WHY GRADUATE STUDENTS CAN'T WRITE:

IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH ON WRITING ANXIETY

FOR GRADUATE EDUCATION
Lynn Z. Bloom
In a legendary conversation, when F. Scott Fitzgerald observed,
"The rich are different from us," Ernest Hemingway replied sarcas-
tically, "Yes, they have more money." Fitzgerald was making a
qualitative distinction, while Hemingway's was quantitative. The
same considerations might govern this examination of the characteristics
of graduate students who are anxious writers. Are they different from
undergraduates, or do they simply suffer from more intense versions of the
same problems that distress undergraduates and other anxious writers?
The answer is, predictably, both. Many anxious graduate student
writers are plagued with some of the same problems that disturb other
anxious writers. My previous research and some of the work of Daly and
Miller shows that many such writers are chronic procrastinators, dislike
writing, have difficulty concentrating on it, and fear evaluation of their
work.
1
This study, however, will focus on graduate students rather than
undergraduates; however, because neither the students nor their problems
can always be neatly segregated, there is some overlap.
On the whole these graduate students, like their graduate student
peers across the country, have a number of characteristics in common that
distinguish them from undergraduates. They are older, more mature. and
brighter. They earn better grades and more money than undergraduates,
and usually work harder and more hours at jobs and studies than
undergraduates. Their lives are generally more independent than those of
undergraduates, and they are expected to display more intellectual
ingenuity and independence of mind. Yet, paradoxically, if their jobs are
related to their research or other professional training, as graduate
students these people are likely to be monitored very closely. So is their
writing. And the stakes are higher, for on the quality and timing of their
performance hinges their professional future. The multiple roles and
ambiguous situations of many graduate students, the mixture of dependence
and independence, freedom and responsibility, create tensions and
problems particular to t ~ i r writing that are far more common among
JOURNAL OF ADVANCED COMPOSITION, Vol. II, Nos. 1-2 (Double Issue), 1981.
Copyright 1982 by the Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition.
104
Journal of Advanced Composition
graduate students than undergraduates.
After identifying the specific graduate student population studied in
this research, this paper will attempt to explain the nature and the causes
of these problems, and suggest some solutions.
I
Graduate Students Studied
My research included case studies often graduate students, aged 23-
49, in business, comparative literature, education, English, fine arts,
history, law, and sociology. Although the studies were conducted on the
campus of the College of William and Mary, the students themselves were
enrolled in advanced degree programs at the University of Virginia,
University of Michigan, Columbia, Harvard, Purdue, and the University
of Richmond, in addition to William and Mary. These individual cases
are supplemented by the collective experiences of a dozen master's and
doctoral students in marine biology at the Virginia Institute of Marine
Science. All of the information was derived from voluntary participants
in my workshops at the College of William and Mary to help anxious
writers overcome their problems and to learn to write with greater ease,
efficiency, and understanding of the composing process and effective
variations.
2
Typical of graduate students in the select programs in which they
were enrolled, most had excellent academic records in undergraduate and
graduate schools.
3
Graduate students who have been poor or mediocre as
undergraduates are perhaps justifiably apprehensive about their ability to
succeed in more demanding graduate work. But paradoxically, a major
cause of writing anxiety among graduate students is their previous
academic success. The experiences and reactions of Ellen, a straight-A
undergraduate working on a Master's degree in fine arts, are typical: "I've
never had lower than an A- on a paper. I've always done well, and expect
to do well every time. My professors expect this, too." Such students
fear that their self-esteem, or their reputation, will suffer iftheir writing is
not perfect. They gain no confidence from an acknowledgement of their
previous performance. As Ellen observes, "I have had the paper written
on time but have been too insecure to hand it in. I've almost gotten sick
over it! But when I've finally turned in the same paper-two weeks
overdue-it's received an A. Even so, I avoid the professor when I pick
up the paper."
Lynn Z. Bloom
105
Although a few writers are equally apprehensive about all papers,
short and long, minor and major, as a rule the more important the writing,
the greater the apprehension. "There's always the fear," says Maya, a
specialist in medieval literature who has worked intermittently on a
dissertation over the past six years, "that you're not as good as you or your
professors thought you were, and that the dissertation will reveal what
you'd managed to conceal in your course papers-your ineptitude." Such
fears undermine the votes of confidence graduate schools give to the
students they admit to advanced study and research. Although apprehen-
sive graduate students will acknowledge intellectually that only those
judged likely to succeed will be admitted and thereby receive commitments
of costly resources and time, they often convince themselves emotionally
that by some fluke they and they alone managed to slip through the
otherwise fine mesh on the screening net Thus, although procrastination
helps insecure students to avoid (from their viewpoint) humiliating self-
exposure or confrontation with their alleged ineptitude, it also postpones
the opportunity (from the faculty perspective) to restore the students'
flagging confidence by showing them how able their work really is.
Such fears, accompanied by self-imposed pressure for perfect work,
are likely to be exaggerated in graduate students who have received
fellowships or other financial support They believe they have to "live up
to the implications of the award," which they are likely to interpret "more
as a threat than a vote of confidence." Reinforcing the threat are the
realistic expectations of more demanding work and more difficult grading
standards for graduate students than for undergraduates. How much
more demanding and difficult are unknown-and the unknown, because
infinitely more stringent, is far more problematic than the known.
4
So anxious graduate students, seeking the security of explicit
standards, are likely to select or have recommended by their professors
models of expert professional writing to follow. Immersed as they are
in the literature of the discipline into which they are being initiated,
graduate students seize such writings as exemplars-of form, style,
organization, research methods, and bibliographic format. But what
might for more confident students provide assurance may prove terrifying
to the insecure. Lamented Ken, a straight-A graduate student in history
whose perfectionism had for five years inhibited the writing of his Master's
thesis, "Even the best of my own writing seems lazy and slipshod in
comparison with excellent professional models. I know I'm supposed to
write a publishable thesis that's an original contribution to the professional
106 Journal of Advanced Composition
literature. But I haven't had the experience to be able to write that
well." And so he didn't write at all until I convinced Ken to discuss his
expectations with his thesis advisor. "What a surprise," he told me later,
"to find that although I had to know a small segment of the field very
thoroughly, my thesis didn't have to be all that innovative. Although it
was supposed to be well-written, it wouldn't be necessarily by publishable.
Once I realized that I was able to get started."
'II
Problems with Topic Choice and Advisors
In addition to misconceptions about form and scope, misappre-
hensions about thesis and dissertation topics also plague anxious graduate
students. Although students appropriately "need to feel that the thesis is
important, a topic of significance to someone" besides themselves, the
pursuit of the right topic can occupy anxious or uncertain students for
years. And failure to find it can inhibit or totally halt their research. As
these students scan the literature for six-or six hundred-topics in search
of an author, the plethora of possibilities may prove bewildering rather
than inspiring. "After I finished my course work," sighs Barbara, a
Master's candidate in sociology, "I spent eighteen months flitting among
eight topics and different approaches to each of them. I was fmally able to
focus my topic when I had to accommodate some research data that came
up in my job at the hospital. My boss said I could be the first one to use the
data if I developed a good thesis, and I found one right away."
At the other extreme are graduate advisors who exacerbate rather
than reduce their graduate students' anxiety by imposing uncongenial
topics upon them. Or so it appears to the students, whether or not the
advisors really intend this. It takes tough-minded and unusually mature
students to refuse to write topics of the advisors' choice rather than their
own. Yet if the students who succumb to the teachers' choice were not
anxious writers before, the assignment of a distasteful (or in other ways
unmanageable) topic can make them into proficient procrastinators
overnight.
Although many students can cope with an uncongenial topic in a
short paper that requires little time or investment, most find the selection
of a thesis or dissertation topic analogous to the selection of a spouse. It
had better be one they love, or it will not survive the stress of intimate
association. This is not the place to multiply tales of mismatched students
Lynn Z. Bloom
107
and topics except to offer the observation that too often the students,
lukewarm at the beginning of the shotgun wedding, lose interest and
eventually abandon the unappealing subject and perhaps the pursuit of the
degree as well.
A case in point is Caroline, the recipient of various graduate
fellowships and awards in English at the University of Virginia. Caroline
sailed through her course work and comprehensive exams with highest
honors, and eagerly began her dissertation on Beowulf. But as she wrote
she found that as a consequence of suggestions and shapings from her
advisor, "my thesis became more and more refined until it was almost not
mine anymore but my chairman's, and I felt pressure via loyalty and
respect to follow through on his suggestions." At that point Caroline's
work began to falter. Instead of writing a chapter every two months she
has spent six months on four pages. Whether she will finish remains to be
seen. She is currently obtaining psychiatric help.
III
Problems Inherent in the Nature of Graduate Education
Other problems with advisors that contribute to writing anxiety are
less dramatic but inherent in the nature of graduate education, which is
often more flexible than undergraduate education, allowing far greater
freedom oftime, with fewer constraints on how to use it. Graduate theses
and dissertations are usually intended to be researched and written over
protracted periods of time, time which may be too unstructured for the
students' own good. Most writers work more efficiently with clear goals
and time deadlines than without. If the advisor can't or won't help to
provide these and the graduate student is too inexperienced or unassertive
to be realistic about focus and schedule, manana-and the first-or the
second- ... chapter may never come.
5
Yet graduate advisors may be justifiably reluctant to offer unsolicr
ited advice t6 students whom they recognize as adults that have been
functioning independently in many ways, for instance as self-supporting
determiners of their own fates and fortunes. Advisors may not want to
impose a dependency that would be, says Maya, "demeaning and
depressing to we who have successfully performed many other roles-
such as wife and mother and community activist-for years without
outside interference. We believe we should be independent in our
graduate work, as well."
108 Journal of Advanced Composition
Nevertheless, graduate theses and dissertations perforce involve
varying mixtures of dependent and independent research performed by
students of varying levels of capability and sophistication. Although they
may believe, as Ellen says, that" it's a reflection on your character if you
take too long to write your thesis," some graduate students want-and
need-more help than others, with substance or with scheduling or both.
As Glen, a marine biology doctoral candidate bogged down in a
dissertation observes, "Advisors expect a maturity of graduate students
that they don't necessarily have. They think we should be able to block
out long-term research and writing on our own, even though we've never
done it before. And we're pretty macho-we don't want to admit that we
need more advice than we're getting. So we don't ask and the advisors
don't offer and the project just drags along." Maya adds, "Dissertation
writers would be better off if we weren't expected to work at our own pace
and set our own schedule. Advisors should help us set chapter-by-chapter
deadlines. A firm, terminal deadline without the possibility of infinite
extensions would help us reinforce our own internal deadlines."
The fact that theses and dissertations are written over an extended
period may create additional writing problems. Longer works- and their
authors-suffer from a discontinuity of perspective as advisors go on
leave, change jobs, or retire. New advisors may make new demands,
require new methodology, question previously accepted research results
and interpretations. The longer the writing period extends, the more likely
such problems are to appear. Graduate fellowships and stipends, alleged-
ly calculated to support students through the completion of their degrees,
expire whether or not the thesis is done.
Yet if students leave campus when their funding runs out, they are
subject to even more difficulties. The necessary laboratory or library
materials may not be available in the new location-provocative of
delays. There may be "no fellow students to bounce ideas off of," says
Liz, a determined student on a fast track to an MBA. Advisors are harder
to reach, and may not "keep in touch unless students take the initiative,"
ruefully observes Berry, whose dissertation in history remains unfinished
during the six years since he left Ann Arbor, where there are no longer any
advocates committed to his project The incentive to keep writing may
dissipate as the student is removed from the customary writing context
"Being at Columbia got me really high," says Maya, "I crashed in
Williamsburg. "
Lynn Z. Bloom 109
Conflicting demands and priorities-always problematic- are more
likely to impinge on graduate students than on undergraduates. Graduate
students, more than undergraduates, are usually expected to be self-
supporting, and often to contribute to the support of a spouse and children,
as well. So they have jobs (sometimes two) which require time and
. energy, as do their families. In addition, many are extensively involved in
community activities-women's centers, volunteer fire departments,
tutoring, and the like. Whether such time consuming commitments
increase their anxiety or are a diversion from it is hard to but the effect
is the same: overcrowded schedules that too often leave little time for or
emphasis on writing.
Spouses neither enrolled in nor involved with graduate school can
also be a distraction from-or a deterrent to-writing. In many cases
where women graduate students are married to men not likely to obtain an
equivalent or superior education, the husband may implicitly or explicitly
sabotage the writing-in-progress. His work takes precedence over his
wife's. He expects her to be home by 5 p.m. to have dinner on the table
every night, even if this interferes with her late labs. He wants to play on
the weekends she has set aside for writing. If she pays more attention to
her research or writing than to him, he sulks or nags or fights or thinks of
reasons to command her attention. (These pronouns are used advisedly.
Men seeking graduate degrees evidently have more accommodating
spouses; at least, I have never heard such complaints from graduate men.)
The writer of a dissertation must be particularly determined, even at the
risk of seeming self-absorbed, to keep at it without reinforcement on the
home front
The writer of a thesis or dissertation must also be uncommonly
to stick to it without the assurance that it will lead to ajob. This
is not necessarily true for undergraduates, whose pursuit of a bachelor's
degree (now the Great American Norm) is reinforced by the prevailing
belief that going to college is a particularly constructive way to spend one's
eighteenth through twenty-first years. There is no corresponding belief
that going to graduate school is the best way to spend one's twenty-second
through thirtieth ( or more) years, unless the securing or retaining of one's
job depends on it Either can, to paraphrase Jonathan Swift's defmition of
a hanging, "wonderfully focus the dissertation." Bette, a Harvard
graduate student in comparative literature, who had avoided work on her
dissertation during the four years she was teaching full time, wrote it in five
weeks when she needed the degree in hand to get a better job.
110 Journal of Advanced Composition
One source estimates that there will be 400,000 unemployed Ph.D. s
by 1985;6 with job prospects dim, even the graduate students themselves
may look upon extended study as dilettantism or prolonged adolescence,
and abandon it for the rigors of the real world. "I'm at the stage of my life
where I feel I should be productive and making a real contribution," says
Berry, 35, "but there's not a great marketfor medievalists. Why bother to
finish my dissertation if I can't get a job when it's done? It just doesn't
seem worth the etTort."
For other graduate students who experience dramatic changes in
their lives or careers, the completion of a thesis or dissertation may
become irrelevant, a costly self-indulgence. Irene, 49, explains, "When
my ex-husband cut otTmy alimony, I had to get a full-time job. Becoming
a paralegal has been much more rewarding, personally and financially,
than ajob in special education would have been. I only have twenty-one
hours to complete, but ifI do it will just be for the satisfaction offinishing
the degree. I'll never use it."
IV
Problems with Age of Work and Writer
Some of the diminution of etTort to finish a thesis or dissertation, and
consequently a graduate degree, is undoubtedly a phenomenon of age,
either of the writing project or the writer or both. The writing of this
extensive work is often done in time which is unstructured and open-ended
in comparison with an otherwise highly regimented curriculum. Whether
it gets done expediently, or at all, is epitomized in a variation of
Murphy's law: The work either expands or contracts to fill the time
allotted to complete it. Thus, as a rule, graduate students eager to earn an
advanced degree budget their time carefully and stick to a schedule of
research and writing that enables them to" get through and get out" And
so they finish well within the generous time deadlines that most institutions
set for the completion of graduate degrees. Employers are looking for the
self-starters and the fast movers; the early birds get what jobs there are. So
the rapid pace provides both the built-in satisfactions of completing the
writing and the degree, and the likely reward of a job.
Neither are necessarily present for those sraduate students who, at
the point of writing their thesis or dissertation, begin to dance to the erratic
beat of their own, much slower drummer. As time passes, they are likely
to slow down to such an imperceptible pace that they scarcely seem-to
Lynn Z. Bloom
111
the observer, though perhaps not to themselves-to be moving at all. The
longer the time that has elapsed between when the student began the thesis
or dissertation and the current time, the less likely slhe is to finish.
The slower the pace, the less likely the rewards, either immediate or
long term. And so it becomes easier to ignore the writing to be done,
thereby avoiding the effort of writing and the possibly painful confronta-
tion with an advisor angry over the lack of progress. Yet I have never,
either as a researcher or as a supervisor of T As, met a graduate student
who would acknowledge the possibility of not finishing the thesis or
dissertation, even some who have not touched the incomplete opus in over
two decades. To do so would involve a great loss of self-esteem, and
would explicitly break their promise to complete the work.
So although they may say, as does Berry, "As I get older, finishing
for the sake of finishing doesn't seem worth it," they invariably follow such
defeatist remarks with a contradiction that indicates their ambivalence.
I need to fmish my dissertation to get out from under my dependency on
my advisor," adds Berry. "I'm independent in every other respect, and I
should be in this one, too."
Yet as both the project and the writer age, the momentum and the
incentives to complete the work diminish considerably. Inaction breeds
inertia. And it breeds some rationalizations, often partially true, always
self-serving:
1. Why undergo the grueling labor a dissertation requires, if, at
thirty-five, or forty, or fifty, one's career lifetime is short-perhaps, in
some instances, ready to begin when one's peers are contemplating early
retirement?
2. Why begin at the beginning of a new career in mid-life when one's
current occupation and habits are familiar, perhaps even comfortable?
3. Why work hard on a thesis or dissertation if one's physical
stamina or energy is diminishing? "Students who blaze along in graduate
school with no respite may find themselves quickly burned out," says
Ellen, "and simply not finish." Why work hard if one's health is
uncertain? The students in this study have been affiicted with eye
problems, chronic illness, surgery, and the need for psychiatric help.
7
Once vulnerable, twice threatened.
112
Journal of Advanced Composition
4. Why not enjoy life while one can? Carpe diem may be preferable
to carpe dissertation, especially if one's peers have abanponed graduate
work. "Dropouts are contagious," says Ken. "You see your friends
leaving graduate programs and it makes you scared to start your
dissertation, or indifferent about finishing."
These are "good" reasons (phony excuses) for some, very real
reasons for others who give up graduate work without regret. Yet for the
anxious graduate students in this study and many of their peers, failure to
finish would mean the abandonment of golden dreams, the curtailment of
careers and the foreclosure of options, as well as the waste of human effort
and graduate school resources. These people who seek help with their
writing, and they are legion, clearly have the desire to finish their work, no
matter what their rationalizations. Graduate schools, graduate faculty,
and graduate students themselves can provide considerable assistance in
enabling graduate students to complete their work and earn their degrees
in a realistic time period.
V
Solutions-Graduate Schools and Faculty
Graduate schools can be of particular help in the following ways, say
the anxious students in this study.
1. Graduate programs should incorporate thesis and dissertation
research, and even writing, into the course work, so students can do
significant segments of it on a regular schedule, under supervision.
Ken says, "I finished my master's course work within a year, and
was eager to get out and buy a car and furniture. But there was no time to
write the thesis when I was taking a full load and preparing for
comprehensives. After that my money ran out and I couldn't work two
jobs at once and write in addition. If my thesis research had been
incorporated in my course work, I'd have been through five years ago.
Only five of the nineteen people in my class have finished their
degrees. We all have the same problem."
2. Graduate school regulations should provide realistic but firm
deadlines for the completion of courses and graduate degrees. "The
possibility of infinite extensions simply contributes to our own lack of
structure," laments Barbara, candidate for a Master's degree in education.
Lynn Z. Bloom
113
"A firm, terminal deadline would help to reinforce our own internal
deadlines."
3. Graduate faculty and advisors need to provide more information
than many of them currently do, say these students. Graduate students
may be more naive about research methodology and writing than they're
willing to admit; graduate faculty should tailor their instruction accord-
ingly. This may involve providing basic instruction in some of the
following areas:
A Teaching students how to find the key resources first, and
how to distinguish between primary and secondary resources.
B. Suggesting to students the outer limits of their reading and
research investigations, and setting a realistic time to stop, rather than
letting the time extend into infinity. "I've been reading for four years as a
way to avoid writing," laments Sara, a doctoral candidate in sociology. "I'll
never fmish ifI keep this up, because new material is always being added to
the field."
C. Explaining the advantages and disadvantages of various
organizational formats typical of papers in the student's discipline. Many
students don't know how to organize their materials, especially if new data
or readings, like a pig in a python, modify the shape of the original. So
they need to see good models. They also need to learn when and how to
cite references. "A great meticulousness in documentation is expected of
graduate students," observes Ken. "A lot of people drop out of graduate
work in history because they cannot cope with the minutiae of scholarship
and nobody teaches them."
D. Telling students what the faculty expects in breadth and
depth of research investigation: 1) To what extent should it be original?
2) To what extend should it represent the student's independent effort? To
what extent may it be part of a team project? Or an interpretive summary
of the literature? 3) Should it be of potentially publishable qUality?
4) How close to perfection is it expected to come? Says Sara, "I couldn't
get started on my dissertation in sociology, because 1 thought it had to be
comprehensive, perfect, and publishable-an original contribution to the
literature. 1 didn't know how to do all this. So 1 stayed away from my
advisor, too embarrassed to confront him with my ignorance. As a
consequence of our discussion in the Writing Anxiety workshop, 1 finally
114 Journal of Advanced Composition
went to see him-after avoiding him for over three years. Amazing! He
told me that a narrow topic was acceptable. In fact, he urged less rather
than more. He said that even a dissertation didn't have to be 100%
original, nor did it have to be perfect That was just what I needed to get
moving on it!"
E. Helping students to schedule their time and effort realis-
tically, including consideration of such matters as: 1) How much time
should a chapter or given segment of research take? 2) What is the
suitable apportionment of time between short and long papers? "I always
have trouble in allotting time," says Ellen. "I spend too much time on the
short papers and not enough on the long ones. Once I took ninety-six
hours to write an abstract of a two-page article. I got an A, but it wasn't
worth the effort" 3) How much time should one allow for revision and
shepherding the work through committees? 4) When can one reasonably
expect to finish the work? Advisors, as experienced researchers, have a
much better sense of this than do their just-being-initiated advisees.
F. Keeping the students accountable to their time schedule.
"I got my dissertation done in nine months,just ahead of having the baby,"
comments Linda, a rec.ent Ph.D. who fmished on time, "because my
advisor insisted on a chapter a month. When I turned it in he'd make an
appointment to discuss it the next day."
VI
Solutions: Graduate Students
Yet graduate students, as reasonably autonomous adults, cannot
expect all the directives to come from their advisors. The students
themselves must assume significant responsibility for controlling the
nature and progress of their research and writing. The students in this
study, no longer as anxious as they used to be, and all actually writing,
offer the following advice:
1. Graduate students should communicate continually with their
professors, and should feel free to ask questions about ,writing style,
footnote format, anything. "It's far better to admit your lack ofknowledge
at the outset, even on elementary matters," says Roy, the 34-year-old law
student struggling to finish incompletes by writing term papers while
taking the bar exam. "Otherwise you get caught later, when ignorance is
no longer bliss."
Lynn Z. Bloom 115
2. If professors don't volunteer deadlines, ask them to help establish
a time schedule both for submitting work and receiving commentary on it
"Be sure to hold the professor to the deadline, too," says Maya. "You
don't have time to wait three months for commentary on what you wrote.
Even if you have to nag your advisors by phone calls or letters, do it They
shouldn't be allowed to hide in the stacks; their jobs exist for the benefit of
their students, after all."
3. Arrive at a clear understanding with the professors about the
scope, emphasis, and length of the thesis or dissertation. "And double
check if you're contemplating any changes," says Ellen. "False or
inappropriate leads can waste a lot of time."
4. Show a preliminary draft of each chapter to the advisor. Use the
comments as guides to revision, and to the writing of the next chapter.
"This is infinitely preferable to writing the entire opus and submitting it,
only to find that it requires major revisions," warns Caroline. "That can
set you back months."
5. Try to do all the work at the campus or designated research
facility at which it was begun. "Belonging to a community of scholars
with common goals and priorities is not easy to duplicate in the outer
world," says Sara. Staying on campus. also permits the formation of
dissertation support groups (as three of the people in this study are doing),
to discuss research issues and techniques, and to encourage each other to
stick to their writing schedules.
6. In striving to attain a realistic balance between efficiency and
perfection, don't expect perfection. Students who encounter perfection-
istic advisors should switch rather than fight "If you don't you'll never
finish," observes Berry. "Doing the best you can in the time available is
the closest we mortals can come to perfection."
It would be an oversimplification to say that all the problems of
anxious graduate student writers would be resolved if these suggestions
were followed. But many of them would. Many of the solutions can be
effected by clearer and more constant communication between graduate
students and their professors or advisors. An illustration of this occurred
dramatically in the Writing Anxiety workshop that I conducted for the
twelve marine biology graduate students who were in various stages of not
finishing their theses and dissertations, and ten of their advisors.
116 Journal of Advanced Composition
Typical of Glen, cited earlier, the graduate students thought that they were
supposed to do all the writing on their projects by themselves, and to tum
in a perfect, finished draft to their advisors. But they didn't know how to
do this. The advisors were eager to offer advice but refrained, not wanting
to impose direction on their adult students. They wondered why the
students never consulted them, and they were perplexed because so many
were not progressing. Once each side could state its case, as they did in
the Workshop, they realized that they needed to talk to each other and to
work together, rather than in isolation. As a consequence, three students
finished their degrees within six months, and the rest are writing busily. It
can be done.
Students capable of being admitted to graduate school are presum-
ably capable of earning degrees in their particular programs. But what
many need to learn involves how to set parameters, as well as how to fill
requirements; how to write in an appropriate form, as well as how to do
research on the substance; how to schedule research and writing time, as
well as courses; and how to bolster self-confidence as well as research
skills. If these things were taught and learned, my reseatch predicts that
far more graduate students would complete their theses and dissertations
in far less time than many currently take. It can be done.
8
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, Virginia
Lynn Z. Bloom 117
NOTES
1 Lynn Z. Bloom, "Identifying and Reducing Writing Anxiety: Writing Anxiety
Workshops," in The Psychology o/Composition. ed. Douglas R. Butturff, Akron: Language
and Style Books, University of Akron Press (in press); Lynn Z. Bloom, "The Composing
Processes of Anxious and Non-Anxious Writers: A Naturalistic Study," Resources in
Education (Sept. 1980), ERIC #185-559; John A. Daly and Michael D. Miller, "The
Empiracal Development of an Instrument to Measure Writing Apprehension," Research in
the Teaching 0/ English, 9:3 (Winter 1975), 242-249.
2"1 Hate/Love to Write: The Fear of Writing," Alumni Gazette (College of William
and Mary), 47-6 (Jan./Feb. 1980),25-29. Proper names of students and institutions have
been changed throughout to protect participants.
3There are two exceptions. One, a Master's student in education, had concentrated
as an undergraduate more on social life than on studies, as verified by her undistinguished
record of twenty-five years earlier. The other was a thirty-four year old law student. A
dozen years earlier, as an undergraduate at Rice, he had received lowered grades as a
consequence of turning in late papers, and he had failed several other courses for not writing
papers at all. Yet in a Master's program in zoology a year later, with no papers, he earned
straight A's.
4Could not experienced graduate students, accustomed to the institutional criteria, be
expected to become less fearful? Probably so, for those not inclined to be anxious. But for
anxious writers, left to their fertile and frightening imaginations, every new paper, whether
for a new or familiar teacher, is an unknown. And "that way be monsters," as old maps
designated the edge ofthe flat earth-at the peril of unwary sailors who got too close to the
edge.
5 See Lynn Z. Bloom, "Teaching Anxious Writers: Implications and Applications of
Research," Composition and Teaching, II (1980), 47-60.
6Landon Y. Jones, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation
(New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1980), p. 300.
7To my knowledge, there is no data to indicate whether or not anxious graduate
student writers are more susceptible to these afflictions than other graduate students.
8 An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1981 meeting of CCCC in
Dallas.