The Productive Academic Writer

An Easy Guide to Low-Stress Prolific Writing

By: Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan

Narrated by: Jack Nolan

Are you an academic feeling stressed out because of the increasing demands placed upon you to work harder and produce more?

If so, you are not alone. The intense pressure of graduate and postdoctoral study and early career academia leading to mental health problems is now well known.

Publish or perish!

Have you had the excruciating experience of sitting in front of the computer and staring at the monitor, hoping that words would start appearing, magically forming sentences and paragraphs?

Have you ever given up after starting a manuscript, resigning yourself to the idea that you just don't have enough time to complete it now, but you will come back to it later, which never happens?

Having played the role of a student, postdoc, researcher, research faculty member, author, reviewer, and editor, Kasthurirangan "Rangan" Gopalakrishnan, PhD, fully understands and empathizes with the struggles and pleasures of academic work. In this book, his goal is to assist you to do what you are already doing more effectively and efficiently with minimal stress and possibly to identify and eliminate those activities and habits that interfere with your academic writing productivity.

You are invited to learn and explore how to:

• Overcome your limiting beliefs and accept the common myths about writing that can interfere with our productivity
• Set smart goals and develop a weekly plan and daily to-do lists that put writing as one of the topmost priorities
• Use freewriting technique to write a lot and produce the messy first draft
• Use writing to stimulate your critical thinking
• Set a timer while you write, and monitor your daily output to improve your productivity
• Use the accountability mechanism suited for you to overcome feelings of isolation, exchange and learn new ideas, socialize, and connect

©2015 Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan (P)2015 Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan

Excellent starting point

This was the most direct and thereby brief text on academic writing that I have read to date. It is an excellent starting point without the fluff of academic culture and broader time and goal management. Save those texts for later. The Productive Academic Writer will help you start the journey.

what i needed to know

helpful, quick, clear, great well written & useful advice!
as a grad student, this is what i needed to know, thank you to the author for taking the time to write it :)

Promise delivered

The book delivered on its promise. It is a concise resource of concepts, techniques , and goals. It is nothing new, but readily available, short, to the point, and most importantly, replicable.

Doesn’t provide specific information

It provides a brief overview of various writing techniques, but lacks a structured approach on how these techniques can be productively used together.

not original but good summary of effective ways

Much of it already heard before...but nice compilation of best practices. good reminder to stay focused and keep writing a top priority.

Good brief overview of techniques

For what it is - a brief overview of issues and techniques - it does a great job of making you aware.

The narration is, at times, a little chopped up and sometimes doesn't have a natural flow to it, but it's not dreadful.

I recommend this to anyone wondering if they have a good overview of the issues and techniques on this topic. It offers good referrals as well if you wish to dive deeper on a topic.

Same same, with some good.

I opened this audiobook because I was stuck on a research topic. While listening, my mind drifted enough to reach a topic. Take from that what you will.

However, while everything was repeated, having some stuff stated explicitly and in a simple manner did give me motivation on how to approach writing my research.