12th April 2023

WRITESPACE STUDIO 12th april 2023

Please introduce yourself by telling us where you live (country, city/state/region) and what kind of writing you do.

Lynne: I'm Lynne, a linguist in Brighton, England, who writes about language for both academic and non-academic audiences.

Catalina: Hi all, I am Catalina, I work in the UK and I do ‘academic’ writing

Anita: Anita from Cape Town, Academic writing on student thriving and Mathematics teaching.

Stephanie: Hi I'm Stephanie, on unceded Gadigal country (Sydney Australia). In the last mad months of PhD writing on the Triumph of Death.

Bring our voices into the room: “This writing of mine is…”

Catalina: Sounds like academic life haha!

Creative warm up: How can we amplify the voices of our fellow writers -- as well as our own?

Catalina: 1. Citational practice signal the choir you are/want to be part of. It is a powerful tool to show who you think with.
2. Other than getting louder in the cacophony of academia, perhaps we can think of the circular waves when throwing a stone. The farther it goes the more reach the waves.

Lynne: I haven’t got any metaphors, but I was thinking about these things: (1) I amplify by citing people, but it’s not very selfless. I cite because I want to seem well-read and expert.

Stephanie: I ended up writing about trying to have a culture of collaboration and not competition, so it is the norm to share opportunities and to recommend others

Lynne: (2) We often amplify those we disagree with—stand them up to shoot them down. I would like to do less of this…

Anita: Know who to reference, talk to colleagues about whose writing they enjoy. Ask ChatGPT to analyze your reference list and explore the location of authors.

Stephanie: A friend of mine who is interested in the history of printing found a study that suggested for your ideas to hang around for a long time you needed at least 100 printed copies of something. So maybe buy lots of copies of their work and donate to libraries! 😅

Anita: Ask a librarian to compile a map of researchers in your area.

Lynne: (3) Amplifying on Twitter: I’m super conscious about this. There are a lot of people who I think are a bit mean with their amplification of others, and so I think “I don’t need to amplify them”. Not good months to be on Twitter 🙁

Catalina: I was suspended from twitter 🙁

Helen: 5 strategies (of variable effectiveness): (1) Shout louder. (2) Plug into the grid. (3) Barter. (4) Pay it forward. (5) Trust the universe.

Lynne: Substack is creating a new Twitter-like platform...

Pre-pomodoro: What do you plan to work on?

Lynne: I’m going through my reading notes and adding citations (amplification!) where needed in my ‘please’ paper

Stephanie: I am going to finish off a paragraph about images of Revelation 14

Anita: Finding references to add to a journal paper on rubrics

Catalina: I will be working on a sub-section of this article around migration and city

Suranjana: I am working on a review article about spontaneous neuronal activity and interhemispheric connectivity of the brain

Post-pomodoro: Please tell us one thing that you accomplished

Catalina: I went over 3 articles and extracted the core ideas

Lynne: Instead of doing what I said I’d do, I moved some things around and shortened them...

Stephanie: I chased up correct shelf marks and references for all of the illuminated manuscripts I will write about in this par

Anita: Found a reference with an author I would like to amplify!

WINDOW session:  One thing that you discussed, noticed, or learned…

Stephanie: I've realised during this week that while I consider myself a social writer, I really prefer to be social online because it's easier for me to have boundaries over when I choose to engage, plus I don't have to leave my own space

Catalina: Very popular now

Stephanie: https://www.notion.so/product/ai

Catalina: I adapted the protocols of the ‘bullet journal’

Stephanie: I've worked as an Executive Assistant for most of my career and I was just thinking... this sort of data management etc is a specialist job

Anita: Apparently ChatGPT-4 can take photos of handwriting as input ...

Catalina: I think moleskin has something like that

Stephanie: “Font” (as in typography) comes from the Old French fondre, meaning “melt,” from the Latin fundere “melt, cast, pour out,” as in the pouring of metal into moulds. It is a nominalization of “found,” referring to the process of manufacturing letters and printing components at early type foundries. 
https://uselessetymology.com/2017/11/14/the-etymology-of-font/

One word poem

Flying Unicorn: scythe pond chalk cloud