Taking Research to its Fruition Posted on December 4, 2007 Jay Belsky (bio) stresses the necessity of writing and publishing.

I'm a great believer that research doesn’t exist until it gets published, that one doesn’t do research just to illuminate things for themselves or to see data output on their desk. If research isn’t going to be taken to fruition, the real question is, why bother? Sure there is a training function of it, appreciative. There is just the fun of doing it, fine and dandy, but to be perhaps a little bit dramatic and hyperbolic about it, it’s kind of like a seduction that doesn’t finish. Where’s the satisfaction in that?

Now a lot of people don’t write as much as they probably should because they don’t know how to write, and I’m a great believer that none of us know how to write. In fact my first year as an undergraduate, my first year as a graduate student, I got advised to take a writing class, and I never did. Now, I’ve had people say to me I’m a very good writer. I’m a great believer that it’s all about time on task. That you learn to write by doing two things: writing and revising and revising. So don’t think people for the most part sit down and write things out.

Secondly, by editing other people’s writing, especially students, and seeing the errors of their ways and then taking that on. The other thing you realize is that there’s no one way to write. I’ve watched different people write, and they all write differently. It’s like artists. They all paint differently. So writing is foreboding for many, understandably so, but if you’re not going to do it, why are you bothering with what you’re doing?

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