I have tried writing groups twice now. The first time was during my last year of PhD. It was a self-organized “support group” among graduate students. It did not go well for me, unfortunately. Things were hectic and I did not have an explicit achievable goal for each week other than “I want to finish my dissertation!” Regardless, now as a postdoc, I thought I should have a much better grip on goal setting and expectations (whether this statment is true or not is another topic for some other time…). Therefore, when the grad school here at IA State suggested a postdoc writing group, I jumped at it.
Several things took me by surprise and my rants begin:
- The first session of writing group was supposed to be a set-up session, where people introduce themselves, form groups for their disciplines, decide on when to meet and how frequent the meet-up should be. At least that was what I thought. Instead, we spent an hour talking about how to critique papers. This was a huge surprise to me because I would think this is a skill that every PhD should have acquired during their graduate school years. I had to critique a paper as part of my qualifying exam during my first year of PhD. As a postdoc, I was very confused why we had to spend an hour on this subject.
- Different people have different expections for a writing group. Of course! I totally respect/expect that. Therefore, it is important to set that expectation straight during the first couple of meetings. I use writing group as a “support group,” also know as “judge me when I did not meet my goal group.” Many others use writing group for critiquing papers/grants, etc. I am willing to carve out time for whoever needs his/her work to be critiqued. So give me something and let’s stop talking about what you are trying to do or wanting to do but haven’t done. I am sorry, but it does not worth an hour of my life to talk about how busy we all are and what needs to be done but have not have time to get to it. Afterall, it is a writing group. I would very rather write for an hour.
- It is the 21st century and everyone knows how to use an email. As part of the writing group, meet-ups are like checkins to see if people met their goals. As a postdoc, schedule shifts all the time. Sometimes, it is just unrealistic to physically meet. I was for email checkin from the very beginning. I could state what I have done, what I have not done and what I would like to do before the next checkin. This would be great for people who work far away from the main campus as well. However, people are not willing to do digital checkin for some reason (beyond me…).
Maybe I am too opinionated and have an distinct goal that drove the other group members to limbo. As a conclusion, I believe writing group is not for me. I might as well form my own writing group and judge myself in the mirror everyday.