Tag: #writingpractice

Meet Anna-Mariya Kirova, BUSPH Peer Writing Coach

 

 

Anna_Mariya Kirova

When I was nine years old, I immigrated to the United States from Bulgaria, not knowing how to speak English at the time. I felt like I was always trying to prove myself in school, and I had to work harder than my peers because English was not my native language. Getting into college was a big achievement for me, because I felt like one of the primary reasons my family moved to the US was so that I could have the opportunity to pursue higher education, a path that was not common or easily achievable in Bulgaria.

When I first got to undergrad, I realized that my high school classes had not prepared me for the type of writing assignments I had in college. I was placed in an introductory college writing class where I would receive more writing support. I tried to focus on myself and not compare myself to other students who were taking advanced writing classes during their freshman year.

I think starting out more slowly really helped me improve my writing. I was also thankful that my writing professor encouraged us to use the on-campus writing center. I admit, at first, I was reluctant to reach out and ask for help. But, once I committed to making that first appointment, I realized the writing center tutors were one of the most useful resources on campus. Although I ended up majoring in neuroscience, I also took advantage of the variety of classes the liberal arts had to offer. I could find a writing tutor for whatever my writing needs were, no matter whether I needed help with my lab report for biology or my personal ethnography for sociology. My liberal arts undergraduate education exposed me to many writing styles and helped me develop more holistic skills that I could apply across disciplines.

Being able to be concise while also developing a narrative that flows is the key to good writing regardless of the style (creative, academic, autobiographical, etc.). That is what the writing center tutors helped me achieve over time. By my junior year, I was tutoring at the writing center and helping other students build their confidence and skills.

I am a dual degree student at the BU School of Public Health and the School of Social Work. I earned my MSW in May 2021. Now I am pursuing a functional certificate in CAPDIE and a context certificate in Human Rights & Social Justice. I have previous clinical experience which has allowed me to adopt a client-centered, trauma-informed, and strengths-based approach to public health issues. I am excited to combine these two degrees as I work to address health and mental health disparities.

I also bring a student-centered, strengths-based approach to my work as a peer writing coach. I enjoy getting to know the students I work with, and I look forward to learning from them. I see coaching/tutoring as a two-way relationship and a space where two public health professionals can have meaningful discussions. I encourage you to give us a try!

Best Places in Boston for Winter Writing

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By Sarah Thomson, Peer Coach Team Lead

As winter looms in Boston, we aren’t able to take advantage of some of our favorite outdoor studying and writing spots. However, there are still plenty of options if you’re hoping to stay productive as you move indoors. Writing in public places is also a great way to be social while getting your work done. Writing can be a lonely thing, especially when you have to tell your friends you can’t go out because of a looming paper. Sitting in café or library gives you a chance to be with people, have some casual social interactions, and get your work done.

We’ve created a list of some of our favorite indoor places to write in Boston and hope this list will serve you well throughout the winter months!

Boston Public Library (BPL)

While the central branch of the Boston Public Library is located in beautiful Copley Square, there are branches scattered across nearly all Boston neighborhoods so you’re never far from a BPL location. BPL has space to study, read, write and also offers research and library services to community members. It’s a great place to write when you need a quiet escape.

Cambridge Public Library

With your library card, the world is your oyster at the Cambridge Public Library. Take advantage of free WiFi, public computers, extensive space for studying, writing and reading and community meeting spaces if you’ll be working in a group. With multiple branches, this library system is accessible to anyone living or working near Cambridge and is accessible by public transit.

Alumni Medical Library

If you’re on campus, look no further than the Alumni Medical Library. Located on the 12th and 13th floors of the Boston University Medical School, you can take advantage of research services, book a study room, order/check out books and articles and sit wherever you’re comfortable. This is a great space for quiet productivity and the perfect campus spot to write and work.

Trident Booksellers and Café

Trident brands itself as your “third place”—not your home, not your workplace, but a place where you can come to drink coffee, engage in conversation, and get down to business. A Boston staple for the past 40 years, Trident is both a bookstore and a café and the perfect spot to grab a snack, a drink, and get writing. The cozy ambiance is a bonus, too.

JAHO Coffee

Conveniently located on Washington Street, JAHO is the ideal place for lovers of coffee, tea, bubble tea, baked goods, good eats and productive Sundays alike. The South End location is down the street from BUSPH, but you’ll also find JAHO in Chinatown and Back Bay. The Chinatown and Back Bay locations are a also wine bars (if you’re hoping to sip a spiked coffee while you work). If you’re feeling adventurous you can also visit JAHO in Salem, MA and Tokyo, Japan.

The Sipping Room by Breeze

The Sipping Room by Breeze provides a wide variety of teas and coffee directly sourced from Asia, and the drinks are fantastic for writers who like to sip while they work. The ambiance is also lovely, and the matcha tea is a must for those who venture to the Sipping Room.

Café Nero

This Italian-inspired coffeehouse is the perfect place to work if you like a bustling spot. Café Nero also has locations across the city (our favorites are in Fenway and Fort Point) and you’ll always be inspired by the people around you, hard at work, as the café is often busy. They offer delicious drinks, snacks, and a large menu of food items. It’s the perfect place to be in winter when the fireplaces are blazing.

Farmer Horse Coffee

Located on Massachusetts Avenue, this small local coffee shop offers quick service, stunning décor, and a variety of places to sit where you can get comfortable and start your work for the day. They also serve various drinks and snacks throughout the day. Their sandwiches are something special and this is a relaxing spot to dive into whatever project you’re working on.

Pavement Coffee House

Pavement Coffee House boasts eight locations in Boston and is independent and locally-owned. They sell a wide array of drinks, and you can purchase their coffee grounds to bring a taste of Pavement home with you as well. They make their own bagels in house, and patrons love the atmosphere here, while students frequent the various locations to write and collaborate with their peers.

Forge Baking Company

If you’re in Somerville or looking for a good destination for a walk across the river, check out Forge Baking Company. Always shifting art exhibits, great sandwiches and desserts, and the best mochas north of the Charles. The Forge owners have two other excellent cafés in Somerville: Diesel in Davis Square and Bloc 11 in Union.

Caffé Bene

You walk past it all the time, right on Mass Ave and Huntington (opposite the BSO), and up a short flight of stairs. One member of our team has been passing it for years and finally went in. The space is cozy but fairly large. You can get your beverages in actual ceramic mugs (just be sure to ask). And the ice cream desserts are massive. While there’s only one Caffé Bene in Boston, it’s the largest coffee house chain in South Korea. If you go there to work, you can imagine that you are part of a community of writers toiling away over hot drinks across the globe.

Quote Rarely, Paraphrase Often, Cite Generously (Part 1/2)

Part 1: Quoting the Words of Others in Public Health Writing

Do your best to avoid direct quotations when writing papers in your public health classes. It’s a comment I find myself making again and again on the first round or two of papers submitted by public health graduate students in their first semester. Quotations should be special, I explain. Enclosing someone else’s words in inverted commas draws attention to the exact language they used. You are signaling to your reader that the words and syntax matter as much as the point you are trying to make.

Quote the language of law and policy when you need to explain and analyze it. Quote the language of multi-media campaigns. Use the words of real people (from qualitative research and journalism) when the words themselves offer a window into thoughts, experience, perspective. Quote the words of public figures when you are analyzing their motives, when holding them accountable. On rare occasions, quote a sentence or two from a journal article or book because those exact words sharpen the point you are trying to make in a way that your own words will not.

Quotations should always add value. If they don’t, paraphrase.

All public health writing is essentially an act of translation. The writer is pulling key information on a given topic together to answer a question for a particular audience. Sometimes that reader is a real person, sitting at a desk waiting for our email attachment. She has asked us to gather and synthesize information because she needs it for a proposal, a presentation, a report, or an article. She may be in the process of creating a budget for the coming year and in need of information that will help her decide how to allocate funds for prevention, treatment, or a community program. In other cases, your readers may be a more general audience, looking for information on a topic they want to understand.

In either case, a document that simply strings together large chunks of other people’s words is not useful. Your readers are looking to you to do the work, to transform the information into simple language, to pull together information from multiple sources, and different types of sources so they don’t have to.

When I was an MPH student, I was one of those students who turned in papers filled with quotes. And I was surprised by my professors’ recommendations that I drop the habit. Before deciding to get an MPH, I studied English literature. The words of others, of the authors I was studying, were my data. Start with a quote then analyze the words in front of you and their relationship to other parts of the book and to dialogue, character development, or story arc. For me, paraphrasing often meant providing a gloss of the story’s connective tissue, the historical context it was bringing to life, or its connections to other works by the same author or her peers.

In other words, my thirteen years of previous graduate and undergraduate study (PhD, MA, and BA) had trained me to lean on the words of others. In the MPH program, I had to unlearn all I thought I knew about writing. Becoming more comfortable with and understanding the role of paraphrasing was just one of the many aspects of writing I needed to rethink and practice.

If you are a frustrated student in a similar situation, I hope you will take heart from my story. With practice (usually in response to feedback from professors and colleagues), I did adjust. My writing is now clearer and I feel more in control of what I am saying because I am processing new, complex information more directly and then talking about it in my own voice, for my own purposes. That doesn’t mean I find the process easy. I often struggle to understand the technical jargon and data speak of much of the public health literature I read, so I am always translating for myself first.

If you are a professor who is perplexed by a run of papers laden with quotation marks, consider devoting a few minutes in class to talk about the best uses for quotations in public health writing. And talk about when and how you use quotations in your own writing. When does it work for you? When do you find yourself doing it? What strategies do you have for paraphrasing?

Click here for Part 2: Translating the Words of Others and Crediting Sources

Meet Sarah Thomson, Peer Writing Coach and PH Writing Program Team Leader

Sarah Instagram Photo

My name is Sarah Thomson and I’m a second-year MPH student at BUSPH in the Epidemiology/Biostatistics and Infectious Disease certificates. I’m also working as a peer writing coach and serve as the peer coach team leader for the Public Health Writing Program.

I believe that clear, concise, and powerful writing has a place in every public health discipline. People often ask me how, as a quantitative type, I ended up as a peer coach and the team leader for the writing program. I came to BUSPH primarily to improve my quantitative skills, but hard evidence only makes a difference if our results are communicated clearly to the public.

I have always enjoyed the writing process and I value the power we have as communicators to change behavior and shift public opinion. I wanted to become a peer coach so that I could support others as they strengthen their written communication skills and find their voice through writing. Regardless of your interest area or what drew you to public health, strong writing is essential.

The most rewarding part of this job is the feedback I get from students, and the process of working together to take an idea and develop it into a powerful argument and commentary on the chosen subject. Something clicks when you hear your work read aloud by a peer, and I usually don’t have to tell students that something sounds convoluted because they can hear it as I read their work back to them. Even the most eloquent speakers have trouble translating their spoken statements into written ones. As someone who always reads my own work out loud to myself at my desk, I preach what I practice.

Before becoming a peer coach, I didn’t take advantage of this the Public Health Writing Program or our other writing resources as much I should have. I remember being a student in PH720, struggling to organize my thoughts and being intimidated by graduate school writing. Meanwhile, there was a whole team of students armed with knowledge, experience, and resources in the peer coaching office who could have guided me as I began my public health writing journey.

I encourage everyone, whether it’s your first semester or your last, to take advantage of the Peer Writing Coach Program. Everyone has something to gain from their interactions with our office.

Knowing When to Stop

 

OrangeOwl

Last week I wrote about developing a daily writing practice. I was talking about the many real and perceived barriers that stop professors from sitting down and writing for 15-30 minutes every day. Today I’ll share some thoughts about knowing when to close your laptop, stand-up, and walk away.

Once you finally get into your chair, close your Outlook and Gmail, go through your focusing ritual, and open your document what happens? I often start by reading what I've written so far, sometimes making small tweaks as I go. Once I’ve started doing that, I usually end up losing myself in the process. I start writing where I left off or I find a gap that needs to be filled for the about-to-be-written section to make sense. I often lose track of time and can find myself typing away or hyper-focused on something small like how to word a transition. Either way, I’m in my document. I’m still sitting in Jaho, or in my office, or on my couch. But my thoughts and attention are somewhere else. Getting into that state of flow is wonderful, but I’ve found that the line between flow and stubborn self-abuse can be very fine.

You’re finally writing. You can’t stop now. You did almost nothing. Forget about moving your body and taking that sip of water. Keep going. Accomplish something!! This is the self-talk that keeps me tied to my chair for far too long.

My legs ache, my jaw clenches, and I’m writing, deleting, and rewriting the same unimportant sentence again and again. Once stubborn takes hold, standing up and walking away is harder and harder. I can’t count how many times it’s kept me in my office until 11:00 pm on a Friday night.

Michelle Boyd introduced me to the importance of ending well. End well to make starting tomorrow easier. And Rich Furman taught me how to use a timer, to recognize can’t-get-up, body-cramped refusal to stop for what it is. To not confuse self-abuse with my writing process.

He even suggested that I write a note to myself on an index card. “I have no writing goal. I have a writing process. It is not my job to abuse myself with Draconian writing expectations. My job is to have quality writing sessions.” I’ve been carrying that card around for a year.

If I stop when my orange owl egg-timer tells me that 30 minutes are up, I know where and how to start the next time I sit down. And I walk away feeling virtuous for having done my 30 minutes, without giving the negative voice in my head a chance to tell me all I didn’t do. I don’t always remember to start the timer. I didn’t when I sat down to write this, and I probably spent too much time. So here I am, ending well, before frustration kicks in.

August Writing

It’s August, and it’s usually right around this time that I start getting anxious about all the writing I haven’t done yet. Like many academics, I have fallen too many times into the trap of doing everything but my own writing during the school year. I answer too many emails (though I’m always behind). I sit through hours and hours of meetings. I plan for class and read the writing of students and our Public Health Post fellows.

And I make bizarre excuses for not writing that go something like this: Working on my own writing is an indulgence I can’t afford. I need to respond to those 10-20 urgent emails now. They can’t wait 15 or 30 minutes….

Now, I’m one of those people who walks around talking about how important it is to write for at least 15 minutes 5 days a week. But I haven’t been consistently successful at following my own advice. So, the pressure of not having written lingers, eats into my nights and weekends,  and leaves me feeling vaguely unsettled much of the time.

This past year, I vowed to do things differently and to truly develop a daily writing practice. At the end of last summer, I hired Rich Furman, an incredible writing coach, who I met through my friend and colleague, Sophie Godley.

Working with Rich was one of the smartest professional choices I’ve ever made. He quickly shot down my “writing is a selfish indulgence” plaint. He helped me rethink how I spend my work time. And he reminded me of the importance of developing short rituals that help me block out all the other voices, turn off my Outlook pop-ups, and focus for a pre-set period of time.

Here’s my ritual: I start my workday by walking to Jaho café. I order my mocha and read something pleasurable or inspiring for 5 minutes (usually a book about writing or fiction). Then I get out my lavender or rosemary essential oil and open my laptop. I set a timer for 30 minutes (sometimes I’ll go as short as 15 or as long as 45 but rarely longer). I write (or do something related to a writing project) until the timer goes off. Then I stop.

I’ve been a faithful adherent most days. Since last summer, I started and completed the first draft of a book manuscript, and worked on a number of other projects. Most importantly, I’m learning to enjoy writing, to look forward to sitting down each morning.

I’m heading into August 2021 with that usual melancholy regret that the summer is winding down too quickly. But I’m not beating myself up, and that feels like a big achievement.