I was recently talking to a client about their writing process. They were struggling with how long it took to write the first drafts of manuscripts, especially when they ended up basically rewriting the drafts anyway.
Their mindset was that writing a first draft they heavily revised later felt like wasted effort. But it wasn’t. It was a valuable investment in sorting out their thoughts.
You might think of this as a sunk cost: time and energy spent on something that you can’t get back. But I don’t think this framing fits because the effort isn’t wasted. It’s what makes every later draft possible.
Instead, I prefer the term zero draft. A zero draft is an unpolished, no-pressure draft in which you capture your thoughts in whatever form they come before crafting a true first draft. This term feels more positive, and it doesn’t imply that any effort is wasted.
I’ll admit that my zero drafts are usually line-by-line outlines. These in-depth outlines help me organize the information and my thoughts before I get too attached to how I’ve written about them. Then I turn that outline into my first draft.
Starting with zero draft can feel uncomfortable, or even scary. But just like reading a recipe and gathering the ingredients before cooking, or reading a protocol and preparing the reagents before running an experiment, organizing your thoughts before writing a first draft is time well spent.
So the next time you need to draft a new document from scratch, consider starting with a zero draft. Give yourself permission to write freely, because that’s where the clearest thinking and writing begin.
(By the way, if you’d like to learn my outlining process, you can find a recording of our Optimize Your Outline workshop in the event library of the Redwood Ink Academy. You can access it along with more than 100 other event recordings when you join Scientific Writing Simplified.)
Now onto this week's round-up...
Round-up
Reading
The Methods Section Should Not be an Afterthought in Scientific Papers
”In experimental sciences, studies are only as good as the validity of the methods and materials used to perform their research. You ask a question, design a method, precisely document the results, and draw conclusions that can withstand scrutiny. . . These other scientists want to know HOW the study was performed and what techniques were employed to ensure that the reported results are not only valid but also trustworthy. Arguably, this is the most crucial section for critical appraisal of an experimental research paper.”
“I find that keeping the Methods section at the end is inconvenient and counterproductive, as it forces critical readers and reviewers to wander to the end of such publications to make sure the reported results are reliable.”
Against the current: Sole authorship as method in contemplative and conceptual scholarship
“Sole authorship should not be understood as an alternative to collaboration, but as a complementary practice within a broader ecology of scholarly work. Where the task of inquiry requires sustained interpretive integration, a unified line of thought provides conditions for coherence and accountability that may be difficult to reproduce through distributed authorship. The case for sole authorship advanced here is therefore not general but situational, grounded in the specific epistemic and ethical demands of contemplative scholarship.”
Listening
Why Trying to “Sound Smart” is Losing You the Room with Strategic Story Producer Rob Willis
In this episode, Simon Sinek and Rob Willis discuss how to hold attention in a room, why the smartest person in the room is rarely the most persuasive one, and a few simple shifts that create a memorable pitch.
Quote
“I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.” – Shannon Hale
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.“ – Henry David Thoreau
Thank you so much for reading.
Warmly,
Crystal
