The Researcher's Restart: A Systematic Reading and Writing Plan for New Researchers

<p>This plan assumes you have a question, or are close enough to one to start. It produces a submitted paper or a defensible draft. Twelve weeks at 25 to 30 hours per week is 300 to 360 hours, which is a normal amount of work for a first paper.</p> <table><thead><tr> <th>Week</th><th>Focus</th><th>Deliverable</th><th>Hours</th> </tr></thead><tbody> <tr><td>1</td><td>Question</td><td>One-sentence question, two-page proposal</td><td>28</td></tr> <tr><td>2</td><td>Evidence</td><td>Evidence ledger with 20 mapped claims</td><td>28</td></tr> <tr><td>3</td><td>Method</td><td>Methods drafted as a numbered procedure</td><td>26</td></tr> <tr><td>4</td><td>Method</td><td>Pilot run, code or protocol debugged</td><td>30</td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>Analysis</td><td>Analysis plan fixed in writing, no changes after this</td><td>26</td></tr> <tr><td>6</td><td>Results</td><td>Results section drafted, figures made</td><td>30</td></tr> <tr><td>7</td><td>Results</td><td>Results complete, ledger shows no missing claims</td><td>28</td></tr> <tr><td>8</td><td>Intro</td><td>Introduction drafted, 800 words</td><td>26</td></tr> <tr><td>9</td><td>Literature</td><td>Literature review drafted from the disputes file</td><td>28</td></tr> <tr><td>10</td><td>Discussion</td><td>Discussion drafted, limitations section written</td><td>28</td></tr> <tr><td>11</td><td>Full draft</td><td>Whole paper assembled, abstract written</td><td>30</td></tr> <tr><td>12</td><td>Revise</td><td>Supervisor review applied, journal selected, submitted</td><td>30</td></tr> </tbody></table> <h3>Phase one, weeks 1 to 4: build the spine</h3> <p>The aim is to have a method you can run and a results section you could write, before you spend a single hour on prose. Resist the pull to write the introduction early. Introductions are easier to write when the results exist, and writing one first commits you to a framing you may not be able to support.</p> <p>At the end of week 4 you should have a fixed analysis plan: the variables, the models, the exclusions, and the decision rules, all in writing. Write the date on it. Do not change it after this point without writing down why, in the same file. Analysis plans that drift mid-analysis are the source of most honest-looking but indefensible papers.</p> <h3>Phase two, weeks 5 to 8: produce the evidence</h3> <p>Run the analysis, make the figures, and write the results as you go, section by section, rather than saving all writing for week 11. Write each result as a claim: what the data show, with the number, and how confident you are. If a result does not match your expectation, write it down plainly and note it in the ledger. Results that contradict expectations are the most interesting thing in a first paper and the thing most often buried.</p> <p>Target by the end of week 8: a complete results section, and no claim in the ledger marked missing.</p> <h3>Phase three, weeks 9 to 12: assemble, revise, submit</h3> <p>Now write the introduction and literature review, in that order, using the disputes file for the gap statement. Then the discussion, which must contain four things: what the findings mean, how they compare to the literature, the limitations, and what you would do next.</p> <p>Assemble in week 11, send the full draft to your supervisor with a 10-day deadline, and hold the submission for week 12. Read the reviews carefully, apply what is right, note what you disagree with and why, and submit. Do not submit a paper you have not read end to end at least once, at least three days after finishing it, because the errors you will find are mostly of the kind you can see only after a break.</p>