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write

“First,” said Charlotte, “I dive at him.” She plunged headfirst toward the fly.… “Next, I wrap him up.” She grabbed the fly, threw a few jets of silk around it, and rolled it over and over, wrapping it so that it couldn’t move.… “Now I knock him out, so he’ll be more comfortable.” She bit the fly. “He can’t feel a thing now.”2 Substitute “reader” for the fly and “academic prose” for the spider’s silk, and you get a fairly accurate picture of how academic writers immobilize their victims.”
― Helen Sword, Stylish Academic Writing