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0:00don't welcome you here i think uh and
0:03congratulate you actually for being
0:04selective for us this is this is really
0:06one of those events that the fma does
0:09that i'm really fond of i think it's a
0:11great event uh and i encourage you to
0:14make full use of your time here in
0:16nashville
0:17to get to know the profession and how it
0:19works and the people in it
0:21um i also thank paul for inviting me to
0:23to be part of this very distinguished
0:25panel it's a
0:27it's very flattering to be part of it
0:29and
0:30hopefully i could say something useful
0:32in the next few minutes but to help you
0:34along your way so obviously my the topic
0:37as paul mentioned is is the process of
0:39writing your papers
0:41with the goal of course
0:43getting these papers all those in in the
0:45good journals and convincing editors and
0:48referees that you've done something
0:50useful that the writing part
0:53is a part that i think is not always
0:55everyone's favorite task when first
0:57starting out in his profession but it's
1:00really critically important and so
1:03hopefully i can
1:05say something that's that's useful in
1:07that respect the way the way i tend to
1:09think about this
1:11is that it's all part of this transition
1:13that you make as a student from going
1:15from being a consumer of knowledge
1:18to ultimately a producer of that
1:21knowledge and you know if you think
1:23about your first couple of years in a
1:25typical phd program
1:28you're buying large consumer of this
1:30knowledge you're reading textbooks
1:32you're doing problem sets and
1:34microeconomics you're reading tons of
1:37papers
1:38and as as faculty of course our hope is
1:41that this is all preparation for you to
1:43be
1:44producers of knowledge
1:46but we're realistic as well and let's
1:48face it when you when you all are
1:50reading these papers and
1:53and doing these problems you're not
1:55really thinking about becoming a
1:57producer of knowledge you're thinking
1:59how do i pass the comps
2:01at the end of my second year it's only
2:03once you get past that
2:05passing those comps and i think fishery
2:07referred to this earlier that you know
2:09we we just kind of turn you loose and
2:11say okay go out and find an idea
2:14do something original
2:16and that's sort of when panic sets in
2:19and you go through this process of
2:22searching for a topic which is something
2:23that somebody else will talk about later
2:26but
2:27this is where you become
2:28sort of a full-scale producer of of
2:31knowledge and and
2:33you know your goal is really focus in
2:35this process you know first and foremost
2:38you want to discover
2:39some new knowledge but but secondly what
2:42i want to talk about is you've got to
2:44communicate
2:45this knowledge in a way that somehow
2:48maximizes its impact you need to
2:50convince the profession that you've done
2:52something that that really has expanded
2:54our
2:55our base of knowledge and that's where
2:56the writing part comes in and that as i
2:59said is a prop is a part that sometimes
3:02doesn't receive the attention that it
3:04really deserves you know i can't tell
3:07you
3:07how many conversations i've had with
3:09students over the years in in which you
3:12know you sort of
3:13pass them in the hallway and ask them
3:15questions about how their paper's coming
3:17along
3:18and they'll they'll spend a lot of time
3:20telling you about their process of
3:22collecting the data
3:24and what sort of regressions that are
3:26running on this or what sort of
3:27robustness test that they're doing
3:30and then they'll say something that
3:32basically communicates the fact they
3:33haven't written a thing yet and i said
3:35but let's say but
3:37i should be able to do that over the
3:38weekend i'll give it to you on monday
3:42please don't give it to me on monday if
3:45this process takes a lot of time the
3:47writing part
3:48is is difficult
3:50and you really have to give it the same
3:53sort of attention that you give to the
3:55rest of the of the study in order for it
3:57ultimately uh to work out i'm sure
4:00everybody up here
4:02has been in this process of writing and
4:04rewriting and rewriting uh drafts of
4:06papers and in single paragraphs time and
4:09time again it's it's a difficult process
4:12that really uh requires your attention
4:15so so how do you do it you know
4:18if you if you're sitting here today and
4:20we've had references to you know you're
4:22having a 70 page job market paper
4:25that somehow has got to be condensed
4:28down into
4:29a 30 page
4:31paper that might be acceptable to to a
4:34journal how do you go about
4:36this particular process well
4:39the temptation
4:41is to think about it in terms of cutting
4:43and pasting i said well i'm just going
4:45to take out this part this part this
4:47part that'll get me down to 30 pages i
4:51encourage you not to take that approach
4:54so you really want to do i think is is
4:56to is to start
4:58completely over with the motivation and
5:00the introduction of your paper i'm going
5:02to talk a little bit more about
5:03introduction in a couple of minutes but
5:06you really want to ask yourself
5:09what's really the central contribution
5:11of this study that i just spent two or
5:14three years until i found
5:16it may not be the central contribution
5:19that you thought it was going to be when
5:21you first started this project that's
5:22fine there's nothing wrong with that in
5:24fact i think the way most
5:27final defenses go is that you know first
5:29of all the faculty is just signing off
5:31that yes you've done enough
5:33to get your degree but the second part
5:35of the discussion at that final defense
5:38is always okay what's really important
5:40in this paper and what's not
5:43all right you want to know that kind of
5:45coming out of final defense so you can
5:48now build your paper around it and
5:50that's why i think it's important to you
5:52basically throw out your old
5:53introduction start blank with a blank
5:56slate
5:57and write up the motivation uh and the
6:00introduction of the paper as if you're
6:02starting to paper over my former
6:04colleague
6:05john mcconnell
6:06was fond of telling the students you
6:08know just just dump it in the trash
6:10again
6:11and start over he said now you've
6:13learned
6:14everything you should have done
6:16now you've learned what your study is
6:17really about so write it up based on
6:20what you know now not what you did
6:22before
6:24and as you're writing that that study
6:26you really want it to be conveyed in a
6:29linear fashion to the reader
6:32and again the temptation
6:35is that it won't be linear but rather it
6:37will be chronological
6:39and because you started this project
6:41you talked to various faculty along the
6:43way they said maybe you should try this
6:46or you should do this sort of test and
6:48you do those things you just keep adding
6:49them on do it to what you already had
6:52right it's just listed out in a
6:54chronological fashion
6:57that's not the way you want your paper
6:59to read
7:00right once you've identified what your
7:02paper is really about and what the
7:04central contribution is you want it to
7:06read as if here's the question
7:09i'm at point a
7:10i want to go to point b point c in a
7:13very linear fashion i don't want to be
7:15this doesn't need to be
7:17uh a way in which you convey the reader
7:19all the pain you went through like the
7:21study and the order in which you went
7:23through that pain
7:25and you want to just convey it to them
7:26in a way that they learned something and
7:28and that that's best learned
7:31in more of a linear fashion rather than
7:33a chronological fashion but you want to
7:35think about this is more like a
7:37newspaper article
7:39rather than a mystery now a newspaper
7:42article think about paragraph
7:44newspaper article it tells you most of
7:47what you need to know about what
7:48happened
7:49in that event that's the way your study
7:51should be you got to have to read it
7:52pretty early with what your central
7:54contribution is don't leave them hanging
7:56you're not writing a mystery novel in
7:59which you tease them with little pieces
8:00of information
8:02waiting for the big bang at the end of
8:04the paper that's not that's not the way
8:05it works
8:08another thing you really have to get a
8:10feel for is is learning how to write in
8:13a tight fashion right this is a always a
8:16little bit hard thing to explain it's
8:18one of those things that you kind of
8:19know it when you see it and you'll get
8:21this comment a lot this has to be
8:23tighter
8:27so i was trying to think well can i give
8:29an example of
8:31of what i mean by that but so so think
8:34of a sentence that says something like
8:38it should be noted
8:40that
8:41contrary to our expectations the
8:44coefficients on
8:46on
8:47x1 and x2
8:49are significantly named
8:52there's a lot of extra verbiage in in
8:54that sentence you might have already
8:56told the reader what you expected to see
8:58except part of your hypothesis so just
9:00say the coefficients on x y and x2 are
9:03significantly significant
9:06that's all you really need to say
9:08all right when you have lots of those
9:10different sentences in a paper it adds
9:13up to sort of a bulky sort of document
9:16that kind of distracts the reader from
9:18what you're really trying to say so
9:20learn to write in a fairly tight fashion
9:23and that alone is going to reduce the
9:24length of your document quite a bit as i
9:27said the goal really should be
9:30a paper that's around 30 pages of text
9:33if it's an empirical paper around eight
9:35tables and anything more than that is
9:37really starting to stretch
9:39the reader's ability to pay attention to
9:41it to what you really do if you can't
9:43convey it in a pretty sharp fashion
9:47uh then you probably need to think a
9:48little bit more about what you really
9:50have and what you don't have you know
9:53a trick that a lot of people try to tend
9:55to do at first just to shovel off things
9:58in the footnotes don't do that
10:00if it's important enough
10:03to say it probably belongs in the text
10:05and things on footnotes ought to be just
10:08things like long lists of references
10:10that uh that pertain to what you're
10:12saying in the past if you really should
10:14never have more than an average of one
10:17footnote per page
10:19um
10:20you can make use
10:22of appendices right but some information
10:25that
10:26some readers might like to see but is
10:28not really essential to taking the
10:30reader along this linear path
10:33that's the kind of thing that is useful
10:35to put in an appendix and while most of
10:37the journals now
10:38will have online dependency appendices
10:41that can be posted that's a little
10:42dangerous trend i think because authors
10:46tend to just put way too much in those
10:48online dependencies at times so you need
10:50to think about what needs to be in there
10:52but that's
10:53that's a reasonable way to to condense
10:57your document
10:58all right so let's talk a little bit
11:00more about the introduction
11:02because in a lot of ways
11:04the introduction is the most important
11:06part of your paper as
11:09this was talking about before people
11:11don't read papers anymore in the sense
11:14that's true they do read a lot of
11:16introductions
11:18and the introduction if it's really well
11:20done will
11:21convince the reader that maybe they
11:23should read the whole paper but if they
11:25don't
11:26the introduction often convey pretty
11:28much everything that that's in your
11:30paper and that's not easy to do if
11:33you're thinking about doing it in a very
11:35tight fashion right so what what needs
11:38to be
11:38in this introduction well first and
11:40foremost it should be telling the reader
11:42what are you doing
11:44right and that's got to appear really
11:47early in the introduction certainly in
11:50the first page but preferably in the
11:52first paragraph
11:54what you really don't want to get into
11:57is giving this long history of where the
11:59literature has been
12:01uh without saying
12:03what you're doing at all right this is
12:05your paper you need to be telling the
12:06reader what it is that that you're doing
12:09now you say a little bit about the
12:11literature up front because you need to
12:13convince the reader why this is an
12:15interesting topic
12:17why it's important for them to to learn
12:20the answer to to the question that
12:22you're posing so you got to convince the
12:24reader that it's interesting and
12:25important but
12:28it shouldn't be done in a way that
12:30you're you're boring the reader with a
12:32with a litany of papers that other
12:33people have done keep them focused on
12:36what
12:37what are you doing why is it interesting
12:39and important
12:40uh how are you going about doing this
12:42what's your method if it's an empirical
12:44paper you've got some experimental
12:46design issues spell them out tell the
12:48reader what they are in as concise away
12:51as you can
12:53right fourth what can you find
12:56and fifth how do you interpret those
12:58findings make sure
13:00that those two things are separated
13:03i often times when you ask somebody what
13:06did they find
13:07they give you their interpretation of
13:09their findings those are two distinct
13:11things
13:13what you find if you do an empirical
13:15paper you find an association between
13:17variable a and variable b like how you
13:20interpret that it might be open to
13:22multiple interpretations and you have to
13:25recognize what those are
13:27and spell those out
13:28and then finally how does this relate to
13:30other findings in the field this is
13:32where you bring a little bit more of the
13:34literature i think but personally
13:37i think it's more effective to leave
13:39this towards the end of the introduction
13:41once you've told the reader
13:43what it what it is you're doing why it's
13:45an important question
13:47they may be thinking in their mind wait
13:49a second in these other papers do some
13:51of this already you need to need to tell
13:53them how your work differs from them but
13:56this is not some lengthy literature
13:58review at the end of the introduction
14:00but rather
14:01it should just be pointing to the two or
14:03three papers that are closest to what
14:05you're doing
14:06and how your work is actually distinct
14:09from theirs or builds upon there as it
14:11complements theirs and
14:14now all that sounds like a lot to put an
14:17introduction
14:19so the next the goal may seem kind of
14:21kind of counterintuitive but you really
14:24should want to be able to communicate
14:26this in about three minutes
14:29the only thing i think that really
14:30should stretch that out is number six
14:32depending on how much you feel necessary
14:35to say about how it relates
14:37to other findings in the field but if
14:38you're you should be able to fairly
14:41concisely express what it is you're
14:43doing why you're doing it what you find
14:45how you interpret it
14:47in three pages or less if you're not
14:49doing that
14:50then you're probably not thinking hard
14:52enough about
14:53what it is you what it is you've got
14:57okay some some general do's and don'ts
15:00that i think are are important in terms
15:02of writing first
15:04you really need to to learn how to write
15:07in an agnostic fashion now this is
15:09tricky
15:10in the sense that you know as as this
15:13was saying earlier in some sense you're
15:15always marketing
15:16when you have to market your work in the
15:18sense that you have to convince people
15:20that what you're doing
15:21is important that you have you really
15:23got something but you're not a
15:25salesperson
15:27you're not a politician who's promoting
15:29a particular point of view
15:31you're a scientist you asked a question
15:34right you brought some evidence to bear
15:36on that question or you or you were able
15:38to write down your theoretical model
15:41that addresses that question and now
15:43you're reporting but what you've got
15:46you interpret it in agnostic fashion as
15:49anyone who doesn't have
15:50a stake in this might interpret this
15:53evidence that's going to be a lot more
15:55convincing
15:56than
15:57having the reader think that you're
15:58trying to pull the wall over their eyes
16:02along along those lines
16:05very few papers
16:07work out exactly the way we envisioned
16:09them in our mind we always have some
16:10friars you always can see where the
16:14evidence seems to be pointing but
16:15there's always some results that are a
16:17little bit weaker than we would like
16:20and there's always some limitations to
16:22the approach that we took no study is
16:24perfect
16:26don't try to hide those things
16:28go ahead and acknowledge
16:29what the limitations of your study are
16:33and that's gonna that's gonna convey a
16:35much more positive impression to the
16:37reader
16:38than would be something that seems like
16:40you don't even recognize what the
16:42limitations are
16:44so we'll try to hide those things
16:47uh i kind of said this already but
16:50in terms of the introduction but you
16:52want to get to your main result really
16:54quickly in the paper
16:56if the reader's got to wait till table 7
16:59or page 20 of your paper to get what's
17:01really your central finding they're not
17:04going to get there you have already lost
17:06them they won't read that long so
17:08if you could do it in table one great
17:11uh
17:12most of the time it's more like table
17:14two or table three it's got the central
17:17finding but really the only stuff that
17:19should come before the central finding
17:22are things that you think are are
17:23essential for the reader to know in
17:26order for them to understand your
17:27central finding
17:29anything else
17:31just either take it out or or move it to
17:34later okay
17:36i don't ignore
17:38competing papers right this is a tricky
17:41one sometimes for for office especially
17:43young authors when they see oh it looks
17:46like somebody else is working on on the
17:48same topic well if i don't look at their
17:51paper
17:53then i can't you know i don't have to
17:55acknowledge that it exists
17:57maybe i can
17:59seem like i'm providing more of a
18:00contribution somehow don't don't do that
18:03all right referees editors they
18:05understand the literature they will know
18:07if you somehow miss relevant papers and
18:10literature and it's going to happen
18:11sometimes
18:13inadvertently uh but if you know that
18:15there are competing papers out there
18:17go ahead and say maybe it's
18:19contemporaneously done and there's you
18:21know they're just happening in parallel
18:23that's okay that happens
18:25uh but you need to acknowledge that they
18:27exist and if your study is anything
18:29different in any way point that out
18:34try to avoid as much as possible using
18:37adjectives in your work it's a really
18:39striking result or the results in table
18:42seven are very interesting
18:44the reader can judge that for themselves
18:47as to what's interesting and what
18:48strikes you now so you don't need to
18:50help them in that respect and sometimes
18:51they get irritated it looks like you're
18:54you're trying to help them too much
18:57and lastly make sure your paper is
18:59fairly carefully documented if it's an
19:02empirical paper it should be the type of
19:04thing that
19:05any other phd student could pick it up
19:08and just go out and replicate what you
19:10did if they can't do that then you
19:12haven't really documented the paper as
19:14as carefully as you can
19:18okay the last thing i want to talk about
19:19is more just some some practical
19:22suggestions for for the process of
19:26writing because i said you know this is
19:28writing is an important skill
19:31uh it's not a skill that everybody has
19:34innately but i think it is a skill like
19:36like teaching that can be developed
19:38it takes practice you have to do it a
19:40lot
19:42like i said before it's not the case you
19:44just want to
19:45spend months and months on your data or
19:47your model and then a weekend writing it
19:50up what you really want to do
19:52is write very regularly and ideally i
19:55think in consistent times and places i
19:58can remember when i was
20:00finishing my phd at michigan
20:03harry d'angelo joined the faculty and
20:05harry potter great group read his papers
20:08is a tremendous writer
20:10and
20:12he was he was promoting this point of
20:13view that you know you need to set aside
20:16a a time in the day where
20:18you can have some
20:20uninterrupted time
20:21to write each and every day you might be
20:24writing
20:25your paper it might be
20:27writing up a new idea in sort of an
20:29outline form but it's some sort of
20:31writing that you do you know i'm sitting
20:33there as phd student agreeing with
20:36everything he said not me vigorously
20:38uh he said so what i like to do is you
20:41know i could get up around four
20:44every morning because i find
20:46that between four and six it's really
20:48pretty quiet
20:54i thought up to that point i thought i
20:56was an early riser
20:59but
21:00my point is not get up at 4am because
21:03you can have longer at the time but but
21:05find that time that works for you
21:08where you're not going to have
21:09interruptions to your time and you can
21:11get
21:12a lot done it's really difficult
21:15i think to
21:17spend whole days on just writing
21:19and even if you you know i've
21:22listened on occasion to um
21:25authors of fiction authors talk about
21:28you know how they do it and i think it
21:29doesn't seem like these guys work very
21:31much because they talk about getting up
21:33in the morning and riding until noon and
21:35then they're done
21:36you know well i think that's because you
21:38can't write
21:39uh for for that long so make sure you
21:42with the other activities that go into
21:44research and ultimately teaching once
21:46you're on the job you want to have a
21:48little a little block of time each day
21:51or you're doing your writing but don't
21:52expect that you can just write all day
21:55that won't be a very efficient use of
21:57your time
21:58along the lines that mara said with
22:00respect to teaching
22:02uh to identify good writers
22:05in the field and try to emulate
22:07the way they do it i think it's you know
22:09all of you have probably read papers
22:11where you you walked away from them and
22:13stuff like that was that was written
22:15really well
22:16um but go go beyond that and ask
22:19yourself well
22:20what was good about it why do you think
22:23that this was written well and same
22:25thing with banned badly written papers
22:27right there are some badly written
22:29papers out there
22:31and if you might be pulling your hair
22:33out you know trying to understand what
22:35it was there they're trying to say
22:37but ask yourself after you read those
22:39papers well what is it about the way
22:42they did it that made it more difficult
22:44that's really going to help your own
22:45writing i think to both emulate the good
22:48writers and to understand what doesn't
22:50work for some people
22:53um get feedback from other people have
22:56people read what you've what you've
22:58written and i think it's even best
23:01sometimes to get people to read it who
23:03aren't
23:04in the narrow field in which you're
23:06working and somebody who's informed
23:07enough to understand what it is you're
23:10doing but who isn't working in that
23:11particular field because they're a nice
23:14fresh set of eyes
23:15that you're going to have to explain
23:17things very clearly to them
23:20so that they sort of get the path that
23:22works and last and certainly not least
23:25find what works for you
23:27right you do need to write regularly you
23:28do need to practice this craft there's
23:31not a one size fits all on this you have
23:33to understand your own personality in
23:36this field whether it comes to you know
23:37writing or managing your time for
23:39teaching so you do have to figure out
23:42ultimately what works best for you and
23:44it's not necessarily the same thing that
23:46works for the person in the office next
23:48year so understand yourself and use that
23:52understanding to to maximize what you
23:54get after this
23:56okay that's it
23:58questions
24:01yep
24:03so you can after you mention the
24:05introduction you need to say what is the
24:08difference between your research and
24:10other people's research so
24:13is that the
24:14same as a literature review do you have
24:17a separate section for the nutrition
24:19review i think that depends on the paper
24:22um
24:24i think it is different from the
24:25literature review in a sense
24:27what you want to do in the introduction
24:29is really just focus on the two or three
24:32papers that are really
24:34closest to what you're doing they speak
24:36directly to some of the issues that you
24:38talk about there may be
24:40a prior literature that is useful to
24:43convey to the reader that sort of takes
24:45them on the path as to you know why
24:47these questions are now interesting if
24:50so i would say that that would be a
24:52separate literature review section that
24:54you'd want to put in
24:56this section
25:02yes
25:03so we have some suggestions for the
25:06conclusion part
25:07for the what
25:09conclusion uh i think that's a good
25:12question um in a lot of ways
25:16um i think the conclusion is the least
25:18important part of the paper
25:21and caught only because if you if you've
25:23written the paper
25:25well up to that point you've already
25:27told the reader everything
25:29and so the conclusion is in that sense
25:32somewhat redundant now
25:34where the conclusion can be useful
25:36though is this sort of uh positioning
25:38now you know now that you've answered
25:41you hope this question that you posed
25:44what's really the next step where's
25:46where will the literature go next
25:49you know if you can
25:51sort of guide the the reader in that
25:53sense that's a useful thing to do in the
25:55conclusion i think but
25:57other than that
25:59i think you want to keep the conclusion
26:00really pretty short and sweet you sort
26:02of succinctly summarize what you've
26:05already told them
26:09we all know we could keep polishing our
26:11drafts forever so what's the trigger
26:13point for you to say well now i'm done
26:15and i just want to send it out
26:19well it's always a tough one by the way
26:21and i think this is part of uh getting
26:24to know yourself
26:26because i i see both ends of the
26:28spectrum
26:29with
26:30students that i've advised over the
26:33years some are just really eager
26:35and they're and you have to hold them
26:37back they want to send it out way too
26:38early way before it's really ready and
26:41others that are more sort of the
26:43perfectionist personality
26:45uh they kind of understand that no study
26:48is perfect but
26:50they think there should be
26:52before they send it out and so they
26:54never send out the paper so
26:56uh that's this first step i think is to
26:58kind of understand where your limitation
27:00might be if you're too eager or too
27:02medicine to send them out
27:04so what's that trigger point i i think
27:07you really should lean on others
27:09um
27:10senior advisors to help you with that
27:12question but
27:14essentially it comes down to the point
27:16in which you think there's really
27:17diminishing returns to these revisions
27:19if you're just not seeing it
27:21be all that different anymore then
27:24um
27:26it's probably time to ship it out
27:29but others should can should give you
27:31some advice on that
27:40when you are writing how do you how do
27:42you strike balance between being humble
27:45and at the same time being proud of your
27:47research
27:50well i think that comes back to
27:54you having to be very agnostic about
27:56what you're doing and if you
27:59you have to
28:01convey to the reader the importance of
28:02the question
28:04and that has nothing to do with you
28:06personally
28:07you're not it's not a question of you
28:09being humble or not at that point it's a
28:11question of whether this is an
28:12interesting question
28:14or not
28:15and then beyond that you're doing
28:17everything you can to answer that
28:19question and just reporting on on what
28:22you found so
28:23in that respect you know if you think of
28:26yourself more as as the scientist who's
28:28reporting what you found then you don't
28:31have to deal as much with this issue
28:44um

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