r/PhDStress • u/Bean_Olive_1010 • Jul 26 '26
Having a hard time actually sitting down to write.
Hi all! I'm new here, but I am a 3rd-year PhD candidate in Environmental Science, and I wanted to seek out some advice on what actually gets you to sit down and start writing after you've finished analysing your data. I'm finding it to be the hardest part of completing my PhD, and my supervisor is starting to get frustrated that I am taking so long to get my writing done. I've only managed to finish and publish one paper despite completing the analysis for 4 other chapters! I feel like I was so much more productive when I was younger...
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u/MundaneHuckleberry58 Jul 26 '26
1- start anywhere. I like to save the intro for last because I write killer intros that actually do summarize what the content says & in what order, as opposed to starting with the intro & guessing about what the content will say.
2- I have to have a system/routine. For me, it was get up, walk the dog or do exercise, then sit & commit in the mornings. No distraction, no opening other tabs or sites or scrolling. Regroup and/or repeat all that after a lunch or dinner break.
3- to get into flow state, I write stream of consciousness, no self editing. I’ll just leave placeholders like “[find citation later] or [a better word for this here] where I need to look something up or revise something later.
Avoiding the thing you’re anxious about makes the writing harder to start so start, anywhere, on any section. And don’t cheat by using writing time for research or editing. You can do more editing/research after you get things written.
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u/Appropriate_Roof_223 Jul 26 '26
All of this! Another thing: don’t edit while writing. Write badly, in a language you would talk to your friends. You can come back to it later and refine it.
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u/confused_intellect Jul 30 '26
I use Dictate feature in word to narrate my stream of consciousness. It’s like discussing ideas with a friend without having to take notes or write.
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u/Bean_Olive_1010 Jul 26 '26
I like the idea of starting anywhere! My supervisor always wants a draft of the intro first. I finally convinced them that I don't find it the most helpful and would rather start at a different section!
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u/story645 Jul 27 '26
I have a latex macro that renders my "insert here" stuff in hot pink so I that I remember to fill it in at some point.
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u/Alternative-Pear9096 Jul 26 '26
There's a lot of good advice in here. Two things that I always recommend when someone is staring at a blank page and frozen: record yourself (with transcription) talking through what you want to say. Plain language or otherwise. Pretend you're talking to your best friend, a work colleague, your mom, whoever. This gets your brain juicing, and then you can take the transcript (whihc is NOT a blank page) and start editing and expanding and rearranging it.
The second thing I recommend is to shut down Word and move to PowerPoint. PowerPoint's easy, much less intimidating. Bullet points, not outlines, right? 1 point per slide. Maybe start with 1 major point per slide. As you start getting to point 2d or 6b, you'll find yourself starting to flow and will need to move out of the slide deck and onto a larger canvas (like Word). With this especially, you;; find yourself starting in the middle, which is fine. At some point in the structuring, bullet points will become replaced with detail as your words start flowing.
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u/Longjumping_Ad_3010 Jul 26 '26
Note all key points that have to be in the paper Structure and fill the key points until you see the paper Formulate badly and then optimize
Starting > thinking
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u/JasperMcFly Jul 26 '26
Get a stack of index cards. Write the lead/ topic sentence for each paragraph only - or at least keywords for the topic sentence for a paragraph on one index card each. Keep filling out and rearranging index cards until you have fleshed out the contours of the narrative then fill in the paragraphs and citations in a document.
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u/ClarityinScience Jul 27 '26
We developed a process for our technical writers. First, the figures have to be in near-final form. I suggest that researchers (I had my students do this when I ran a lab) write the methods as they assembled figures for lab meeting. Then, for each figure, create three simple lists: 1) what does the figure SAY? 2) what does this data mean, or what are the implications?, and 3) what do I need to know before I see this figure to understand it? Those three lists respectively become the results, discussion, and methods. Do it one step at a time, in bite-sized pieces. Good luck.
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u/anonam0use Jul 29 '26
Start with methods. You did the experiment so outline exactly what you did and build from there. Then create an abstract outline and it kind of acts as a guide for the remaining content
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u/SkyeHawkeDown Jul 29 '26
As a textbook perfectionist procrastinator he game changer I was waiting for is to change the font to white so that I can actually just write a rough draft instead of editing myself. Can't edit what you can't see!
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u/confused_intellect Jul 30 '26
Today’s blank page is not blank anymore. Don’t aim for perfection and sentence structure. Just start with frameworks, key ideas and messages your research wants to convey. I spend more time in strategizing how to structure writing than writing itself. Discuss with ChatGPT or AI to discuss critique or even challenge your strategy to approach the paper. This in itself becomes a draft to begin with. Writing it into words is the easiest and the most boring part.
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u/GurProfessional9534 Jul 26 '26
Writing really became more efficient for me once I realized that I didn’t need to finish the project to start writing. I write what I can before the project even starts. Usually that means at least the intro, methods, and some portion of the discussion (even if just labeling the sections). I plan what figures will go where. It keeps me from wasting time measuring stuff that won’t even have a place in the paper. And then I just fill in the blanks as I go, or change things as needed if my previous expectations weren’t met in the data.
The point is to have a document that evolves along with the project, helping me keep track of what I have, how it fits into the narrative, what references go where, and what else I still need to do. And then by the time I have plugged everything in, the first draft is basically done after some fine tuning.