writing for acceptance conceptual skills for writing abstracts, papers, presentations

Daniel Reeders

Senior Project Worker

Multicultural Health & Support Service

Centre for Culture, Ethnicity & Health

ph 03 9432 9700 | danielr@ceh.org.au

Warm-up

Question –

How does writing make you feel?

• Take one minute to think of five words.

Richard Schiff as Toby Ziegler Helen Garner as herself

Two of my favourite writers (one of them real)

The idea of career also ignores something that my working life has taught me: you write a novel, and you think, good, right, now I know how to write a novel. wrong. You found out how to write that novel; but what you nutted out for that one is not going to help you write the next. Each new bout of work demands a new approach. You have to teach yourself everything afresh, every single time, and then when you’ve learnt that, you have to teach yourself a whole lot more.

Helen Garner, “On Turning Fifty” (1992)

TOBY

This is incredibly good, Will. "Never shrinking from the world's..." "...a

fierce belief in what we can achieve together." I used to write like this. It

was ten months ago. I don't understand what's going on. I really don't.

I've had slumps before. Everybody does, but this is different. I'm sorry,

we don't know each other, but there aren't that many people I can talk

to about it. I don't understand what's happening. There's no blood going

to it. I never had to locate it before. I don't even know where to look. I'm

the President's voice and I don't want it to sound like this. And there's

an incredible history to second inaugurals. "Fear itself," Lincoln... I

really thought I was on my way to being one of those guys. I thought I

was close. Now I'm just writing for my life and you can't serve the

President that way. But if I didn't write... I can't serve him at all.

Aaron Sorkin, “Arctic Radar”, The West Wing (Season 4, Episode 10, 2002)

Develop a writing brief

Audience Purpose

Tone Style

A note about purposes

Generic Purposes• Meeting abstract submission requirements• Making your abstract stand out from the crowd• Demonstrating novelty and analysis

Tacit Purposes• Impressing my boss and sector colleagues • Making my work sound important and valid• Proving I can speak in professional dialect

Conceptual process

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/About-Design/managingdesign/The-Study-of-the-Design-Process/

Design Council (UK) 2005“Double Diamond” model of the divergent and convergent phases of the design process

content craft

problem solutions

Four common problems

1. Don’t know where to start

2. Too little material (writing stalls)

3. Too much material (writing chokes)

4. Abstract has no argument

Discovery

idearelevantmaterial

brai

nsto

rm t

o ex

pand

Brainstorming

Activity –

• Take ten minutes as a small group to write down every idea you can think of about the topic provided

• Only write 1-2 words for each item

• Don’t edit/judge/criticise – think inclusively to expand the scope

Themes

• Themes are broad groups of related ideas• The relationship between themes (and items

within themes) is the focus of your analysis• The order in which you introduce themes and

explain the relationships is your structure• It’s also a story. Is it straightforward? Can you

tell the story in the time and space available?• Use those two questions to select your material

– leaving out what’s too complicated or not really needed to make the story clear.

Definition

themes angle

1

2

1

Choosing an angle

• The angle is the overall direction or slant of the piece – and it’s usually what makes it intriguing, and always what makes it intelligible.

• Abstracts, reports, presentations, posters, etc are persuasive – you need to make an argument and provide supporting material.

• The angle is your central argument or the single thing of which you want to convince your audience members.

Example angles

HIV & Sexual Health Connect Line• Conference: International Congress on AIDS in

the Asia-Pacific• Angle: SCALING DOWN

Positive Travel Guide• Conference: Australian Society for HIV

Medicine (ASHM)• Angle: USER-CENTRED DESIGN

Selecting material

Aim to produce 2-3 groups of related ideas• Use different coloured pens or highlighters• Number or code the items with acronyms• Think about possible angles (plural)• Card sort / Post-It Notes

Thinking about how the ideas are related, come up with a name for the group – their theme.

When choosing which items to include, or how much of the story you can tell, ask does this support – or at least relate to – my angle?

Selection

Activity (10 mins) – Grouping and naming related itemsOn your brainstorm sheet, come up with

two themes and use different textas to highlight the items belonging to each.

Come up with a name for the two groups that summarises (roughly) what they have in common.

Ordering

Activity (10 mins) – Outline a logical order for your itemsChoose which theme you would cover firstThen, number the items in the order it

would make sense to present them.Think about how (whether) an item leads

logically to the next item in your outlineThere is no ‘right answer’.

Writing

• You get from one item to another, following the order and selection of items in your outline.

• Connecting words make the transition from one point to another at the same time as they indicate how the two items are related.

• Example: “At the same time as” indicates a relationship of coincidence and dual function.

The best writing advice anyone ever gave me:• DON’T EDIT AS YOU WRITE.

Editing

• Ideally, leave enough time to get someone trustworthy and non-hostile to edit for you

• Remember Audience/Purpose/Tone/Style and the Angle, then ask if the wording fits these.

• Check if it makes sense and indicate if the connections need to be clearer or reworked.

• Condense, condense, condense – cut out repetitive or fluffy language, use big words where they can replace a sentence fragment.

• Check the abstract meets any submission requirements for the conference.

Writing process

draft up edit down

Overall

draft up edit downbrainstorm selection

content craft

Conclusion

• You need to practice this approach• It becomes second nature very quickly• It’s rapid and extremely versatile• You get – for free – a method for preparing

speeches, speaking up in meetings, writing long documents, even analysing data.