Gardiner, Maria, and Hugh Kearns. 2011. “Turbocharge Your Writing Today.” Nature 475 (7354): 129–30.

Readiness myth

The secret to high output is that you have to write before you feel ready, because you might never reach that point … The first way to speed up your writing is to stop waiting, stop reading and experimenting, and start writing.

即便实验没有做完，数据还不充分，也并不妨碍文章的构思与整理。相反地，如果从组织文章逻辑结构的角度出发，则还会触发我们思考还有哪些实验没有做、目前实验的设计与理论方法还有哪些缺陷和不足。当然，除非我们有意识地回避这些潜在的问题与由此所需的更多的思考与工作量，否则我们就应该这样去行动，没有任何藉口。

Clarity myth

In fact, writing clarifies your thinking. Writing is not recording … As you write, you develop your thoughts. So the second way to turbocharge your writing and improve its quality is to get the words down on the page – no matter how bad you think they look or sound at first.

万事开头难，一定要提笔去写。

Snack writing

They often declare that they can’t possibly write anything eloquent, insightful or clever unless they have a whole day or week to do it in. And because they don’t have that amount of time, they conclude that there is no point in starting. We call this binge writing … The alternative is ‘snack writing’. This means short – but regular – writing sessions … When possible, try snack writing first thing in the morning.

这里提出的regular snack writing方法很有价值！我们往往倾向于认为只有拿出大块时间才可以用来写作，尤其是严肃、神圣的论文。但在本文的提示下，我们完全可以在小时间段内集中精力去撰写。例如，对我个人而言，这样的写作时间适合安排在清晨：既利用了此时个人精力最好、头脑最清楚的客观条件，也迫使自己优先去做那些极其重要但又有些不太情愿的事情。所以，这对于纠正我们的拖延症，有效地提高执行力也是极为有益的！

What is writing?

Writing isn’t editing: you should not spend your brief snack-writing time trying to find the perfect wold or getting your grammar right. Writing isn’t reading journal articles for research: writing shows you what you need to read. Writing isn’t referencing … You can look up the reference later. Furthermore, writing is not formatting, literature searching, photocopying, e-mailing or nosing around on Facebook. Writing – at least for your snack-writing sessions – means putting new words on the page or substantially rewriting existing words.

这里明确地说明了“什么是writing”，尤其是“什么不是writing”！这也是“完美主义者”经常面对的陷阱。

If you refrain from writing because you worry that you write won’t be good enough, try noting the adage that to write well, you first have to write.