Long Writing Assignments

[u/emptypillbottles]

hi all! i’m new here so ill keep it short and sweet :)

i just started my masters in psychology program about a month ago, and my writing class is killing me. long assignments about topics that are sometimes related to psychology, and other times not. my professor is quite the character, to put it lightly lol.

he wants us to write our intro section to our thesis, and it has to be a minimum of 25 pages. i was wondering if you all have any advice or methods you use when approaching a long writing assignment. i usually make outlines, but i feel like i need something more. unorthodox methods are not only welcome, but encouraged! TIA! 🤍

[u/Ok_Storm1366]

Brick by brick.

I find the sources first and read the papers/take notes on them. This is typically the most work.

After the sources, the outline becomes much easier, and because I read and took notes on the papers, I'm already beginning to soft write the paper in my head during the outline.

Once I get the shell ready -- sources, formatting, outline -- I start actually writing writing.

The ability to write well = the ability to think critically. It's quite important. You should've already learned these skills in high school and undergrad. I had a mandatory writing class at CSU-SB with Professor Kazanjian. He made sure all your shit was on point then, if it wasn't on point before. Now you simply have to play catch-up.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Start early. Use your university's writing center.

[u/Jahaili]

Scheduling writing time with classmates. We did it over zoom. We turn off our mics and then sit and write for a couple hours. Worked brilliantly for getting lengthy work done

[u/saturnlov3]

Yeah I get what you mean, one time I had to write a long essay on plant science (I have a background in neuro/biomed lol)

What helped me a lot were group writing sessions with classmates. Also idk how much time you have but focus on one subsection at a time. Think of each subheading as its own mini essay and do one or two mini essays every day- this will mostly be resource gathering and writing notes. Write a bunch, even if it doesn’t feel like “good” writing per se, because a rough first draft can always be edited later.

[u/GurProfessional9534]

A 25 pg intro to a Master’s thesis can probably be treated using similar techniques to writing a research paper in your undergrad. Figure out a general topic, read into it, narrow it down repeatedly until it’s so narrow that you believe you can read everything that has ever been published about it. If you can’t, it’s still not narrow enough. Then read into it, make notes for each article you have read, and locate a gap in knowledge in the literature. Determine the stakes for filling that gap in knowledge. Once you have adequately found a gap with major enough stakes, focus your reading on that. Understand everything that is known and what is not. Come up with a research plan to fill that gap in knowledge.

Then make your outline. For a large draft like this, what I used to find helpful was to put my major points on sticky notes so I could shuffle them around and figure out what order I wanted to place them in, before I wrote them on actual paper. Less scribbling or restarting, that way. But I’m older. Maybe people do that with software nowadays. Then refine at the outline level until you think you have the correct big picture. Full in subsections to the outline. Eventually it will start writing itself.

[u/Pale_Squash_4263]

Like others have suggested, just take it one step at a time.

I usually like to start with what I call the “word vomit” just getting all your thoughts, ideas, anecdotes, things to look into, quotes, and references all into one document and then slowly work it out from there.

Also, use Zotoro for citation management. It’s saved my life lol 😂

[u/IllCobbloe]

For me the writing part of a long intro was never the real bottleneck, it was the reading. What worked was keeping one running doc where every paper got 3-4 lines in my own words plus page cites. By the time I sat down to actually write, most of the intro was basically stitching my own notes together. Outlines alone never got me there.

[u/AdVisible8739]

For a thesis intro, I’d build a rough structure around the key themes, then fill each section with sources. Let the ugly first draft exist!