I hated writing—until I learned there’s a science to it

ROBERT NEUBECKER

A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 386, Issue 6717.Download PDF

When I got my first research project to work as an undergraduate, I was so excited I could hardly think. I had worked in an engineering lab to design and build a part that could deliver power more efficiently to phones and other electronic devices. Seeing research in action was exhilarating, inspiring me to consider a future career as an academic. My excitement, though, was soon cut short when my professor asked me to write a research paper on the project. My body tensed. Writing was the last thing I wanted to do; it’s one reason why I pursued science in the first place. I learned only later that the research process I’d fallen in love with had more in common with writing than I thought: Both require trial and error. I hated writing growing up. It felt like navigating a chaotic jungle, where creative types swung easily among the tangled vines, while I clung petrified on a low-hanging limb, unsure where to reach next. But I couldn’t avoid the jungle: English classes were mandatory in high school. So, there I sat, struggling to write these dreadful essays about literary motifs and themes. For hours, I stared at blank pages, trying to turn my scattered thoughts into fluent sentences. There were too many ways to write the same thing, and I had no idea which to pick. (Or should I have written “I didn’t know which to choose”?) I’d take my best guess, but my teachers would return my papers littered with red, proclaiming my paragraphs were out of order or my transitions were nonexistent. I was frustrated to no end. How could I know what was good if there was no objectively right answer? Maybe I wasn’t cut out for writing. And that was OK. I didn’t have to be good at everything. I gravitated toward what I saw as the orderly city grid of math and science. I took comfort there, knowing objective truth could be found in that grid if I searched methodically. I imagined myself harnessing science someday to work on next-generation devices or robots at a tech company.

When I asked … for feedback, I soon found the paper covered in red marks.

Rachel Yang Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In college, I studied engineering, and a few years in I joined a research lab, itching to get more hands-on experience. The professor assigned me an initial project to improve the efficiency of a magnetic component called an inductor. I spent weeks setting up a test for a new design. When I got the results, though, the numbers weren’t good. I sulked for a bit, but then I remembered that inductors live in the orderly city of math and science. A solution must exist—all I had to do was find it. I kept trying new designs, using the results to brainstorm ideas with a team of researchers. Finally, after a year of iteration and dozens of designs, we had one that could cut energy losses in half. I was ecstatic—until my professor told me to write that research paper. I knew that if I wanted to become an academic, I would need to spend time penning papers. But with my awful track record with writing, I was scared of failing. In a panic, I asked a graduate student in my lab for help. We defined a goal for the paper, and I carefully wrote an outline. But when I asked him for feedback, I soon found the paper covered in red marks. Not again. Before I could retreat in defeat, though, the graduate student explained that red didn’t mean I was a bad writer. Writing isn’t a one-and-done thing. It requires revising your work, often several times. Suddenly it occurred to me, “Hadn’t I done the same thing when I was searching for an efficient inductor design?” I kept refining the outline of my paper, eventually turning it into sentences and paragraphs, guided by feedback from others. My initial draft wasn’t perfect. I had buried a few key takeaways, and the introduction was missing important context. But with help, I was finally making my way through the jungle, and surprisingly, I was having fun. From then on, writing became one of my favorite parts of research, and it still is today as a graduate student. I’ve grown to see it as a process that helps me organize my thoughts. I’ve even started to write popular science articles and video scripts. It’s a future I never could have imagined during my early struggles with English classes.

But I came around. All it took was some trial and error.