tap

After writing reports totalling 13500 words from my first four courses, I have a pretty decent methodology down. Also thanks to ENV221/222 and APS1299 (I already forgot my prof's name but will always remember his feedback on academic writing as the single most useful comment I've ever received on an assignment) as well as that one parking garage assessment report that Josh and I had to write in 3 days for improving my writing. One more thanks for the librarian that taught me to use Zotero to manage my references. It was not fun when it took me more time to prepare references than writing the report body for ESP BC.

The key for me is to have a lot of inactive time: at the beginning for ideas to incubate, and at the end to have a fresh perspective each time I edit. This translates to starting the assignment as soon as possible, which makes for a very hectic lecture week.

The process generally goes:

1. Find one or a few comprehensive literature reviews and read them to provides a good overview of what I don't yet know but also so I can steal their references.
2. Make an outline of the report 
3. Find peer reviewed papers according to the outline. I really have no idea if I'm devoting enough or too much time to lit review, but I generally dedicate 2 days to search & read the abstracts or go through about 5 pages of catalogue search results. Staying organized at this stage will be tremendously helpful, I'll rename the papers that I download with the primary author's last name and a couple of keywords. It really is the worst to be checking through 20 - 30 PDFs to find this one thing you want to cite. 
4. Start writing the first draft concurrently with reading the papers on specific topics. I do start with writing the intro even though I've heard advice to not start with it. Intro formula = general statement > link to topic > state scope > list of sections to follow. While writing the body, I can usually start with what I've learned from the lit review papers and then read the papers on the specific topic once I start writing about the topic. This is again to avoid searching through my downloads. I'll color code papers that I've read and written about vs ones that I didn't end up using. 
5. Since my first draft is always over the word limit, I go back and minimize the amount of direct quoting since a) its not contributing much and b) they're generally wordy. I do keep snippets of when they describe their results so I don't accidentally distort their findings. 
6. Take a break for a day, then go back and reorganize paragraphs / sentences so the structure is logical and there is some semblance of flow. I've largely gotten over my bad habit of being being stuck at writing the first draft because I want it to be better than it needs to be (my editing skills >> writing skills). But that leaves a really really shitty first draft, which makes this the mot important task. Its not uncommon for lots of deletions and rewriting here. I recall one time where only ~20% of my original draft remained :'D 
7. Subsequent edits are moreso for style, clarity in sentence structure, consistent use of terminology, and grammar if I manage to concentrate enough to pick out my mistakes. 
8. Last edit I'll have the computer read my report out loud with hopes that a different form of communication (versus visually reading) will catch any remaining mistakes. 
9. Convert to PDF and breath a sigh of relief.