Hola from Spain

This week I am in Palencia, small city in the north of Spain, to attend an academic conference at the University of Valladolid, (pronounced “bayadolid“).

The spring here is absolutely beautiful.

Academic Writing is Like Going to a Foreign Country

Every time I go a new country I can’t help but think how similar academic writing is to visiting a foreign country. Last December, my family and I moved from Pakistan to Denmark just before Christmas.

After we arrived in Odense, my wife and I went to buy groceries. There is a tram stop near our apartment, so we thought we'd take the tram and go to the nearest grocery store.

We walked down to the stop and realized we couldn't take the tram. We didn't have any tickets and we couldn't buy them at the stop either.

We learned we could get tickets online. We took out our phones and realized we didn't have any internet because we hadn't bought a local SIM card.

This is like starting a writing project when you don't know how or where to find any available resources.

We decided to walk. We didn't know how or where we'd find a store, but we started walking. We didn't worry about finding the most efficient way of going to the store.

We knew if we walked in a direction — any direction — we'd find some sort of a store. And we did. It took us twenty-five minutes before we found a Coop 365discount store.

"Seems like Aldi," I said to my wife.

Now walking to the store wasn't an efficient way of commuting but it was quite effective. We reached the store.

When you're starting a writing project, you can't worry about finding the most efficient way of doing things (like looking up relevant literature or taking notes).

If you try to be efficient at this stage, you'll paint yourself in a corner. You won't accomplish much. Your priority at this stage should be to find out a way that's effective — a way that gets you started.

It doesn't matter if things are very slow at this stage. What matters is that you start. Start anywhere and keep moving.

Look up one (just one) article/book that's related to your project. Start reading it. Start taking notes. This article may prove to be partially, or even completely, irrelevant to your project. That doesn't matter at all.

As my wife and I browsed through the aisles, we realized almost all products were labeled in Danish. My wife carefully reads labels before buying things. But she couldn't do much since she didn't know any Danish.

We asked the store assistant who like most people in Denmark spoke English fluently.

This was like discussing your project with a colleague.

We relied on our experiences of going to American and Pakistani grocery stores. Our knowledge of languages like Arabic and Urdu also proved helpful. Sugar is sukker in Danish, which is quite similar to the way its pronounced in Arabic (سکر) and Urdu (شکر).

But despite all our intercultural competence and proficiency in multiple languages, we were stumped when we were buying flour.

All flour bags were labeled in Danish and we couldn't figure out what was maida (refined white flour) and what was atta (wholesome wheat flour). At this point, it didn't matter what we bought as long as we bought something. We'd have to buy to figure it out.

This is like being unsure of which direction to proceed in when you start a writing project. Start moving in a direction — any direction. Change course if it doesn't work out. And that's what we did.

We ended up buying refined white flour when we meant to buy wholesome wheat flour. But that's okay. We learned what we didn't want.

As we filled our shopping cart, we kept an eye on how much it would end up weighing since we had to walk back home. We didn't buy many things that we needed because we wouldn't be able to carry them.

This is like keeping an eye on the deadline. You can't include everything you want to in your project. You won't be able to meet the deadline this way.

Give yourself a deadline first and work backwards from there. Figure out how much you can carry before you start filling your shopping cart.

We were able to carry the two bags of groceries that we bought and walk back home. On our way back, we stopped to take a photo to guide us in the future.

This is like noting down what works for you in a given project so you can replicate it in your future projects.

If you're starting a writing project like a journal article or a dissertation, it doesn't matter how or where you start as long as you start.

Zotero for Beginners: A Tutorial

And before you go, I want to share the news about my latest Zotero tutorial that I published just before coming to Spain. Zotero is one of the best citation and reference managers. But many academics have a hard time starting out on it.

The tutorial has seven modules and will make you a Zotero power-user in a few days.

Module 1: Getting Started on Zotero (29 slides)

Module 2: Building Your Zotero Library (27 slides)

Module 3: Annotating and Taking Notes in Zotero (24 slides)

Module 4: Adding Citation Styles in Zotero (25 slides)

Module 5: Organizing Your Library with Tags (16 slides)

Module 6: Collaborative Annotations in Zotero (22 slides)

Module 7: Miscellaneous Tips (19 slides)

You can get tutorial by clicking on the link below:

That’s it for this week. I will see you next week.

Until then keep writing.

Adiós.