Writing Under Pressure
By · CommentsNot unlike Yogi Berra’s famous quote, “75% of baseball is 50% mental”; Evaluators have a job where 75% of an evaluation is 50% writing. Whether it be writing a final report, a one page summary, writing a grant, project proposal, or even – dare I say it – writing on your blog. The art of the written word carries much weight in the Eval business.
Ok, that’s nothing new right – so what. Given that you always have planned your project and time right you inevitably have gads of time left once the time comes to write, right? Perhaps that one time in a blue moon when things don’t go as planed, or the client pushes up a deadline, or just the fact that we live in the real world sneaks up on you, you find yourself writing under pressure. How can you cope, how can you prepare for the unexpected rush job without losing some of your reputation with a half-assed product?
Good news, I just came across Lindsay Olson’s article about just that – How to Write Under Pressure. She gives 8 tips (the first 8 below) for writing under pressure from a PR point-of-view. I will restate her list in more of an Eval point of view plus throw in a few of my own tips.
- Get rid of distractions – close down a few Windows on your screen, or turn off the internet altogether if possible. Tune out to whats going on around you so that you can focus on getting the job done.
- Just do it – stuck on finding the perfect opening or headline? Sometimes it’s best to just start writing and get the juices flowing, then go back to edit later. Imagine what your stakeholders would be talking about were they discussing your paper – what would capture their attention?
- Break it down – if the idea of writing an entire piece right now is overwhelming, create smaller, more do-able “homework” assignments. When I’m really stuck and not motivated to write something that really needs to get done, I set a schedule for myself. For instance, I’ll tell my lazy self that I must write for the next 30 minutes and then reward myself with another, more desirable activity – such as writing this blog entry.
- Start with the easy stuff –maybe thinking of a fresh way to write the really cool findings eludes you, but you can easily write the fact-filled introductory paragraph and the boilerplate paragraphs. Doing so makes it look like you’ve written more than you have and could be the inspiration you need.
- Imagine what the reader will think – every piece of communication you write has an intended audience. Put yourself in their shoes for a second and think about what they want to know, what their first question will be upon reading your headline or opening line or what their reaction will be to your news.
- Take a break – this kind of flies in the face of my first few tips where I suggest just focusing on the matter at hand, but honestly some of my best ideas come when I switch gears for a short time and get up from my desk to do something different.
- Keep a diary blog – a lot of writing experts recommend this because it gets you in the habit of writing, gets the ideas to appear on paper and is a fabulous way to get a sense of your writing style.
- Read – I recall a saying that good writers are good readers, probably because reading a variety of materials will expand your vocabulary, open you to new ideas and keep you current.
- Explain your ideas to your Grandma – Einstein once said that “you do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” This means for me, that I try and explain my thoughts to my fiance‘ and gauge her reaction. She hates this but it helps me to find better ways to explain my thoughts.
- Trust your unique ideas – You were given this project or hired for a reason. That reason includes who you are. Go with a quirky idea, or a unique way of presenting a table/graph. You never know how it will influence your ability to express your ideas after that bit of originality.
No one gets into Evaluation without liking the work. Expressing your ideas is perhaps the most important aspect of the work since until you put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) no one else knows exactly what you do. Pressure is just one of those facts of life and, if you let it, can be a stimulus to great writing if you don’t let it pull you down.
Social Networking and Evaluators
By · CommentsToday my addition to the AEA365 Tip a Day blog went up. I talked a bit about social networking sites and how Evaluators, especially Independent Consultant Evaluators can and should be using them in their work and business. Check out the blog – http://aea365.org/blog/?p=509 – there are a lot of cool tips and resources on that blog if you search through the history.
Resources like the AEA365 blog, this blog, Custom Evaluation blog, ect… are tremendously valuable to the Evaluation community. First, they are a free source of great information about what we do for a living. Secondly, blogs are a discussion within the community; a running dialog between those who have first hand experiences. Why more people don’t jump right in to that discussion is baffling to me. I know you’re saying – “well there are many reasons people don’t keep or read blogs everyday; time constraints for one, its complicated to join the conversation, …” Well I will disagree with both of those and not just because I keep two blogs and consult on a few others.
If time is your limiting factor, find a Web-based aggregator for RSS/ATOM feeds. I use Google Reader and really like the simple interface. Several friends of mine use FeedBurner (which is now owned by Google) for the same task. When I find a blog that I like, has good information I will want to keep up with, or even xkcd web cartoon (which is a techie type 3 day a week cartoon) I subscribe to in my reader. Every morning when I log onto my computer I check my email and my reader. The reader gives me in one place all the updates for about 15 bogs or web sites in a quick and orderly fashion. I become up to date in about 10 mins. I will comment on the articles I choose and after about 15-20 mins I have made one or more contributions to the daily conversation.
Just reading what is going on in the community you work and live in is terrific, adding to that with comments or your own blog is super fantastic. I suggest to you if you don’t use a feed reader to try out Google Reader and add a few RSS feeds to it. Taking the 5-10 mins to keep up with all that is going on is more than worth your time, and will not only increase your knowledge but will make you a better evaluator/consultant/member of your community.
Use (not so) Common Sense, Please
By · CommentsTaking a page from the Custom Evaluation blog, I thought I would talk about using your head when it comes to reading research. Aimme Sickels over at CES blog has been talking this week about thinking while working and knowing when to say NO to unproductive work. Both very poignant posts and very important to consider even during the best of times for Evaluators.
However, beyond those thoughts the heart of many projects/evaluations/research questions rests firmly on previous research – either because it brings up new questions or it is the foundation of a new project. How many times have you (or I for that matter) read an abstract and thought – “heck yeah, thats exactly what I was looking for” and just accepted the paper simply because it was in a reputable journal and said what we wanted to hear? I cite two examples as to why it is so important to use your head when reading research.
One is the recent retraction of the article discussing MMR vaccines (measles, mumps, and rubella) which was linked to increases in autism in 1998 by an article in The Lancet. Jenny McCarthy and Oprah both jumped on this article and preached as gospel. As it turns out The Lancet made this statement to The Globe and Mail:
Ten of Wakefield’s 13 co-authors renounced the study’s conclusions several years ago and The Lancet has previously said it should never have published the research.
“It has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield … are incorrect,” the internationally renowned scientific journal said in a statement Tuesday. “We fully retract this paper from the published record.”
Last week, Britain’s General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had shown a “callous disregard” for the children used in his study, acted unethically and had brought the medical profession “into disrepute.”
Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice medicine in Britain.
For the study, Dr. Wakefield took blood samples from children at his son’s birthday party, paying them 5 pounds each ($8) for their contributions and later joking about the incident.
I think this not only discredits the article, the author, but also McCarthy and Oprah for blindly accepting it. More than a dozen other studies, as well as trend data from California and other states, show that neither the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal nor the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism. In March 2009, a federal court dismissed both of these theories in a most definitive way after hearing weeks of testimony and gathering thousands of pages of evidence. If only people would have questioned it as loudly as the supporters praised it.
Secondly, a yet to be published article in Psychonomic Bulletin and Review by Jason M. Watson, Ph.D and David L. Strayer, Ph.D out of the University of Utah investigate what they call “supertaskers.”
To test multitasking abilities, study authors Jason M. Watson, Ph.D and David L. Strayer, Ph.D, evaluated the ability of 200 participants to drive safely while talking on a cell phone.
First, participants were only assessed on their performance of simulated driving. The test was then performed again with a simultaneous cell phone conversation that tested memory and math skills. TechNews Daily reports that performance was evaluated in four key areas, including brake reaction time, following distance, memory, and math execution.
Only five “supertaskers” (three men and two women) excelled at operating the driving simulator while simultaneously having the cell phone conversation without any loss in performance on either task. Not only did they excel at each task, but their memory abilities actuallyincreased by 3 percent.
On the other hand, the driving skills of the majority of participants suffered with the addition of the cell phone conversation. According toMedPage Today, it took these participants 20 percent longer to hit the brakes when needed and many failed to keep pace with the simulated traffic. Memory and math skills also decreased.
Perhaps their findings are legit, they did get base line data about how the test subjects drove in a simulator without a cell phone. Here is my question though – did they get base line data on how well the subjects performed without drive but with only the math and memory questions on a cell phone? I will have to wait till the article is published to find out. My point here is that even though it makes sense that it would be rare to be able to drive and analytically think at the same time, people once thought it made sense that the Earth was flat and the center of the universe.
Question everything, accept nothing (on face value) is so very important to remember in today’s world. The immense pressures on researchers to “publish or die” by universities along with how easy it is to get just about anything published today puts the onus on us as the consumer of the information to question it, follow it up with additional sources, and use the common sense ruler to see how it measures up. Basic understanding of statistics, logical thinking, and the ability to go find one or two supporting papers will help keep you from falling into the pit of humiliation down the road.