A Reading-Thinking-Researching-Writing Exercise: That's Creative Academic Work

Many facebook friends have shared this - "Write that journal article in 7 days".... The tips in this PowerPoint presentation may be helpful for others. But I'm afraid that students and prospective (academic) writers might misconstrue it. In particular, I would caution against writing academic papers (especially in the social sciences and humanities) in just seven (7) days! This thought may boost students' confidence but, to me, it might actually send a wrong message to students because of the danger of underestimating the writing task at hand.

There are important reasons why theses, essays, or group projects are programmed for several months, a semester, or a few years. As I always remind my students: academic work (especially, thesis) is a reading-thinking-researching-writing exercise. Hence, seven days are not even enough to fulfil each of these tasks, especially if we demanded 'original', 'substantial', or 'substantive' contributions to knowledge from the research projects of our students.

This is not to totally dismiss the tips of @thesiswhisperer and her colleague for it's a good reminder of the essentials in academic paper writing. But I'm sharing it here with a note of caution about the uniqueness and context-specific nature of creative academic work. 

Write that journal article in 7 days from RMIT University

After three years of teaching Master's students, this semester I've been given teaching responsibilities for Bachelor's students. Teaching/supervising Bachelors level students must be very challenging! I'd be very wary of relaying this message to both my graduate and undergraduate students.