So often our (lack of) writing makes us feel guilty and overwhelmed. Why is that? What can you do to change it up by changing the way you think about your writing and how it fits into your academic career?

Guilt is the biggest killer of writing productivity for academic women. In this episode we are learning how to cultivate a positive relationship with writing by fighting back against the guilt. I'm giving you concrete ways to shift your mindset, move writing up on the priority list, and show your writing a little love.

Why Do We Feel Guilty?

Academic women often share with me a sense of guilt around their writing process. No one wants to do something out of a sense of guilt. The first step to eliminating those negative feelings is to drill down to some of the reasons we feel guilty in the first place.

• The 'shoulds'. We as women are often plagued by a long list of 'shoulds'. We feel like we 'should' have gotten more done than we did; we think we 'should' be able to manage "all the things", and we can't; we know we are "supposed to" write, but don't really know how and feel like something is wrong with us.

• Writing is seen as a high-stakes gatekeeper, not something joyful. Dissertations get you a PhD, article writing is part of the tenure process.. we've all heard the phrase "publish or perish". Pressure builds pretty quickly when we only see writing as something standing between us and our dreams.
• We don't feel like we deserve to take the extra time. Take a look at other times in your life where you feel guilty. Going to the gym? Taking time for yourself? As women we often struggle with putting our own priorities at the top of the list.

"You deserve to spend that time invested in your own self-development and your own career development."

How to Combat Guilt and Align Everything to Your Writing

So what can we do to fight back against those feelings of guilt? How can you move writing up the list of your priorities to the spot it deserves without getting burned out? I have some ideas for you. (If you haven't listened to episode 6 yet, head here for my thoughts on what it means to put writing at the center of your career)

• Start with an Academic Mission Statement. When you can link your writing back to your fundamental purpose in academia, you will be reminded of why it's so important, and worthy of your time and energy. Click here to read my post about how to craft your own academic mission statement.
• Align other academic responsibilities to your writing. One semester, I was able to combine student participation in classes with research and reading for a grant project I was conducting. The students were given real-world experience and up-to-the minute information, and I was able to use class and prep time to further my writing goals (remember: writing includes all the tasks you need to do in order to produce finished work, including research, preparation, etc.). Writing and research drove my semester; I incorporated it into my teaching instead of feeling like it was getting in the way of my teaching.
• Love your writing, it will love you back. Feeling good about writing doesn't happen by accident, as I discussed in Episode 5. But when you make the choice to invest in yourself and your writing by listening to podcasts (like this one!), or finding professional development opportunities, it will pay off.

"If you center your writing, everything else falls into place."

Your Next Step to Combat Writing Guilt

If you're ready to fight the culture of guilt and overwork, grow your writing proficiency, and go up for tenure with confidence, click here to apply for my Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator program. We'll walk you through the application process to see if you are a good fit for our year-long, small cohort program.

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode12.

So often our (lack of) writing makes us feel guilty and overwhelmed. Why is that? What can you do to change it up by changing the way you think about your writing and how it fits into your academic career? 

Guilt is the biggest killer of writing productivity for academic women. In this episode we are learning how to cultivate a positive relationship with writing by fighting back against the guilt. I’m giving you concrete ways to shift your mindset, move writing up on the priority list, and show your writing a little love.

Why Do We Feel Guilty?

Academic women often share with me a sense of guilt around their writing process. No one wants to do something out of a sense of guilt. The first step to eliminating those negative feelings is to drill down to some of the reasons we feel guilty in the first place.

• The ‘shoulds’. We as women are often plagued by a long list of ‘shoulds’. We feel like we ‘should’ have gotten more done than we did; we think we ‘should’ be able to manage “all the things”, and we can’t; we know we are “supposed to” write, but don’t really know how and feel like something is wrong with us.
  

 

• Writing is seen as a high-stakes gatekeeper, not something joyful. Dissertations get you a PhD, article writing is part of the tenure process.. we’ve all heard the phrase “publish or perish”. Pressure builds pretty quickly when we only see writing as something standing between us and our dreams.
  
  
• We don’t feel like we deserve to take the extra time. Take a look at other times in your life where you feel guilty. Going to the gym? Taking time for yourself? As women we often struggle with putting our own priorities at the top of the list.

 

“You deserve to spend that time invested in your own self-development and your own career development.”

 

How to Combat Guilt and Align Everything to Your Writing

So what can we do to fight back against those feelings of guilt? How can you move writing up the list of your priorities to the spot it deserves without getting burned out? I have some ideas for you. (If you haven’t listened to episode 6 yet, head here for my thoughts on what it means to put writing at the center of your career)

• Start with an Academic Mission Statement. When you can link your writing back to your fundamental purpose in academia, you will be reminded of why it’s so important, and worthy of your time and energy. Click here to read my post about how to craft your own academic mission statement. 
  
  
• Align other academic responsibilities to your writing. One semester, I was able to combine student participation in classes with research and reading for a grant project I was conducting. The students were given real-world experience and up-to-the minute information, and I was able to use class and prep time to further my writing goals (remember: writing includes all the tasks you need to do in order to produce finished work, including research, preparation, etc.). Writing and research drove my semester; I incorporated it into my teaching instead of feeling like it was getting in the way of my teaching.
  
  
• Love your writing, it will love you back. Feeling good about writing doesn’t happen by accident, as I discussed in Episode 5. But when you make the choice to invest in yourself and your writing by listening to podcasts (like this one!), or finding professional development opportunities, it will pay off.

“If you center your writing, everything else falls into place.”

 

Your Next Step to Combat Writing Guilt

If you’re ready to fight the culture of guilt and overwork, grow your writing proficiency, and go up for tenure with confidence, click here to apply for my Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator program. We’ll walk you through the application process to see if you are a good fit for our year-long, small cohort program. 

 

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode12.

Sometimes it feels like writing and teaching are at odds in our academic lives, but they're not! There are ways to level out your teaching tasks, create more room for all your responsibilities, and give yourself a more comfortable semester experience.

When you are in the throes of the busiest times of your semester, you may feel overwhelmed, like you can't possibly keep balancing all the different plates you have in the air. You might be behind on grading, swamped with prep, and doing more hand-holding for students who are also feeling the crunch.

On episode 10, I talked about how to approach these times in the semester and still keep your writing in your plans. On this episode, I'm talking about teaching; survival tips to manage your teaching right now, and ideas for creating more space in the future.

Creating Breathing Room in Your Teaching Right Now

Here are some ways to manage teaching to give you a little space to breath. Remember that tweaking things to make them doable at this stage in the semester is ok and understandable.

1. Re-evaluate how you are doing assignments and assessments. Drop assignments if possible, change your grading strategy (pass/fail, less feedback, make something in-class instead of take home), look for any way to take some of that grading weight off your plate.
2. Corral your prep. At times like these, it is ok to not be the 'ultimate expert', and to just stay two steps ahead of your students. In order to keep your prep time from ballooning out and taking too much time, schedule it up against a firm boundary, like class time.
3. Build more participation into your class time. This is a win-win, because it alleviates the burden of preparing a full out lecture, while letting the students have a chance to really engage with the material and each other.

"A lot of times we feel like we need to be the end-all and be-all experts, and we don't."

Creating Time Savings in Teaching in Advance

When you get ready to start planning your teaching for next semester, or for the next time you'll be teaching a particular class, remember what this busy time of the semester was like. Reflect in advance on where your focus will be in a given period, and do future-you a favor by implementing some of these ideas:

1. Corral your prep. This one is important whether you're in survival or planning mode. Don't let prep time take more time than it should.
2. Don't reinvent the wheel: re-use systems, templates and themes. Plan to re-use templates for assessments and assignments and use long form or response heavy formats only when really necessary. Set up structures that you can re-use between classes and/or from semester to semester.
3. Get creative about keeping up on readings, for you and your students. Assign readings that you are interested in and want to read for your own work! This is a win-win: you get an added motivator and time-saver, and the students get to stay up on cutting edge information. Also consider having students present on the assigned readings and lead class discussion.
4. Create opportunities for "in-the-moment" assessments. Use apps or digital assessment tools, check off work or participation on the fly, anything that cuts down on the pile of paper you need to bring home.

"You can't do everything at level ten out of ten all the time."

My Amplify program is now open for enrollment! If you're looking for help and support to organize your academic life while keeping up a productive pipeline of writing and publishing, and providing high quality educational instruction to your students, this could be the place for you. For more information and to apply for Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator, click here.

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode11.

Sometimes it feels like writing and teaching are at odds in our academic lives, but they’re not! There are ways to level out your teaching tasks, create more room for all your responsibilities, and give yourself a more comfortable semester experience. 

When you are in the throes of the busiest times of your semester, you may feel overwhelmed, like you can’t possibly keep balancing all the different plates you have in the air. You might be behind on grading, swamped with prep, and doing more hand-holding for students who are also feeling the crunch.

On episode 10, I talked about how to approach these times in the semester and still keep your writing in your plans. On this episode, I’m talking about teaching; survival tips to manage your teaching right now, and ideas for creating more space in the future. 

Creating Breathing Room in Your Teaching Right Now

Here are some ways to manage teaching to give you a little space to breath. Remember that tweaking things to make them doable at this stage in the semester is ok and understandable.

 

1. Re-evaluate how you are doing assignments and assessments. Drop assignments if possible, change your grading strategy (pass/fail, less feedback, make something in-class instead of take home), look for any way to take some of that grading weight off your plate.
2. Corral your prep. At times like these, it is ok to not be the ‘ultimate expert’, and to just stay two steps ahead of your students. In order to keep your prep time from ballooning out and taking too much time, schedule it up against a firm boundary, like class time.
3. Build more participation into your class time. This is a win-win, because it alleviates the burden of preparing a full out lecture, while letting the students have a chance to really engage with the material and each other.

 

“A lot of times we feel like we need to be the end-all and be-all experts, and we don’t.”

Creating Time Savings in Teaching in Advance

When you get ready to start planning your teaching for next semester, or for the next time you’ll be teaching a particular class, remember what this busy time of the semester was like. Reflect in advance on where your focus will be in a given period, and do future-you a favor by implementing some of these ideas:

 

1. Corral your prep. This one is important whether you’re in survival or planning mode. Don’t let prep time take more time than it should. 
2. Don’t reinvent the wheel: re-use systems, templates and themes. Plan to re-use templates for assessments and assignments and use long form or response heavy formats only when really necessary. Set up structures that you can re-use between classes and/or from semester to semester. 
3. Get creative about keeping up on readings, for you and your students. Assign readings that you are interested in and want to read for your own work! This is a win-win: you get an added motivator and time-saver, and the students get to stay up on cutting edge information. Also consider having students present on the assigned readings and lead class discussion.
4. Create opportunities for “in-the-moment” assessments. Use apps or digital assessment tools, check off work or participation on the fly, anything that cuts down on the pile of paper you need to bring home.

 

“You can’t do everything at level ten out of ten all the time.”

 

My Amplify program is now open for enrollment!  If you’re looking for help and support to organize your academic life while keeping up a productive pipeline of writing and publishing, and providing high quality educational instruction to your students, this could be the place for you. For more information and to apply for Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator, click here.

 

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode11.

Academic years ebb and flow; some parts of a semester are much busier than others. As your semester ramps up, your writing might need to take a backseat, but make sure you have a plan to bring it back to the center.

Semesters have pretty predictable pattern. In a traditional North American semester system of 15 weeks, things start coming to a head around week 10. You may notice any of the following:

• You have more than one assignment waiting for grading. You're officially "backlogged."
• There are so many meetings and reports due. You consider pushing the reports until the end of the semester, after grades are in, which means they'll be late. But something's gotta give.
• Panicked students are starting to show up at office hours, which means you can't use that time for other things.
• Your lesson plans used to be typed out neatly, but now they are jotted on a sticky note on the back of your hand, or stuck to your growing pile of grading.
• You've been making time to write, but now those 1-2 hours once or twice a week during your tiger time are overrun with meetings, grading, students, and exhaustion.

You might think "the writing will need to wait." As an academic writing coach, I'm actually going to tell you that maybe the writing can wait. We're going to cover some ways to handle a busy period in your semester, and how to plan for your writing, even if you need to shuffle it to the back of your priorities for a time.

Making a Plan for Busy Times in Your Semester

In episode 4, I talked about creating your ideal week. Around week 10 of the semester, your ideal calendar has probably gone out the window. If the semester always feels out of control in weeks 10 to the end, then what can you do before you get the out-of-control feeling to stop it in its tracks? And what happens to your writing when those out-of-control feelings set in?

"I'm all about how your day-to-day life in academia feels."

Here are some ideas:

1. Plan for the shifts in the semester. Get out your calendar and some markers. Choose a color that represents caution (yellow maybe) and mark the weeks of the semester when things always get rough. You know the weeks that they are. Stop letting them take you by surprise!

2. Manage your expectations for yourself during those weeks. Do not expect the same level of writing productivity during the weeks you marked. If you can hold your writing time sacred without feeling guilty and overwhelmed, do it. But if you can't, then don't hold yourself to that unrealistic expectation.

3. Forgive yourself. You are amazing. Even your C- work is humanity's A work. So lower the bar and give yourself a break. You are allowed to slow down. You are allowed to NOT feel busy and overwhelmed. Just because everyone around you is freaking out doesn't mean you should be freaking out, too.

4. Define what doing less means to you and do it proudly. Decide what cutting back to the bare essentials means for you, then do it. Longer turnaround time on email? Cutting an assignment? Excusing yourself from a faculty meeting? Take some time and make a plan for pulling back on your regular standard of excellence in all things and just be excellent in the things that really matter right now.

5. Make a plan for your writing. Maybe your writing can wait until the semester calms down. But it would be great if you could keep one toe wet in the writing waters. In order to keep from completely sinking your writing ship, you'll need to think about the best options at this moment, and make a plan.

Making a Plan for Your Writing

Above all we want writing to feel good. A focus on how you feel, how you manage your reactions to stressful situations, and how you maintain a positive relationship with your writing will help you avoid burnout and keep your voice out in the world influencing your field.

Here are some ideas for how to manage your writing during your busiest seasons:

• Try to get in just one hour of writing per week, during your tiger time, and preferably on Monday.

• If you can't manage any writing time at all right now, get out your calendar and schedule a writing session when you will get back in the game. Keep this date with your writing without fail!

• Plan a one-day writing retreat for yourself to catch up and put writing back at the forefront. Put it on the calendar, arrange your family's schedules, go somewhere else (not your office or your house), and take time beforehand to make a work plan.

"The most important thing about your writing process is to continue to create positive feedback loops between you and writing."

If you are a pre-tenure woman on the tenure track and are looking for support and encouragement to write and publish more without breaking down or burning out, consider applying for my year-long program, Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator. Our goal is to help you achieve a tenure process that feels less like hazing and more like inspiration. Click here to apply.

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode10.

Academic years ebb and flow; some parts of a semester are much busier than others. As your semester ramps up, your writing might need to take a backseat, but make sure you have a plan to bring it back to the center.

Semesters have pretty predictable pattern. In a traditional North American semester system of 15 weeks, things start coming to a head around week 10. You may notice any of the following:

 

• You have more than one assignment waiting for grading. You’re officially “backlogged.”
• There are so many meetings and reports due. You consider pushing the reports until the end of the semester, after grades are in, which means they’ll be late. But something's gotta give.
• Panicked students are starting to show up at office hours, which means you can’t use that time for other things.
• Your lesson plans used to be typed out neatly, but now they are jotted on a sticky note on the back of your hand, or stuck to your growing pile of grading.
• You’ve been making time to write, but now those 1-2 hours once or twice a week during your tiger time are overrun with meetings, grading, students, and exhaustion. 

 

You might think “the writing will need to wait.” As an academic writing coach, I’m actually going to tell you that maybe the writing can wait. We’re going to cover some ways to handle a busy period in your semester, and how to plan for your writing, even if you need to shuffle it to the back of your priorities for a time. 

 

Making a Plan for Busy Times in Your Semester

In episode 4, I talked about creating your ideal week. Around week 10 of the semester, your ideal calendar has probably gone out the window. If the semester always feels out of control in weeks 10 to the end, then what can you do before you get the out-of-control feeling to stop it in its tracks? And what happens to your writing when those out-of-control feelings set in?

 

“I’m all about how your day-to-day life in academia feels.”

 

Here are some ideas:

 

1. Plan for the shifts in the semester. Get out your calendar and some markers. Choose a color that represents caution (yellow maybe) and mark the weeks of the semester when things always get rough. You know the weeks that they are. Stop letting them take you by surprise!

 

2. Manage your expectations for yourself during those weeks. Do not expect the same level of writing productivity during the weeks you marked. If you can hold your writing time sacred without feeling guilty and overwhelmed, do it. But if you can’t, then don’t hold yourself to that unrealistic expectation.

 

3. Forgive yourself. You are amazing. Even your C- work is humanity’s A work. So lower the bar and give yourself a break. You are allowed to slow down. You are allowed to NOT feel busy and overwhelmed. Just because everyone around you is freaking out doesn’t mean you should be freaking out, too. 

 

4. Define what doing less means to you and do it proudly. Decide what cutting back to the bare essentials means for you, then do it. Longer turnaround time on email? Cutting an assignment? Excusing yourself from a faculty meeting? Take some time and make a plan for pulling back on your regular standard of excellence in all things and just be excellent in the things that really matter right now.

 

5. Make a plan for your writing. Maybe your writing can wait until the semester calms down. But it would be great if you could keep one toe wet in the writing waters. In order to keep from completely sinking your writing ship, you’ll need to think about the best options at this moment, and make a plan. 

 

Making a Plan for Your Writing

Above all we want writing to feel good. A focus on how you feel, how you manage your reactions to stressful situations, and how you maintain a positive relationship with your writing will help you avoid burnout and keep your voice out in the world influencing your field. 

 

Here are some ideas for how to manage your writing during your busiest seasons: 

 

• Try to get in just one hour of writing per week, during your tiger time, and preferably on Monday.

 

• If you can’t manage any writing time at all right now, get out your calendar and schedule a writing session  when you will get back in the game. Keep this date with your writing without fail!

 

• Plan a one-day writing retreat for yourself to catch up and put writing back at the forefront.  Put it on the calendar, arrange your family’s schedules, go somewhere else (not your office or your house), and take time beforehand to make a work plan.

 

“The most important thing about your writing process is to continue to create positive feedback loops between you and writing.”

 

If you are a pre-tenure woman on the tenure track and are looking for support and encouragement to write and publish more without breaking down or burning out, consider applying for my year-long program, Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator. Our goal is to help you achieve a tenure process that feels less like hazing and more like inspiration. Click here to apply.

 

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode10.

Nothing feels worse than having a piece of writing you've worked hard on rejected or criticized. But, it's part of the academic life, so I'm teaching you how to deal with it in a healthy and positive way that will improve your writing and help get your message out there.

On this episode we're going to talk about 3 different types of feedback you might receive, how to spot the differences between them and how to respond. I'll also tell you about an excellent resource to help with your mindset, and why you should consider disconnecting from both praise and criticism.

3 Types of Writing Criticism and How to Respond 1. Posturing It should come as no surprise to anyone that there is a lot (I mean A LOT) of posturing in academia. The pressure is always on to sound smart, to respond to other people's work in a way that shows what you've read and where you situate your work in the world. That's not necessarily bad and it's certainly part of the job. But sometimes that pressure to posture seeps into everything, including writing criticism.

Here's how it might look in a written review:

• The reviewer's criticism does not actually engage with what you wrote, but rather shows off how much he/she knows about the topic (this is the defining characteristic of posturing).
• The reviewer suggests you cite a completely different body of literature than the one your work relies on (likely a body of literature that he knows better than the one you cited).
• The reviewer calls you out for not citing one very particular article and implies that you can't possibly write scholarship in this field without citing it.

How to Respond:

I suggest you make a table with two columns, detailing the specific criticism or recommendation on the left side, and how you addressed it on the right when preparing to respond to any feedback. To deal with posturing, you might note on your chart: "while I appreciate the reviewers suggestion to include ____ in my article, for ____ reasons I decided not to cite that here." What this does is make the posturing of the reviewers apparent, and shows the editor that you'll have none of it.

"Remember: it's your work, and you can decide who to cite." -Cathy Mazak 2. Silencing

The end goal of this type of criticism is to block or revoke publication.

What silencing might look like:

• A reviewer nitpicking small details of your work.
• A reviewer grasping at straws for reasons why your work shouldn't be published at all, or should be retracted.
• Little to no evidence against your piece given other than disagreement with the main idea

I experienced this recently (from a colleague at my own university!) in response to this article I wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education on what the role of university communities should be in the face of devastating circumstances in our communities.

How to Respond:

Like posturing, you need to see through this kind of criticism (good editors help). Silencing can put you on the defensive, but once you recognize it, you'll see that the critiques have no basis or are not related to your main point. If your piece has an editor, be sure to get in contact with him or her and call out the silencing. Don't get into an internet fight with the person—be above that!—and let your work speak for itself.

"If you let yourself become enraged or beaten down, then the silencer will win." -Cathy Mazak

3. Constructive Criticism

This is the kind of feedback we want! Even though it might hurt, most criticism should be heard and addressed. The review process is there for a reason, and it is not to torture you! We are often so close to our own work that we can't take a step back and see it from another perspective. The job of the reviewer is to show us our blind spots, see connections we missed, to call us out before publication so that we aren't called out after.

That said, too many academics give up after receiving reviews. They put the reviews away and give up on the paper. Don't do this! Remember: your unique, once-only-on-earth perspective on your field needs to be out there changing the world. DON'T let criticism relegate your writing to a drawer.

Here is a step-by-step plan for how to deal with the review process:

1. Make sure you are in a good mental state before opening and reading reviews.
2. After reading the reviews, wait 24 hours before you do anything.
3. Re-read the reviews (after waiting 24 hours) and make a list of all the positive feedback. (We often gloss over this part, draw some attention to it!)
4. Read through again and make a chart with one column detailing each criticism and a second column noting how you will address it.
5. Take a first pass at planning how you will address each item on the chart. Note things that will be quick to fix, and things that will take longer to address.
6. Start picking off the easy-to-fix items on the list.
7. Schedule harder or more time consuming tasks onto your calendar, for example: adding additional literature, re-analyzing data, etc.

"Breaking down the revisions into smaller steps helps alleviate feelings of overwhelm and makes sure that you get your revisions done." -Cathy Mazak

Disconnecting From Praise and Criticism

While accepting and dealing with writing criticism is all part of the job in academia, it is certainly not always easy. I want to recommend a great resource for helping you disconnect from both praise and criticism. Playing Big by Tara Moore has a wealth of helpful information on how and why you should do this. A few of the things she discusses:

• Feedback often tells you more about the person giving the feedback than it does about your work, or certainly about you as a person.
• If you are putting yourself and your work out there in the world as a woman, you are going to get criticized.
• Criticism hurts more when it mirrors beliefs we already hold about ourselves.
• Why should we disconnect from praise? Ask yourself: what do I want in life more than I want praise?

"Women who play big get criticized. Period." -Cathy Mazak, referencing Playing Big by Tara Moore

Do you want to be part of a community of academic women who support each other, offer helpful advice and know where you're coming from because they've been there too? Consider applying for Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator. To apply, click here.

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

Add at the bottom "This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode9

Nothing feels worse than having a piece of writing you’ve worked hard on rejected or criticized. But, it’s part of the academic life, so I’m teaching you how to deal with it in a healthy and positive way that will improve your writing and help get your message out there. 

On this episode we’re going to talk about 3 different types of feedback you might receive, how to spot the differences between them and how to respond. I’ll also tell you about an excellent resource to help with your mindset, and why you should consider disconnecting from both praise and criticism. 

 

3 Types of Writing Criticism and How to Respond   1. Posturing  It should come as no surprise to anyone that there is a lot (I mean A LOT) of posturing in academia. The pressure is always on to sound smart, to respond to other people’s work in a way that shows what you’ve read and where you situate your work in the world. That’s not necessarily bad and it’s certainly part of the job. But sometimes that pressure to posture seeps into everything, including writing criticism.

 

Here’s how it might look in a written review:

• The reviewer’s criticism does not actually engage with what you wrote, but rather shows off how much he/she knows about the topic (this is the defining characteristic of posturing).
• The reviewer suggests you cite a completely different body of literature than the one your work relies on (likely a body of literature that he knows better than the one you cited).
• The reviewer calls you out for not citing one very particular article and implies that you can’t possibly write scholarship in this field without citing it.

How to Respond:

I suggest you make a table with two columns, detailing the specific criticism or recommendation on the left side, and how you addressed it on the right when preparing to respond to any feedback. To deal with posturing, you might note on your chart: “while I appreciate the reviewers suggestion to include ____  in my article, for ____ reasons I decided not to cite that here.” What this does is make the posturing of the reviewers apparent, and shows the editor that you’ll have none of it.

“Remember: it’s your work, and you can decide who to cite.” -Cathy Mazak   2. Silencing

The end goal of this type of criticism is to block or revoke publication.

What silencing might look like:

 

• A reviewer nitpicking small details of your work. 
• A reviewer grasping at straws for reasons why your work shouldn’t be published at all, or should be retracted. 
• Little to no evidence against your piece given other than disagreement with the main idea

 

I experienced this recently (from a colleague at my own university!) in response to this article I wrote for The Chronicle of Higher Education on what the role of university communities should be in the face of devastating circumstances in our communities. 

 

How to Respond:

Like posturing, you need to see through this kind of criticism (good editors help). Silencing can put you on the defensive, but once you recognize it, you’ll see that the critiques have no basis or are not related to your main point. If your piece has an editor, be sure to get in contact with him or her and call out the silencing. Don’t get into an internet fight with the person—be above that!—and let your work speak for itself.

“If you let yourself become enraged or beaten down, then the silencer will win.” -Cathy Mazak

  3. Constructive Criticism

This is the kind of feedback we want! Even though it might hurt, most criticism should be heard and addressed. The review process is there for a reason, and it is not to torture you! We are often so close to our own work that we can’t take a step back and see it from another perspective. The job of the reviewer is to show us our blind spots, see connections we missed, to call us out before publication so that we aren’t called out after.

 

That said, too many academics give up after receiving reviews. They put the reviews away and give up on the paper. Don’t do this! Remember: your unique, once-only-on-earth perspective on your field needs to be out there changing the world. DON’T let criticism relegate your writing to a drawer. 

 

Here is a step-by-step plan for how to deal with the review process:

1. Make sure you are in a good mental state before opening and reading reviews.
2. After reading the reviews, wait 24 hours before you do anything.
3. Re-read the reviews (after waiting 24 hours) and make a list of all the positive feedback. (We often gloss over this part, draw some attention to it!)
4. Read through again and make a chart with one column detailing each criticism and a second column noting how you will address it.
5. Take a first pass at planning how you will address each item on the chart. Note things that will be quick to fix, and things that will take longer to address.
6. Start picking off the easy-to-fix items on the list.
7. Schedule harder or more time consuming tasks onto your calendar, for example: adding additional literature, re-analyzing data, etc.

“Breaking down the revisions into smaller steps helps alleviate feelings of overwhelm and makes sure that you get your revisions done.” -Cathy Mazak

Disconnecting From Praise and Criticism 

While accepting and dealing with writing criticism is all part of the job in academia, it is certainly not always easy. I want to recommend a great resource for helping you disconnect from both praise and criticism. Playing Big by Tara Moore has a wealth of helpful information on how and why you should do this. A few of the things she discusses:

 

• Feedback often tells you more about the person giving the feedback than it does about your work, or certainly about you as a person. 
• If you are putting yourself and your work out there in the world as a woman, you are going to get criticized.
• Criticism hurts more when it mirrors beliefs we already hold about ourselves.
• Why should we disconnect from praise? Ask yourself: what do I want in life more than I want praise?

 

“Women who play big get criticized. Period.” -Cathy Mazak, referencing Playing Big by Tara Moore

Do you want to be part of a community of academic women who support each other, offer helpful advice and know where you’re coming from because they’ve been there too? Consider applying for Amplify: Faculty Writing Accelerator. To apply, click here.

 

Connect with me:

Website

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Add at the bottom "This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode9

Burnout is a real thing for academics. I know you know this, but you might not know exactly what "pre-burnout" looks like, and what to do if you feel like you might be on the edge of a burnout.

On this podcast episode, I'm sharing the stories of two times that I got very close to burning out, how I dealt with it, and what I'm doing to keep a comfortable pace right now. I'm sharing some red flags to help you recognize the signs of pre-burnout in yourself, as well as an exercise to help you control the pace of your academic life so academia feels good to you.

My stories

My first burnout situation came when my infant son became extremely sick. About two weeks into the semester, after I went back to work from maternity leave, my 10-month-old son stopped breathing while I was nursing him to sleep one night.

This was the beginning of the 10 most horrible days of my life.

By late October I was so exhausted and strained that I could not continue. If I didn't take action I would end up in the hospital myself.

So I took sick leave. Right at the worst time of the semester. I remember sitting in the office of my young, single department head and feeling like he would never understand, or would push back. But he didn't. I took the leave I needed to recover.

"I thought the world was going to collapse, but it absolutely did not." -Cathy Mazak

My second experience with pre-burnout came the traumatic academic year of Hurricane María. We were a country exhausted from hurricane recovery and a university trying to find our footing after blow after blow by the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. We were collectively breaking down.

But this time I recognized the signals and took action sooner. I heard the desperate voice in my head that said, "I just need to breathe. I can't keep this up. If I could only rest …" This time, I intentionally listened to that voice and rested. On the weekends, I made myself lie down, I cleared our schedule, we ate more takeout, and the kids watched more Netflix. I whittled down my to-do list until it only contained the absolutely necessary items to finish the semester: grade the papers. Give the classes. That's it.

The difference between this almost-breakdown and the first one was that I knew that if I cut way back, everything would still be fine. The world would not end. And, I deeply understood that if I didn't deliberately rest, I would collapse, and that wouldn't serve anyone.

Read about my son's illness, the year after Hurricane Maria, and all the details in this article I wrote for Inside Higher Ed.

Recognizing Pre-Burnout

Recognizing you are about to burnout means tuning in to what your body and mind are trying to tell you. Here are some red flags for me:

• I was exhausted from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. I had no energy.
• I was mentally foggy. I couldn't bring up the words I wanted to use, and my memory was shaky.
• I was on the verge of tears constantly.

Recovering from Burnout (and Avoiding it in the Future)

Recovering from burnout is not easy. It takes intentional effort to make the right choices for your health. Here are some ideas for recovering and avoiding the issue in the future.

• Create room for deliberate rest. Nap when you can, go to bed early, do whatever you can to get more sleep.
• Pare down your schedule to include only the absolute necessities.
• Move your body. Find a way to incorporate gentle exercise. I joined a gym that provided childcare.
• Call in reinforcements. Ask for help! Draw on whatever resources you can. I called my mom to come help with the kids for a while.
• When summer rolls around, don't try to "get ahead". Plan it out to include rest and activities that rejuvenate you.
• Do whatever is necessary to recover, including taking time off.

Controlling the Pace-How do You Want Academia to Feel?

If you've had an experience that stopped you in your tracks like a death in the family, illness, or other serious issue, you may have been forced to change the pace of your academic life. But you don't need to wait for something to blow up to decide you need a change.

How do you want to feel in your academic life? Remember that the feeling comes first, not after something you've set up as an arbitrary sign post. Here is an exercise you can do to prioritize your own goals for how you want academia to feel for you.

• Choose one word for the way you want to feel in your academic life and write it down.. (For example: Calm)

• Now list 10 things that a person who that adjective describes might do.

For our example of "calm", you might write:

1. Eats breakfast sitting at the table
2. Takes a walk every day
3. Is content with accomplishing three things
4. Makes a plan and sticks to it
5. Starts work at 9:00 and stops work at 5:00
6. Gets 7-8 hours of sleep
7. Asks for help before a situation gets out of control
8. Shakes off guilt about undone projects
9. Concentrates on restorative activities on the weekends
10. Meditates using the Calm app in the middle of the work day

The problem is that you are saying when X happens, THEN I'll feel Y. But you need to start feeling Y right now. Nothing needs to happen first.

"You need to draw a line in the sand and say, 'from now on, I am a calm person'". -Cathy Mazak

If you want to join a small cohort of academic women who are learning ways to amplify their impact in academia without the break-neck pace, apply for my Amplify: Writing Accelerator program. In this program, you'll get permission to do things the way that feels right for you, and learn how to write and publish more while still controlling the pace. Say goodbye to guilt and overwhelm, and hello to a new movement for women in the campus culture. Click here to apply.

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode8.

Burnout is a real thing for academics. I know you know this, but you might not know exactly what “pre-burnout” looks like, and what to do if you feel like you might be on the edge of a burnout.

On this podcast episode, I’m sharing the stories of two times that I got very close to burning out, how I dealt with it, and what I’m doing to keep a comfortable pace right now. I’m sharing some red flags to help you recognize the signs of pre-burnout in yourself, as well as an exercise to help you control the pace of your academic life so academia feels good to you. 

My stories

My first burnout situation came when my infant son became extremely sick. About two weeks into the semester, after I went back to work from maternity leave, my 10-month-old son stopped breathing while I was nursing him to sleep one night. 

This was the beginning of the 10 most horrible days of my life. 

By late October I was so exhausted and strained that I could not continue. If I didn’t take action I would end up in the hospital myself.

So I took sick leave. Right at the worst time of the semester. I remember sitting in the office of my young, single department head and feeling like he would never understand, or would push back. But he didn’t. I took the leave I needed to recover. 

“I thought the world was going to collapse, but it absolutely did not.” -Cathy Mazak

My second experience with pre-burnout came the traumatic academic year of Hurricane María. We were a country exhausted from hurricane recovery and a university trying to find our footing after blow after blow by the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico. We were collectively breaking down.

But this time I recognized the signals and took action sooner. I heard the desperate voice in my head that said, “I just need to breathe. I can’t keep this up. If I could only rest …” This time, I intentionally listened to that voice and rested. On the weekends, I made myself lie down, I cleared our schedule, we ate more takeout, and the kids watched more Netflix. I whittled down my to-do list until it only contained the absolutely necessary items to finish the semester: grade the papers. Give the classes. That’s it.

The difference between this almost-breakdown and the first one was that I knew that if I cut way back, everything would still be fine. The world would not end. And, I deeply understood that if I didn’t deliberately rest, I would collapse, and that wouldn’t serve anyone.

Read about my son’s illness, the year after Hurricane Maria, and all the details in this article I wrote for Inside Higher Ed. 

Recognizing Pre-Burnout

Recognizing you are about to burnout means tuning in to what your body and mind are trying to tell you. Here are some red flags for me:

 

• I was exhausted from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed. I had no energy.
• I was mentally foggy. I couldn’t bring up the words I wanted to use, and my memory was shaky.
• I was on the verge of tears constantly.

 

Recovering from Burnout (and Avoiding it in the Future)

Recovering from burnout is not easy. It takes intentional effort to make the right choices for your health. Here are some ideas for recovering and avoiding the issue in the future.

 

• Create room for deliberate rest. Nap when you can, go to bed early, do whatever you can to get more sleep. 
• Pare down your schedule to include only the absolute necessities. 
• Move your body. Find a way to incorporate gentle exercise. I joined a gym that provided childcare.
• Call in reinforcements. Ask for help! Draw on whatever resources you can. I called my mom to come help with the kids for a while.
• When summer rolls around, don’t try to “get ahead”. Plan it out to include rest and activities that rejuvenate you. 
• Do whatever is necessary to recover, including taking time off.

Controlling the Pace-How do You Want Academia to Feel?

If you’ve had an experience that stopped you in your tracks like a death in the family, illness, or other serious issue, you may have been forced to change the pace of your academic life. But you don’t need to wait for something to blow up to decide you need a change. 

 

How do you want to feel in your academic life? Remember that the feeling comes first, not after something you’ve set up as an arbitrary sign post. Here is an exercise you can do to prioritize your own goals for how you want academia to feel for you.

 

• Choose one word for the way you want to feel in your academic life and write it down.. (For example: Calm)

 

• Now list 10 things that a person who that adjective describes might do. 

For our example of “calm”, you might write:

 

1. Eats breakfast sitting at the table
2. Takes a walk every day 
3. Is content with accomplishing three things
4. Makes a plan and sticks to it
5. Starts work at 9:00 and stops work at 5:00
6. Gets 7-8 hours of sleep
7. Asks for help before a situation gets out of control
8. Shakes off guilt about undone projects
9. Concentrates on restorative activities on the weekends 
10. Meditates using the Calm app in the middle of the work day

 

The problem is that you are saying when X happens, THEN I’ll feel Y. But you need to start feeling Y right now. Nothing needs to happen first.

“You need to draw a line in the sand and say, ‘from now on, I am a calm person’”. -Cathy Mazak

 

If you want to join a small cohort of academic women who are learning ways to amplify their impact in academia without the break-neck pace, apply for my Amplify: Writing Accelerator program. In this program, you’ll get permission to do things the way that feels right for you, and learn how to write and publish more while still controlling the pace. Say goodbye to guilt and overwhelm, and hello to a new movement for women in the campus culture. Click here to apply.

Connect with me:

Website

Facebook Group

Facebook Page

This episode was first published at cathymazak.com/episode8.