Below is a Q & A with our very own Writing Advisor, Jeff McMahon. Read below for advice on writing, particularly the final papers everyone is facing right now. Both Matt and I met with Jeff last year and benefited from his advice and the opportunity to talk through our own writing blockage.
Exactly a year ago, I went into Jeff’s office for help with a 20 page paper on 3 different objects and left about 30 minutes later, tired but optimistic, with 1 cohesive argument. Remember, too, that you can meet with Jeff to discuss papers, the thesis, and principles of argument throughout the year.
So, I hope you’ll take advantage of the great advice below and also remember what an incredible (and funny) resource Jeff is.
What was your MAPH thesis on?
The origins of the textual Chicago in Nelson Algren’s book-length essay, “Chicago: City on the Make.” My thesis excavated Algren’s sources for his depiction of Chicago, such as Carl Sandberg’s famous “Chicago” poem, and potent depictions of other cities, like an obscure poem about New York, which he used to create a textual Chicago that would resonate with readers as a Chicago they recognize.
How has your writing changed since Maph? Or, how do you think about writing differently?
I’m much more conscious of technique in revision, thanks to the brilliant work of Joseph Williams, Larry McEnerney, and the other staff of the University Writing Program. I was a writer before MAPH, but I revised more intuitively, having absorbed some technique from reading good writers, or having learned through trial and error. Now I know what textual structures succeed with readers and I know why.
What kind of courses do you teach?
Journalism courses! I’ve taught news writing, arts reviewing, and the creative writing non-fiction workshop. I’m thinking of proposing new courses on environmental science journalism and knowledge journalism. What do you think about those?
Of course, in addition to teaching you are also the MAPH Writing Advisor. How do you define or conceive of this role?
My primary job is to help writers adapt their writing to the very particular and often invisible demands of graduate school. But perhaps more importantly, I try to support writers through this transition.
How can students sign up to meet with you?
During the Core Course it gets so crazy I have that online signup sheet, but now you can just email me for an appointment: jmcmahon@uchicago.edu
We’d love to get your advice on final papers. Often, the hardest part of writing a paper is sitting down to begin and confronting the blank page. What do you think is a good first step? For instance, starting with a claim, by constructing a problem? Or by close reading?
I think starting with a tentative main claim is usually a good first step for argumentative papers. Then you can build a problem around that claim, and you can outline a paper defending it.
But there are no universal solutions in writing first drafts. Sometimes the best thing to do is start in the middle, if that’s where your energy wants to go. That’s probably going to be a messy way to start, requiring more revision, but sometimes it makes more sense than trying to start at a beginning that refuses to take form.
I often start accidentally by outlining. Partway through the outline I find myself writing full prose.
How can students incorporate the skills of an analytic exposition into their class or seminar papers?
That’s going to happen. No matter how much of a struggle the Core Course was, no matter how painful and ineffable were its torturous exercises, I would bet my holiday bonus (usually a bottle of wine) that it made every single MAPHer a better reader. It’s such a vital step in graduate school to realize that you have to read objectively, in fairness to the text—that you have to be able to give a clear account of a difficult text, that you have to confront a work based on what it argues before you bounce off of it into your own interests. Every MAPHer gets that now. We’re probably a step ahead of some first-year PhD students, who might not get it for a couple years yet.
Of course, you can also do it consciously. You can analyze a text you’re working on, ask what the author claims, what’s at stake, and how the grounds support the claim. That last question may be the most crucial one because it reveals an argument’s weaknesses and strengths. That’s where you can get in.
How do you recommend structuring the writing process?
This can be different for every writer… and for every paper. Structure it in the way that helps you write.
I will say this: if you think you have writer’s block, it might actually be lack of preparation. Or impatience with the preparation required.
Writing is like carpentry. We hammer nouns, screw verbs, saw off adjectives. But no carpenter goes to a vacant lot and waits for a house to appear.
And then claims—when a house doesn’t appear—to have carpenter’s block.
She needs the tools, the lumber, and a blueprint before she begins to build.
So have your notes, your quotes, and an outline before you begin to write.
Editing can be a brutal part of writing papers. How much time does it make sense to leave for editing? Any tips for proofreading or strategies for those larger, more structural edits?
Brutal?! Editing is the most fun! We discover insights we didn’t know we had, appareled in poetics of which we didn’t know we were capable.
Editing is where the real work happens. Drafting is messy process of moving thoughts from mind to paper, and it happens half consciously. When we revise, we discover so much we didn’t know was there: a nascent parallelism that we can perfect, an emergent theme that can be developed, a better argument than the one we thought we had!
Larger structural edits are difficult because so many subtle connections have been made in a text. It’s like trying to relocate part of a building. All kinds of wires and pipes and angles of rebar are holding it together. We discover the wiring has to be rewired, the plumbing has to be rerouted, the structure has to be repaired.
That’s why outlines are helpful—it’s easier to change a blueprint than to change a building. An outline can reveal the necessity of structural changes before the structure is built—and spare so many headaches.
For proofreading, I suggest proofreading in waves or what the Air Force calls sorties: read once for economy, once for clarity, once for information flow, once for argument. That will take some time, but it gives us a more objective view of our own work. Otherwise, if we just keep reading it to ourselves the same way, we’ll keep overlooking the same problems.
Editing is a blast! Embrace it. Leave time for it, as much as you can.
What is the top difficulty MAPH students face with their first round of finals?
Argument.
What is the biggest difference or difficulty for students as they transition from undergraduate to graduate papers?
Argument.
How do you recommend, or like to, celebrate the end of a paper?
This is a great question. I write five stories per month for Forbes. At the end of each one, there’s a feeling of satisfaction, an endorphin rush, an inner celebration, that lasts about half an hour before I start thinking about my next story. At the end of the month, when I’ve completed five, the celebration might last a few hours before I start thinking about next month. MAPHers, too, always have something to do next. Celebration time is brief—at least until June.
For the brief celebrations, go outside. Even if it’s hostile outside, it can be so restorative to one’s body and mind to remember that nature exists, that its mechanisms are more vast and powerful than the relatively petty concerns of our constructed world, and that it goes on, regardless of what we do or we write—nature goes on, within us and without us.
(Exercise is good too. Be in your body. Which is another way of being in nature.)