Paul J. Silvia Quotes & Sayings

The subtlety of your analysis of variance will not move readers to tears, although the tediousness of it might. — Paul J. Silvia

Writing a journal article combines all the elements that deter motivation: The probability of success is low; the likelihood of criticism and rejection is high; and the outcome, even if successful, isn't always rewarding. — Paul J. Silvia

Reading an endless litany of study after study-one article found this, and another experiment found this, and another study found this-is like watching laundry spinning in a dryer, except that something good eventually comes out of a dryer! — Paul J. Silvia

Equipment will never help you write a lot; only making a schedule and sticking to it will make you a productive writer. — Paul J. Silvia

(I used to hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign on my office door, but people interpreted this as "His door is closed, but he wants me to know he's in there. I'll knock.") Be — Paul J. Silvia

You don't need special traits, special genes, or special motivation to write a lot. You don't need to want to write--people rarely feel like doing unpleasant tasks that lack deadlines--so don't wait until you feel like it. Productive writing comes from harnessing the power of habit, and habits come from repetition

p.129 — Paul J. Silvia

Novelists and poets are the landscape artists and portrait painters; academic writers are the people with big paint sprayers who repaint your basement. — Paul J. Silvia

Writing is more fun when you have a partner, so find friends who share your research interests. Two authors can write faster, can complement expertise, can help with hard decisions, and understand context of decisions made. — Paul J. Silvia

Writing time is for writing, not for checking e-mail, reading the news, or browsing the latest issues of journals. Sometimes I think it would be nice to download articles while writing, but I can do that at the office. The best kind of self-control is to avoid situations that require self-control. — Paul J. Silvia

When confronted with their fruitless ways, binge writers often proffer a self-defeating dispositional attribution: "I'm just not the kind of person who's good at making a schedule and sticking to it." This is nonsense, of course. People like dispositional explanations when they don't want to change [...] — Paul J. Silvia

Remember, you're allocating time to write, not finding time to write. — Paul J. Silvia

Academic writers are bad writers for three reasons. First, they want to sound smart. "If the water is dark," goes a German aphorism, "the lake must be deep." Instead of using good words like smart, they choose sophisticated or erudite. — Paul J. Silvia

Writing involves many [acts] tasks, not just generating text — Paul J. Silvia

Do you need to "find time to teach"? Of course not---you have a teaching schedule, and you never miss it. [...] Finding time is a destructive way of thinking about writing. Never say this again. Instead of finding time to write, allot time to write. — Paul J. Silvia

Never reward writing with not writing. Rewarding writing by abandoning your schedule is like rewarding yourself for quitting smoking by having a cigarette. — Paul J. Silvia

Revising while you generate text is like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning: noble idea, wrong time. — Paul J. Silvia