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Writer’s Block

In broad terms, writer’s block can be described as a deficit in the quantity of a person’s writing created by causes internal to the writer’s mind. This is to distinguish writer’s block per se from external factors that prevent writing, such as illness or lack of time. The role of overcoming or avoiding writer’s block in the academic life should be self-evident given the importance of publication to academic advancement. In fact, it is almost certain that a number of otherwise qualified scholars have self-selected out of the field because the emphasis on publication leads to an element of anxiety, which can lead to writer’s block. This entry describes the two primary sources of writer’s block before describing how to overcome it. Tips for avoiding writer’s block are then provided.

Sources of Writer’s Block

Writer’s block is generally believed to have two sources, and successfully overcoming it depends on successfully discovering the etiology. The first source is described as mechanical and is created by overly strict adherence to writing guidelines that are intended to be heuristic. An example of this is when a writer is blocked because he or she has been taught that a thesis should always have three points of support, and the writer cannot think of a third point of support for the thesis.

The second source of writer’s block can be described as affective, and subsumes phenomena such as written communication apprehension. In such cases, writers find themselves unable to write because they are concerned that the work will be perceived negatively by themselves or by readers, thus causing the writers to become either overly concerned with feelings of inadequacy or obsessed with perfection.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

Because the term writer’s block is a portmanteau covering blocks generated from a wide variety of sources, there is no such thing as a universal cure for it. Rather, there are a set of activities a writer can experiment with to overcome the obstacles. The level of severity, classified as mild, moderate, or recalcitrant, is determined by the block’s resistance to common methods of overcoming it. Because there are no self-diagnostic tools for the severity of a block, the state of the art in terms of overcoming it is to presuppose that the block is mild, and to attempt those methods first. If the method fails to yield results for mild blocks, more strenuous efforts should be attempted.

Mild Blocks

Basic methods of approaching mild writer’s blocks generally involve having a realistic sense of what the writer is doing. In general, blocks occur in writing rather than editing, which means it generally occurs during the first draft. Thus, writers are reminded that a first draft is not expected to be perfect, and that problematic sections can be passed over and returned to later—the point being to focus on writing per se rather than writing the paper in a specific order. Certain sections of an academic paper, such as where the methodology is described, are fairly straightforward, since writers know what steps they have taken, and thus it is sometimes better to skip ahead and begin writing that section. This provides writers with visible indications of progress as well as a chance to work around the block.

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