How do you operate as a writer? What elements need to go into an academic paper? These links offer strategies for improving your personal writing process and include overviews of the elements of academic writing:
- How Personality Affects Your Writing Process (Villanova): Do you like to start writing as soon as you get an assignment, or do you need to let ideas percolate? Do you write your best following an outline, or do you rely on freewriting to get your thoughts organized? Personality can affect your writing process. Take an online version of the Kiersey Temperament Test and learn about writing tendencies and strategies for your personality type.
- Procrastination (Duke): Having trouble getting started? Read this handout for ideas about how to handle these issues with procrastination.
- Writing Anxiety (UNC): Feeling stuck? Stressed about your next paper? UNC's Writing Center offers helpful strategies for overcoming some of the common feelings associated with writing anxiety and writer's block.
- Writer's Block (Duke): Writer's block is something we hear and say everyday. But what does it mean—really? People from all walks of life in the Duke community talk about what writer's block means to them and offer strategies for moving past it.
- Writing Process Demos (UNC): Using concrete examples for strategies ranging from reading assignments to proofreading your sentences, these demonstrations will help you see what a writer's writing process can look like in action.
- Audience (UNC): Understanding your audience is a crucial component of every writing project. This handout helps you to consider such audience-related issues as how to identify your audience, how much information to include in a paper, and how to organize your paper with audience expectations in mind.
- Getting Feedback (UNC): The writing process often involves sharing your work with others. This handout discusses ways to obtain and best make use of reader feedback.