Six
Steps to an Original Contribution
 What is the Holy Grail for scholarly writing? The
Original Contribution. How do you
create an original contribution? Through
creative thinking.
Thinking creatively means that you get
out of the old well-worn ruts as you look
at facts, data, arguments, and theories,
and see them from different perspectives. You
then become aware of previously hidden patterns and are able to identify new
ideas, questions, problems, theories, models, and answers.
The work of Professor
Theresa Amabile at Harvard Business
School gives some strong evidence of
how to increase your creativity. She
studied 12,000 people in seven different
companies, having them fill out daily
diaries of their activities, accomplishment,
moods, emotions, and interactions with
others. Here are six suggestions of how
you can boost your creativity, the first
five of which are based on her findings.
- Be clear about your own reasons
for doing your work (this
is called intrinsic motivation). If
you focus on extrinsic motivation,
such as the competition, or the reward
or recognition (or criticism) you will
potentially get from the work, you
will be less creative.
For example,
I recently helped a client realize
that the best reason for her to complete
her dissertation was to help her become
strong enough to express her opinions
without fear of what others would think. This
was more motivating to her than imagining
how proud her parents would be when she
earned her Ph.D.
So focus inward,
not outward. Find
your own reasons why you are jazzed to
be doing your work, if you want to work
creatively.
- Don't expect
to be most creative when you work close
to a deadline. Contrary
to popular thinking (and even contrary
to the belief of the people participating
in Amabile's studies), deadlines
stifle creativity. So those of
you who are dependent on deadlines
to force yourself to finish your writing
projects are cheating yourself out
of realizing your creative potential.
- Be
happy. I
know; easy for me to say. But the
sad truth is that Amabile
found that on a day-to-day basis,
there was a negative correlation between
fear, anxiety and sadness and creativity,
In fact, she was able to show that creative
days often came the day after a particularly
happy day at work, as if associations
are more likely to be percolating in
the brain for hours after the work itself
has ended.
How to optimize your mood? For
academics, I believe that academic self-efficacy
is important to enjoyment of your work,
and therefore, for creativity. Because
I this is so central to satisfaction as
an academic, I have structured our Academic
Writing Club to help members achieve
not just more writing, but a better attitude
towards their work. The progress
questions in the daily log are oriented
towards improving your mood and your sense
of hopefulness in regards to your own work,
in addition to providing structure, support
and feedback. The following quote
from a member is representative of what
we hear all the time in the Club:
"I
agree with you about how good it feels
to work on your writing everyday and have
that flow in thinking about a project.
I was really lacking that before this writing
club started, and the fact that I know
I'm going to sit down and think about my
ideas every day (if only for 20 minutes)
has allowed me to feel really good about
myself."
-- ABD grad student
Put another way, you
might say "a
productive writer equals a happy writer,
and a happy writer equals a creative writer."
- Share
and collaborate. Be
prepared to debate your ideas and to
take in the ideas of others. A
competitive mentality contributes to
self-consiousness, anxiety and fear,
and tends to shut down the creative parts
of your brain.
I would add to Amabile's
findings by suggesting that you talk
about your ideas with people in other
fields, or even those not in academia - the
more off-the-wall their response is,
the more it might trigger something new
in your brain! Many times, clients
come up with new and creative ideas just
by trying to explain their research to
me, or by answering my naïve (but
penetrating, searching, and highly intelligent)
questions.
- Know that you can be
creative. Amabile's
studies, and others that I have read,
show that anyone can be creative, if
they remove the blocks to their creativity. So
be careful of the voice in your head
saying "I just can't think
up an original idea." That
voice is creating anxiety, which, as
Amabile's research has shown, is
a creativity killer. Creativity can be
fostered, encouraged, and taught.
- Write
in short, daily writing sessions. This
is my suggestion, but it fits so beautifully
with Amabile's research, that
I couldn't resist. Short
daily writing sessions should be the
Holy Grail of the productive, creative
academic writer. That's
why they are the mainstay of our Academic
Writing Club. They help you avoid
writing to deadlines, increase your
productivity and self-efficacy, and
help you be more generative and creative. Linda
Naiman writes:
Research has shown
that in creativity quantity equals
quality. The longer the list of ideas,
the higher the quality the final solution.
The highest quality ideas appear at
the end of the list.
Short, daily
writing sessions will keep your work
uppermost in your mind, even at an unconscious
level, where your brain can work on it
around the clock. Frequent
sessions will help you feel more positive
about your work, and make it easier for
you to share your work.
These comments from Academic Writing Club
members illustrate many of these principles:
"I feel so good that I sat down to
write and started thinking about ideas.
I feel as if my brain is in gear and the
ideas will continue to percolate after
I stop working...it's a good feeling."
-- ABD grad student
"Today, yet again I thought, NOW I'm
really getting this, understanding
why it is important to write 15 minutes
(at least) each day. This keeps my topic
more in the front of my brain, so that ideas
can come to me all day. ....And
the beauty of it is, I don't have to "get
it," or understand why/how it works,
it (15 min sessions) just works, all
I have to do is DO IT!"
-- Grace Ann Rosile, Assistant Professor
In other words, build the time for writing,
and the creativity will come. Look
for more about creativity in subsequent
newsletters and on my
blog!
Warmly,
Gina |
