This page organises my posts about the writing process
Reading, note-taking and planning
Writing begins with reading and note-taking. And some planning.
- Mindsystems Amode V2 for project management
- a big writing project such as a PhD dissertation requires some serious planning
- [UPDATE] since then I’ve also started using RationalPlan, which I find faster to plan with
- Organising your library with Story Turbo
- organising a physical library of books to create a reading plan
- Hierarchical vs. wiki-based systems for notes
- the advantages of a wiki-based note-taking system over hierarchical tree-based folder and note systems
- ConnectedText template for reading notes
- Updated ConnectedText template for reading notes
- initial tips for getting started with a wiki-based database for reading notes
- Analytical process flow for reading notes in ConnectedText
- with a view towards outlining and writing-up
- Docking panes in ConnectedText
- an example of organising the CT workspace for a reading notes database
Qualitative data analysis
For academic writing in the humanities and social sciences, you will probably need to analyse your qualitative data and reading notes.
- ConnectedText tutorials
- see Series 1 of my tutorials on how to use CT for qualitative data analysis
- Abstraction through extraction
- how to draw conclusions from analysis and start transitioning to an outline
Outlining
Outlining encompasses a wide variety of activities, from free-style brainstorming to project planning, from rigorous conceptual development to the final planning of a piece of writing. It is not a linear process but an iterative and recursive process with many false starts and dead ends. It is an experimental process, all the way to writing the final draft.
- Modelling process workflow for thesis writing
- developing a process workflow for the writing project
- Outlining in ConnectedText (Steve Zeoli’s post with my comments)
- the many ways of outlining in ConnectedText
- Academic writer’s block cure
- using concept mapping to consolidate multiple outlines and develop concepts and an overall outline to break the writer’s block
- Recursive outlining and writing
- using reverse outlining to keep track of the changing implicit outline in the developing draft, as part of a recursive process
Writing up
By this I mean specifically the very final stage of actual draft writing. But there isn’t a sharp divide between outlining and writing (see Recursive outlining and writing for a description of the transition).
- Developing a final outline
- why is this link not under the previous heading? Because sometime when you think you are writing-up, it turns out you’re still just outlining…
- Academic writing workflow with ConnectedText, Freeplane, and Outline 4D
- integrating the note-taking, analysis, evaluation, synthesis, outlining and writing-up process
- Outline 4D for drafting and reverse outlining
- using Outline 4D for writing the first draft
- Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 and ConnectedText
- use dictation software when it speeds things up (it doesn’t always)
Overview of the writing process
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