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‘It’s not a hobby’: reconceptualizing the placeof writing in academic work
Rowena Murray
Published online: 10 November 2012� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
Abstract The writing activities involved in research are not fully articulated in discus-
sions of academic work. In this context, academics say they have to disengage from other
tasks in order to write, which raises fundamental questions about the place of writing in
academic work. A study designed to find out more about this disengagement showed that it
involved acts of engagement with writing. Reconceptualizing disengagement from other
tasks as engagement with writing repositions writing as part of academic work. This is
critical for new and emerging researchers: it provides concepts to underpin practices that
will enable them regularly to write. This article provides a model for physical, social and
cognitive engagement with writing and explores how it can be put into practice. Impli-
cations for academics and those responsible for developing research capacity are discussed.
Keywords Academics’ writing � Engagement � Academic work � Research capacity
Introduction
Academic work involves different types of writing, and many higher education cultures
assess academics’ writing in terms of publications and research grants. These assessments
can destabilise writing and create anxiety: ‘an important part of the game involves an
intensive process of augury, divination and guess work (Reidpath and Allotey 2010: 786).
In this context academic writing—even for established, eminent writers—may involve
choosing between doing writing that will have an impact (on practice, on the professions,
on others’ work etc.) and doing writing that will have an impact factor (Carnell et al. 2008).
The competencies required for this advanced academic writing can be defined in terms
of literacy (Lillis and Curry 2010), behaviour (Murray et al. 2008), motivation (Moore
2003), peer support (Lee and Boud 2003) and working in a community of research practice
(Murray 2012). However, these competencies do not guarantee outputs; juggling the
R. Murray (&)School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Strathclyde, 627 Lord Hope Building,141 St James Road, Glasgow G4 0LT, Scotland, UKe-mail: [email protected]
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High Educ (2013) 66:79–91DOI 10.1007/s10734-012-9591-7
competing demands of academic work can be an impediment to writing (Acker and
Armenti 2004; MacLeod et al. 2012).
Competence in writing may not, therefore, be the issue; lack of research competence,
activity, funding or data may not be the problem. The problem may lie in finding ways to
deploy these competencies, particularly where academics face competing demands: heavy
teaching loads, caring responsibilities and short-term contracts that require early career
academics and researchers always to be on the look out for their next posts (Ball 2003; Hey
2001). In this context, other roles and tasks may impinge on writing (MacLeod et al. 2012).
This article explores this problem: while writing is highly important for institutions and
individuals, it may be absent from academic workplaces and workloads, just as if it were,
indeed, a hobby.
Successful academic writers do find ways to fit writing into their workloads; some of the
most successful report that they move between research, teaching and administration in a
series of engagements and disengagements and attribute their success to their ability to
disengage from other academic tasks and roles (Mayrath 2008). In fact, they argue that
writing requires disengagement from other tasks. Of course, they identify other compo-
nents of their productivity, but without disengagement, other tasks might impinge on these.
However, the practice of disengaging from other tasks in order to write may not be
straightforward for everyone (MacLeod et al. 2012). Nor does intention to disengage guar-
antee action; the very concept of disengagement implies that just about any academic task can
impinge on writing. This is not to say that academics are unable to manage competing tasks,
but it may not be enough to want to write: ‘each of us is part of a network of things and other
people that operate relationally’ (Trowler et al. 2012: 31). Is there such a ‘network’ in
academic settings?—Mayrath’s (2008) findings suggest not. In fact, one interpretation of the
need for disengagement suggests that relationships between writing and other academic
work, between academic writers and their other roles, have fractured. Where this happens,
relationships between people, places, spaces and things that constitute a writing ‘network’—
in the Trowler et al. (2012) sense—may have to be rebuilt if academics are regularly to
engage in writing. Furthermore, there may be limitations to academic agency:
Staff are encouraged to engage in research not on their own terms, but in the terms
created by the department and by extension to the national funding and evaluation
exercises. To paraphrase the old Marxian idiom, staff in these departments are being
encouraged and to some extent supported to engage in research but perhaps not in
conditions of their own choosing (Lucas 2009: 78).
We are unsure of what aspects are valued or how to prioritize efforts. We become
uncertain about the reasons for actions. Are we doing this because it is important,
because we believe in it, because it is worthwhile? Or is it being done ultimately
because it will be measured or compared? (Ball 2003: 220).
In this context, it is difficult to see research as a ‘collective project’ (Hey 2001: 40), and,
while Hey calls for ‘more collaborative ways of working’ and encourages academics to
savour the ‘pleasure of resisting the individualistic ethos of higher education by persisting
in collaborative work’ (2001: 21), for some the risk of doing so may be too great or the
opportunities to do so limited.
This context called for an exploration of the concept of disengaging from other tasks in
order to write. Would it be recognised by a wider cross-section of academics and
researchers than those who participated in Mayrath’s (2008) study (which focused on
educational psychologists)? What would their responses tell us about the place of writing
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in academic work? This study (supported by Strathclyde University Research Development
Fund) had three objectives:
1. To explore whether academic writing was associated with disengagement;
2. To explore interpretations and acts of disengagement;
3. To capture assessments of effectiveness in disengaging.
Exploring disengagement in this way could shed light on the interface between writing
and other academic tasks and roles.
Methodology
A questionnaire (‘‘Appendix’’) was developed with a researcher employed for this project
who ran a pilot study to test it with twelve people (11 females, 1 male) who had attended a
recent writing retreat. This sample was chosen because I judged that by attending retreat
they had disengaged from other tasks in order to write. They also represented a mixture of
roles and disciplines, were at different stages in academic and professional careers and
worked in different institutions: pre-92-universities (7), post-92-universities (3), PhD
students (5), National Health Service staff (3) and other non-university staff (2). Analysis
of their responses in the pilot study produced the concept of cognitive disengagement,
which prompted us to look for different types of disengagement in the main study.
For the main study I drew up a list of contacts in a range of disciplines and universities
across the UK. The researcher emailed the questionnaire to everyone on this list, inviting
completed questionnaires to be sent to her. While recipients knew the author, they did not
know the researcher or each other. To increase the mix of respondents, those on the initial
list were asked to forward the questionnaire to colleagues in their institutions and else-
where. The total number of responses shows that they did this. Analysis of questionnaire
responses focused on three topics:
1. Definitions of and reactions to the concept of disengagement—did they recognise and/
or use the term in relation to their writing?
2. Descriptions of practices—if they were ‘doing disengagement’, what did that involve?
3. Assessment—how effective did they think they were at disengaging?
Results
In the main study forty-two academics (29 female, 13 male) responded to the email
questionnaire. They worked in a wide range of disciplines: nursing, occupational therapy,
physiotherapy, health and rehabilitation, human and health sciences, social work, educa-
tional development, academic development, engineering, social anthropology, land econ-
omy and environment, library and learning and tax law. The responses were read multiple
times by the researcher and then coded and categorised.
Without exception, all respondents associated academic writing with disengagement
from other tasks. This could be because the study established a bias towards disengage-
ment, or because those who responded were predisposed towards it. However, given the
range of disciplines and institutions and the levels of experience in academia, the pro-
fessions and writing, it was surprising to see a unanimous response: all respondents saw
disengagement as essential for writing.
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These respondents defined disengagement in one or more of three ways: first, physical
disengagement, reported by 41 respondents, which involved clearing time in diaries,
clearing desks of unfinished work and finding a place to write; second, social disengage-
ment, reported by 23, which involved separation from other people’s demands and
engagement with other writers; and, third, cognitive disengagement, reported by 33, which
involved psychologically preparing to concentrate on writing. Clearly, there is potential
overlap between the three types of disengagement, which might shed light on why it is less
than straightforward. The following sections explore responses in more detail, and their
potential interrelationships, in order to explain the extent to which each or all of these
forms of disengagement may be implicated in academic writing practices. Numbers in
brackets after quotations are those allocated to respondents for analysis.
Physical disengagement
Respondents saw this as the simplest form of disengagement. All but one said that it was
essential to clear time in diaries, to clear desks and/or virtual in-trays of unfinished work
and find a place to write. Most would not attempt to write in their offices and said they
could not write anywhere on campus. Finding appropriate physical spaces to write was
difficult. Most wrote at home, which was not ideal for everyone and unfeasible for some:
‘often academic writing is done outside of working hours—as a mother, this is a culture
which does not help’ (37). This raises the question of whether physical disengagement,
straightforward as it appears to be, is sustainable for everyone.
Respondents agreed that writing requires uninterrupted time, which they do not gen-
erally have, and do not expect to have, on campus. In their homes, they could dedicate
whole days to writing. Some used vacation time for writing. There was also virtual dis-
engagement: participants said that it was essential to switch off email, mobile phones and
other devices.
What these academics are telling us is that writing requires physical disengagement
from places where interruptions occur, from spaces where other tasks have priority and
from virtual spaces where other academic work is done. Writing requires physical
engagement with dedicated writing time and space.
This study sheds light on perceptions of disengagement, but it cannot tell us what these
participants did when they disengaged. It shows us that they knew what they had to do to
be able to write, and it sheds light on why this is problematic. The information they
provided suggests that they acted on their intention to disengage, but there is not enough
detail to know how often they did so or for how long. Nor do we know exactly what they
meant by ‘writing’—which practices did they use? However, the unanimous agreement,
often stated in strong terms, that disengagement is associated with writing is worth
exploring.
It could be that physically disengaging from other tasks is the most concrete way to
engage with writing. It is necessary but not sufficient, since two other forms of disen-
gagement were identified in this study—social and cognitive (discussed below). Clearly,
physical disengagement may be associated with both cognitive and social disengagement.
All three may be so tightly interwoven as to make it difficult to separate them. For
example, the intention to write relates to, and may involve, both cognition and physical
separation. The planning required to disengage clearly relates to cognition and relation-
ships. Relationships with other people, things and places are potentially implicated in the
process of disengagement in the sense that writers who seek to disengage seem to seek
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relations that support their writing, but do not see the potential for these relations—in
relation to writing specifically—in academic workplaces.
Social disengagement
For about half of respondents (23), social disengagement meant not responding to everyone
else’s demands, while accepting that this might elicit colleagues’ or others’ disapproval.
Respondents were aware that disengaging from other tasks in order to write could be
perceived by others as ruthless, brutal or selfish. It might mean ‘doing an average (or even
a poor) job with teaching’ (5) or other activities, in order to write:
It helps to ‘care less’ if someone is desperate to speak to me or have me do some-
thing – they can usually wait, but it took me some years to realise I was not
indispensable – or at least that jobs could equally well be done later (12).
Social disengagement involves ignoring not only other people’s demands, but also their
potential reactions, since anticipation could impinge on intentions to write: ‘One also has
to get over the fact that others will be jealous, if one is successful or if one has a research
allowance’ (5), especially if this involves ‘being unhelpful to others’ (5).
For these respondents, disengaging from others and their reactions was not necessarily a
solitary act; it benefited from the support of others ‘on the same wavelength’ (9). While
frequently construed as solitary, the act of writing could be a joint or collective activity.
Peer relationships could be built around writing. Some respondents spoke of the trust
required for this to work, which implies that there are risks. For some, this approach could
counteract the feeling or anticipation of being isolated when writing, or perhaps of being
actively isolated by unsupportive others. There can, therefore, be benefits in social relations
around writing.
Social disengagement therefore meant, to them, disengaging from others in order to
engage with those who write. They gave many examples social writing activities:
I find writing group sessions very useful for devoting the time to write (1).
Perhaps peer group review, or a financial incentive. I am externally motivated, and I
think that perhaps good writers are (2).
Peer support is always helpful. Writing retreats work (3).
A writer’s sanctuary… A week’s course/workshop with some input and time to write
in between, then get feedback from colleagues etc. Find a mentor who will keep the
pressure up/provide encouragement (6).
Find a writing buddy who is on the same wavelength and someone whom I trust. This
is important to me as a novice, but proving difficult, as I have a sense of where I want
the writing to go and want to keep ownership (9).
I do a lot of my writing with colleagues and find this the ideal way to keep motivated
through regular discussion about ideas and also in terms of meeting deadlines – if I
know my co-author is waiting for something then I make time to address it (18).
Since I started to become serious about writing, I’ve always used writer’s retreats …Another thing I think it would be good to do would be to become more networked
with people who disengage in the same way I do, so that we could support one
another more. My writing time sometimes feels lonely and isolated, which is why
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retreats work so well for me because there’s this immediate community of people all
tackling similar challenges and usually willing to share their struggles, which I
always find a huge help (19).
Regular writing retreats or writing slots that constitute protected time in my diary
(32).
Focused and specific discussion with peers (34).
I also am doing more collaborative research, which pushes you to do this activity, as
you are committed to others. I use the peer support process, where I organise to meet
with a colleague to discuss and plan our publications. This has been successful, but
can equally be influenced by the busy schedule of the peer (36).
I do find the retreats … really useful … despite my unsuccessful attempts at dis-
engagement the last few times. It’s work. It’s seen as valid – I don’t feel like I am
skiving off! So, more of these, I guess. Structured interventions afford participants
the opportunity to be somewhere for something they have signed up for. It pushes
writing up the agenda (37).
I set up a writing group at my faculty. I got faculty staff to agree to run additional
writing courses for students. I have two study buddies for accountability – writing as
a social process (40).
Engaging with others who write can potentially, therefore, have several effects on writing:
keeping writing on the agenda, ensuring that it is seen as ‘work’; sustaining long-term
commitment to writing, and thereby potentially sustaining motivation; providing
encouragement and positive pressure; and ‘sharing … struggles’ (19). Therefore, it is
not that these respondents ignored colleagues’ demands in order to write; they engaged
with others who wanted to write, and this supported their writing. This mutual support for
writing suggests that it is as much relational as individual.
These responses suggest that writing requires social disengagement from people who do
not value writing and from relationships that inhibit or, at least, do not support writing.
This involves social engagement with others who want to write, not only meeting to talk
about writing but also meeting to write. What this study does not tell us is how social
engagement relates to levels of writing activity or output. Does social engagement increase
outputs and/or does it lead to other outcomes?
It may be that, since many comments related to the support provided by others in
disengaging from other tasks in order to engage in writing, social disengagement serves a
number of functions. It not only supports these writers but also creates a micro-culture for
writing, which could have enormous value in institutions where academics feel they are
expected to give up their personal time and space to write. Perhaps social engagement with
others who write is a way of buttressing—rather than bracketing—writing: ‘‘managerial-
ist’’ discourse expresses a particular view of the nature of universities and works to bracket
out other views and other discourses’ (Trowler et al. 2012: 33). For those who feel that the
act of writing is bracketed out in institutional discourses, social engagement may be a way
forward.
Cognitive disengagement
Cognitive disengagement was mentioned in 75 % of the responses (33) and was seen as the
most complex and difficult to achieve. Fear and anxiety about tasks left incomplete or
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missed meetings played a role in respondents’ inability to clear their minds sufficiently to
write: ‘I find it hard to disengage with tasks that have not been brought to a state which
does not worry me’ (5). This inability related to the difficulty of legitimising writing: ‘I
would like to legitimately send apologies for not attending meetings [in order to write]’ (4),
and ‘there is some sense that writing is a selfish activity’ (9). On the same theme, some
made their writing covert: ‘I prefer to write in spaces and times when nobody knows what
I’m up to … I diarise writing as meeting-free days rather than writing days’ (19), which
suggests that it can be difficult to make writing part of academic work.
For these respondents, cognitive disengagement from other tasks was essential because
of the demands that academic writing makes:
It is necessary to be able to exercise effective psychological disengagement from
other tasks, activities and interests, so that it is possible to devote both the time and
the psychological energy to the writing task (8).
I think it is the ability to be able to both practically and emotionally ‘switch-off’ from
other tasks (13).
I think that disengaging is quite an important part of my repertoire of writing habits.
To me it means ‘disconnecting’ from other responsibilities in order to achieve a
deeper level of focus on my writing, which requires me to bring all my attention and
energy to bear on the tasks that it involves (thinking, formulating, experimenting,
drafting, reflecting, reading, synthesising, generating ideas, pulling together a lot of
information, drawing out key themes, articulating complex ideas, adopting positions,
generating explanations, reaching conclusions etc.). I guess the point is that academic
writing requires so many different competencies and skills that you need, meta-
phorically, to clear your desk. This means switching off both physically and psy-
chologically in order to be able to write properly (19).
Creativity in writing often needs time to emerge, unconfused by the stresses and
demands of day-to-day work. For me disengaging would be to take a block of time,
or shorter blocks of time during which I was psychologically free to get on with the
task of writing something (21).
To me, this means getting into the zone, actually sitting down and committing a high
percentage of your thoughts to the task at hand. Too often, when one is reading, you
are thinking about the text, or even other things. When you are writing you use a
different thought process, not the understanding side of things, but rather the crea-
tive. This thought process needs to be turned on, and in order to do this you need to
disengage from other tasks, so that they do not distract you, as this process is very
thought intensive (29).
Clearing my head of other priorities and issues crowding in. It’s mainly in the head
(34).
These responses suggest that writing requires cognitive disengagement from just about
everything else, since just about anything else can disrupt the concentration required to
write. This involves cognitive engagement with the many sub-tasks or sub-routines
involved in writing and means legitimizing them as academic work. What this study does
not tell us is how these responses relate to writing practices. In some responses it was
difficult to distinguish between aspiration—how they wanted to do their writing—and
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experience—how they actually did it. However, most gave the strong impression that they
were clear about what they needed to do to write, even if, as many said, they were not
always able to put it into practice.
About half of the respondents felt they were reasonably successful at disengaging from
other tasks in order to write:
I am externally motivated, and I think that perhaps good writers are (2).
I have become somewhat compulsive-obsessive about scheduling and blocking out
time for specific activities – usually several weeks in advance.
I have moulded my job into one that allows me the time to focus on writing (8).
I feel I have a strong capacity to switch off from other demands of the job (33).
It’s tough, but I do achieve it, and the more I achieve it, the more I want to achieve it,
because I now actually find writing pleasurable (35).
What has helped this is the realisation that academic = writer (40).
However, about 25 % (10) said they were ‘poor’ at disengaging, and a few said they had
‘successes and failures’ (10) or ranged from ‘very good to … dreadful’ (19). Some
attributed their failure to disengage sufficiently to organisational constraints, such as the
requirement to attend meetings and the distribution of teaching throughout the academic
year.
This study cannot tell us the extent to which actual or desired practices related to these
respondents’ performance or outputs. However, given the range of institutions, disciplines,
levels of experience in higher education and several professions and levels of experience in
writing, to come up with such a strong theme in responses is worth thinking about. The
specifics in the above quotations suggest that their responses were not simply the result of
the questions—i.e. if you ask about disengagement that is what they will talk about.
Instead, the concept seems to be widely recognised and accepted. Many academics see it as
a requirement for writing, although we do not know the views of those who did not
respond. The use of snowball sampling means that we do not know how many others were
invited to complete the questionnaire but chose not to, what their reasons were or what they
thought of the concept and practice of disengagement. One reason for not responding
might, of course, have been that they held more negative views of the concept of disen-
gagement than those who responded.
Taking these points together, responses suggest that cognitive disengagement may be
more difficult to achieve than other forms of disengagement because of the absence of
writing in academic workloads. Since other tasks are present in workloads and visible in
workplaces, perhaps it is inevitable that they will have a greater cognitive weighting, so to
speak. This would go some way towards explaining the complexity of cognitive engage-
ment with writing and the difficulty of establishing the place of writing in academic work.
A model for engaging with writing
Even with this limited data, there are clear messages about the place of writing in the
current culture of higher education. The first is that there is a role for disengagement from
other tasks in order to engage with writing. The perception among this relatively repre-
sentative cross-section of academics is that disengagement is essential, but it may not be
entirely positive, and it certainly should not be the only model for those who want to write.
The second message is that, essential as it is, disengagement is difficult; even among those
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who see it as essential, many fail to practise it. The third message is that while institutions
may require academics to produce written outputs of a high standard and in specific
numbers, the act of writing is neither defined nor accounted for in academic workplaces
and workloads. It may be that by failing to account for writing—in the way that other
academic activities are accounted for—this context creates disengagement-engagement
tensions, particularly in relation to writing.
The final message is more positive: when those who disengage from other tasks describe
what they do, they also describe engagement with writing that occurs once they have
disengaged from other tasks. Disengagement can therefore be construed as engagement
with writing, and this can be defined in terms of activities and relationships, as illustrated
by the examples respondents provided. This allows for a more constructive conceptuali-
sation of disengagement, which might resolve some of the tensions around writing and its
contested role in academic work. However, the findings suggest that this turn from dis-
engagement to engagement can be difficult for individuals to make or sustain by them-
selves. It can be sustained by relationships with others who write.
The following model (Fig. 1) explains this constructive conceptualisation of disen-
gagement. The three types of disengagement identified by participants in this study—
physical, social and cognitive—are shown in relation to disengagement conditions (boxed
categories in left-hand column) and engagement activities (boxed categories in right-hand
column) that respondents cited. These categories have been aligned with each type of
disengagement/engagement to show the core components of each, again drawing on
questionnaire responses. Finally, ‘Relationships’ surround the circle because they were so
frequently said to sustain engagement with writing.
In this model physical engagement with writing involves moving from the office space
to dedicated writing time and space; social engagement with writing involves moving from
competitive to social writing activities; and cognitive engagement with writing involves
Fear & anxiety Legitimising writing
CompetitionSocial writing activities
OfficeDedicated writing time and space
Cognitive engagement
Social engagement
Physical engagement
Disengaging from Engaging with
Fig. 1 A model for engaging with writing
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moving from fear and anxiety about making time and space for writing to legitimising
writing. This model is one way of explaining how academics—and their leaders and
managers—can reconceptualise the place of writing in academic work.
This is not to say that respondents literally described moving from one boxed category
to another; the move is more complex than that, and sustaining the move may be equally
complex. Nor does engaging with writing appear simply to be a matter of, for example,
deciding to miss a meeting in order to do some writing. If it were so straightforward,
writing would not be as contested a part of academic work as it appears to be.
This model identifies the components of engaging with writing. It suggests that phys-
ical, social and cognitive engagements may all be required for sustained, regular academic
writing. It implies that engagement with writing involves disengagement from other
tasks—and takes into account academics’ anxiety about disengagement from other tasks
being seen by their colleagues as disloyal or unprofessional, rather than academic or
strategic. This perception can increase pressure on those who want to write. Of course,
there will be some who say they do not feel any such pressure, and there will be some who
do not conceptualise writing in this way. There will be those who argue that engaging with
writing involves simply engaging in writing—i.e. just getting on with it—but many
responses in this study explicitly countered that argument.
The model for engaging with writing is not intended to depict one-directional move-
ment, from left to right; it may also explain what happens when writing is not possible.
While successful writers will be those who move from left to right, there may be times
when they move from right to left. In this way, the model accounts for continuing tensions
in relation to writing and thus makes the case for including them, rather than writing them
out of the model.
What the model does not account for is whether academics learn from ‘doing disen-
gagement’, or whether some are predisposed to disengaging. Perhaps some are supported
when they first start to disengage from other tasks in order to write. Perhaps some are
routinely more supported in disengaging in their settings? Do they continue to be supported
in this way, and does this reinforce the concept and the behaviour? We do not yet know,
therefore, whether disengagement creates productive academic writers or if productive
writers are more comfortable with the concept and practice of disengagement. What we
can infer is that the cumulative pressure of meeting everyone else’s goals, managing
perceptions that you have done so, monitoring your output and participating in regular
monitoring by others of your performance in every aspect of academic work, appearing not
to be selfish, caring about teaching as much as research—and sometimes more—keeping
up with personal responsibilities and the general demands of life, while holding to an ideal
of collegiality is not only unlikely to lead to engagement with writing but could seriously
impinge on written output and motivation to write.
The model for engaging with writing presented here goes some way towards explaining
how it is that some academics do not write as much as they want to and cannot find a way
to do any writing: it is not that they lack the competencies, but that they have become stuck
on the left-hand side of this model: they are anxious, alienated and attempting to write in
working environments designed for other tasks, where those other tasks are given priority
by other people. These environments are not working for writing.
The model offers an alternative: creating dedicated time and space for writing, writing
with peers and legitimising writing. The three components of engagement—physical,
social and cognitive—may be enacted in this way. This model provides an alternative to
the competencies model of academic writing; since academic literacy, writing behaviour,
motivation and community of practice models were not discussed in questionnaire
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responses they are not represented in this model. Peer support does figure in the model, but
not in the sense of developing writing skills and strategies (Lee and Boud 2003). This is not
a developmental model; instead, it explains the potential place of writing in academic life
and work.
While Mayrath (2008) explained the role of disengagement in the work of highly
successful academic writers, this study explains what disengagement means to a much
wider range of academics, accounts for the ambivalence some academics have towards
disengagement and reconfigures disengagement into a more positive model of engagement
with writing. It also points to the responsibility of institutions to give writing concrete,
visible space and time in academic work.
One way to put this model into practice, relating to many responses and specifically
mentioned by several respondents, is structured writing retreats. The literature on retreats
shows that they have many benefits (Jackson 2009; Moore 2003; Murray and Moore 2006),
and the structured retreat particularly (Murray and Newton 2009) has a coherent fit with the
model for engaging with writing. In structured retreats participants all write in the same
room—the so-called ‘typing pool’ model—and have regular discussions of writing-in-
progress. These retreats are ‘structured’ in the sense that they have a fixed programme of
writing and discussion slots. Participants set goals, sub-goals and sub-sub-goals for writing
slots in the programme and monitor their progress in the discussion slots. This involves the
three forms of disengagement and engagement that are required for writing: physical
disengagement, by going off-campus, and engaging with writing through dedicated time
and space; social disengagement from others and their demands and engaging with others
who write; and cognitive disengagement from other responsibilities and engaging with a
process that legitimises writing.
Moreover, structured retreat enables participants to transfer retreat practices to other
settings, including campus environments, and thereby makes writing part of academic
work (Murray and Newton 2009). It is therefore one way of putting the model for engaging
with writing into practice. It also builds on research that shows that structured approaches
are most effective for developing academic writing activity (McGrail et al. 2006).
Having established the model for reconceptualizing the place of writing in academic
life, we can use structured writing retreats to consolidate it and put it into practice. While
previous studies have explained the impact of retreat in terms of containment—containing
writing-related anxiety, making writing the primary task and preventing anti-task behav-
iour (MacLeod et al. 2012)—this study shows the importance of relationships in sustaining
these benefits.
Conclusion
All the academics in this study related to the concept of disengaging from other tasks in
order to write. They disengaged from environments where writing was not valued and from
people who did not support their writing, but this was also a process of engagement: they
engaged with others who wanted to write, in spaces where writing was feasible. This
conceptual move from disengagement to engagement is explained in a model that could be
used to analyse writers’ experiences and support writing aspirations.
This study showed that a wide range of academics in a range of disciplines and types of
institution see writing as different from other academic tasks. They see it as making
different demands, requiring a different type of time and space and generating, and
depending on, different relationships: as they see it, for them to write requires them to draw
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on different personality traits, personal values and relationships than those they invoke for
other academic tasks in academic workplaces.
Productive writers in this study seemed to see not only that writing was part of academic
work, but also that they were able to keep it so through regular disengagements from other
tasks and other people’s demands. Understanding how this affected relationships between
writing and other work, and the rest of their lives, was beyond the scope of this study, but it
would be interesting to explore that further.
How will this culture affect new academics? Is the opportunity to pursue personal
interests still an option? Is it still an attraction of academic careers (Tight 2000)? Should it
be clearer to applicants that they will be required to research and write in specific areas and
for specific outlets? Perhaps this is less of an issue for those who train and work in
disciplines where research projects are defined by chief investigators; if so, the call for
‘new ways of balancing traditional work patterns … new ways to manage the diverse
configurations of academic time and commitment’ (Tight 2000: 143) may be more relevant
in other disciplines.
Focusing on disengagement in this way has exposed the culture in which institutions
disengage with writing, in the sense that they provide no apparatus to make the act of
writing visible, and this is part of the problem, if not the origin of the problem, as many
participants in this study recognised:
The [institution] must offer structured support within the working day. [Writing] is
not a hobby. Publications are hugely important for the academic, the department and
the institution. The onus should not be on the academic to publish without providing
them time for it (37).
In this context, the individual’s capacity to disengage from other tasks in order to write is
limited, and some academics are ambivalent about disengaging, while others are not
willing to do so at all, in spite of potentially negative consequences for their careers.
It is not sufficient, therefore, for individuals to engage with writing; institutions must
engage with writing too, not only by acknowledging the role of engagement with writing
but also by acknowledging the role of writing in academic work. For those with respon-
sibility for developing research capacity, the implication of this study is that they should
not assume that new researchers in all disciplines should be left to find their own way to
make writing part of their work. It seems absurd to be calling for institutions to make
writing more central to academic work when it is already so important, but it is equally
absurd to allocate a key academic activity to personal time, as if it were, indeed, a hobby.
Acknowledgments This study was funded by Strathclyde University. Dr. Mary Newton was the researcherwho developed, distributed and helped to analyse questionnaires. I would like to thank Dr. Sarah Skerratt atthe Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh for providing feedback on early drafts of the model forengaging with writing.
Appendix: Questionnaire
Engagement with academic writing/disengagement from other tasks
Recent research has suggested that the ability to disengage from other tasks and engage
with academic writing is a characteristic of successful academic writers. We are trying to
find out what a range of academics understand by the term disengagement, how they go
about this and if they think they are successful.
90 High Educ (2013) 66:79–91
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1. Are you an emerging writer or an established writer?
2. Could you explain what you understand by the term ‘disengagement from other tasks
in order to engage with academic writing’?
3. In what way would you go about disengaging from other tasks in order to engage with
academic writing?
4. How successful do you feel you have been up until now in disengaging from other
tasks in order to engage with academic writing?
5. What form of support would be useful in helping you to disengage from other tasks
and engage with academic writing?
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