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Friday, September 07, 2007
Shortening Your Article - Oy Vey
Hardest thing for me to do - what, throw away my own written thoughts? delete my research into a digital black hole? give up some arguments or angles in the interest of length?
Posted by Orly Lobel on September 7, 2007 at 11:41 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Yikes - that's a tough one. Cut out anything that's more like a "tangent" or could stand on its own. And then, presto, voila, your next article has been already been started!
Good luck Orly! :)
Posted by: Miriam Cherry | Sep 9, 2007 9:42:03 PM
Remember Elmore Leonard's advice: I try to leave out the parts that people skip.
Posted by: RCinProv | Sep 9, 2007 5:37:46 PM
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"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book."
{-- Friedrich Nietzsche}
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Posted by: Sorkin | Sep 8, 2007 9:55:14 AM
The best way to avoid the pain is to not write it in the first place. Advice I received said no more than three pages of background/lit review - I try to stick to that from the beginning so I don't have to cut it later.
Posted by: Michael Risch | Sep 8, 2007 7:18:12 AM
It's a terrible dilemma you describe -- keeping the article overlong, or throwing away your thoughts -- but a false one. You should edit fiercely and send the orphaned excerpts to me. I would prefer whole sections rather than, say, adverbs, but I'm flexible.
Posted by: Edward Swaine | Sep 7, 2007 3:42:07 PM
"Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings." Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944), On the Art of Writing, 1916.
Easier said than done, though. Easier said than done.
Posted by: Mark Edwards | Sep 7, 2007 2:55:30 PM
It obviously is a hard thing to do w/ your own work. But if your articles are anything like other law review aritcles it's about 40% or more filler. Get someone who knows a little bit about law but isn't a law professor to read it and point out the parts that are filler. Cut that. (The very, very, tedious lit review that's in most law review articles would be a good place to look first.)
Posted by: Matt | Sep 7, 2007 1:36:47 PM
That's surely one of the neat things about blogging - even if the stuff you're going to excise doesn't by itself amount to an article, they can surely be massaged into the less formal setting of a blog post. You can still use those thoughts and arguments in a post here, and can even use that as a way to advertise the article.
Posted by: Simon | Sep 7, 2007 12:25:57 PM
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