As a way to mark the return of PhD Notes after the summer break, I am doing a long post this week on my experiences of writing a paper for my first international conference.
Premise
In the last week of May, I received this strange email from someone whose name I vaguely recognised, but could not exactly place in my mind. The subject carried the name of the conference I had applied to a few months back, but had not thought about since. To my great surprise, they had selected my abstract for the conference (God knows why or how) and now wanted me to confirm my participation. As elated as I was, I did not know if I wanted to go through with this. Am I ready for such a big opportunity? Am I good or worthy enough to take a shot at this?
It would take me another week and a number of conversations with friends and colleagues to finally convince myself that I have more to gain than to lose from this. So, I began working on the paper. It helped that I had been thinking and reading about this topic for the last few months. But though I did not have to completely start from scratch, I had some serious work to do before I could write even a modestly decent paper.
The first week of my research went splendidly. I was making consistent and steady progress on my readings and even began making notes on what my paper would look like. But then came the inevitable moment when I had to commit things to paper and not just my memory; when I had to actually start writing. And… I could not. I was completely paralysed and what seemed like an endless cycle of procrastination kicked in.
Context
Imagine that you are someone who has not always studied philosophy, but came to it only at the Master’s level. But even this Master’s program was such that you could easily get by, even excel at the exams by studying for them at the last minute, without really understanding the materials - where you did not have to write many challenging papers or produce an original dissertation, the stuff out of which academic philosophers are made. And though you managed to get some teaching experience over the next few years, you still do not have what it takes to do serious philosophy research. In the hopes of fixing that, you decide to join a PhD program. But it turns out, they don’t let you do research for at least a year - until you have finished their required coursework.
Now imagine, at such an early stage in your PhD, when you have just about finished your coursework and starting to do research full-time, you receive this bizarre news that you have been selected for a conference that’s “widely recognized as one of the most important ethics conferences in the English-speaking world” (not my words) and asked to write a full-length paper for it in under a month (something you have never done before). What’s more? You later find out that your audience is going to be composed as much by graduate students as by professional philosophers - most of whom truly exceptional and impeccably credentialed in their respective sub-fields, including some who you are reading and referencing in your own research work!
Paralysis and procrastination doesn’t seem so out of bounds now, does it?
What did not work
Procrastination, it turns out, is less a time management problem and more an emotion regulation problem. And as you can imagine, my emotions were as regulated as America’s real estate market in the early 2000s i.e. none. I was overcome with all sorts of negative feelings vis-à-vis writing the paper: anxieties about going up on such a prestigious platform and presenting my half-baked ideas in front of senior philosophers whom I admire and respect, a paralysing fear of judgement and failure, a general lack of confidence, feelings of inadequacy and incompetence coupled with debilitating self-doubt that undermines any sense of personal worth and add to that, an all-consuming uncertainty about how to even start or end the paper.
All this resulted in what I now call the ‘Great Avoidance’ when I spent two whole weeks doing everything I could to avoid writing the paper. It was a smart move: how can I fail, if I never even begin?
But more than the pressures of the platform and the esteemed audience, I saw this paper as a test of my true competence and worth as a philosopher. I knew I wanted to do philosophy research, but was I any good at it? This was the moment to find out. However, a large chunk of my avoidance stemmed from not wanting to find out whether I was cut out to be a philosopher or not. And if I never tried, I would never have to know, right?
And so, the Great Avoidance continued, with no end or relief in sight.
What finally worked
Two changes in mindset finally helped me break out of this rut.
The first one came about through a discussion with two close friends. They advised me to approach the conference with the mindset of a learner, as opposed to that of an expert. A learner does things so they can learn and grow in the process. Unlike an expert, a learner has nothing to show or prove to anyone and can approach a given task with curiosity, openness and ease - and not self-doubt, fear and anxiety. This shift in thinking took off much of the pressure I was under. I realised that the primary reason for attending a conference is to learn and get feedback on your ongoing work and not showcase a finished product. And suddenly, the prospect of learning from some of the smartest people in my field filled me with positive anticipation, instead of pure dread.
The second and related insight came from reading philosopher and cognitive scientist, Daniel Dennett. According to Dennett, the most effective way to learn anything is by making mistakes:
Sometimes you don’t just want to risk making mistakes; you actually want to make them—if only to give you something clear and detailed to fix. Making mistakes is the key to making progress… Mistakes are not just opportunities for learning; they are, in an important sense, the only opportunity for learning or making something truly new.
This was a liberating thought. Much of my fears about presenting my work came from the fact that my errors and mistakes could and would be publicly exposed. But instead of dreading this, we should rather welcome it. I realised that getting my mistakes pointed out by a group of competent peers is perhaps the best and quickest way to take my paper from decent to good.
With regard to the writing process itself, I did something I have never done before: to tap into the power of editing. In addition to the above psychological blocks, my inability to write also came from my perfectionist impulse to ‘get it right the first time’. While that may have worked in the past for short articles or assignments, it was clearly ill-suited for long-form pieces such as a philosophy paper. In order to get out of this perfectionist fix, I decided that I would just write, write something, anything at all - so long as I am putting words on paper. And I reassured myself that however bad it turned out, I could always edit, revise and rewrite to make it better. But the point is to get started first.
I gave the same advice to another friend a few weeks later who was suffering from a similar malady in this way: Instead of trying to write something perfect the first time, aim to write the worst possible draft you can. This change in expectation has an immediate freeing effect on your nerves and you can actually begin writing. And once you have written your worst possible draft, you now have a real chance of improving it and making it better - for you can’t improve anything that doesn’t exist in the first place.
I found in more than one instance, when I did this kind of free writing - completely devoid of any expectations or standards, I actually wrote some of my best sentences in the paper - despite my intention to write as badly as I could. I made sharper connections between ideas, noticed subtleties and articulated my core motivations better than I did in any session of formal writing.
This is not to say that once I began writing, everything just flowed with ease and spontaneity. Writing is hard, often painful. For most of us mortals, it is always going to be marked by strife and struggle. But when you are stuck in an endless cycle of avoidance and procrastination like I was, some of the things that worked for me may help you too. You may also want to check out my other advice on writing from a few months back.
This paper began with a lot of nervous excitement at the start of June, went through a dark middle period marked by paralysing avoidance and procrastination, only to finally reach its completion about two weeks back after immense psychological and intellectual struggles. The draft paper is now done. I set out to write a measly 4.5K words (which is what the conference organisers asked for) but ended up writing a full journal-length paper (about 8K words). It is currently being reviewed by some generous advisors who have kindly agreed to give me feedback - all in preparation for my presentation two weeks from now.
But the struggle to get here was real and often felt insurmountable. There were innumerable moments in the last two months when I wanted to quit and run away in other direction, thinking I could never do this.
Well, I am glad to have proved myself wrong.
P.S. Other resources on procrastination that I found useful through all this: these two videos from TED and this amazing series by a procrastination researcher (accessible only through a trial account or subscription though).
That's great, Nishok. Looking forward to reading the paper :)