Editor’s Note: In this article, Dr. Weijia Li, our Production Editor, shares how she views editing work and its role in her evolution as a writer and professional in the writing center space. Her article is part of a longer series in which we, the editors of the blog, introduce ourselves and what we do, to you, our faithful readers. We have learned a lot about what editing, writing, and writing centers entails, but we are still growing. This series allows us to take stock and share with you our ongoing reflections. Thank you for reading and for supporting our team!
- What themes/trends/topics do you find most interesting in the articles you’ve facilitated for the blog?
It’s always been inspiring to see the ingenuity writing center people bring to their work around the world. In Spring 2019, for my course titled Language and Literacy in an Era of Globalization, I conducted a literature review about international writing centers documented in original/empirical research and argued that international writing centers are U.S.-imported models rooted in localized practices. And I’ve noticed similar themes from many of the submissions we’ve released, for example, the recent follow-up article on UCU Writing Center in Uganda. Thanks to the blog, I’ve gotten the sense that writing centers are unique in their own ways and perhaps that’s why it’s difficult to theorize writing center as both pedagogy and practice in a way that’s generalizable enough with a keen sensitivity to the differences.
- What do you find most interesting and rewarding about the work you do across your different roles?
At the time of this piece (November 2023), it’s been over three years since I joined the blog in July 2020. (A BIG thank-you to MJ who forwarded me the call!) I started out revamping the blog design and curating the Covid feature (i.e., releasing a large amount of submissions between July and August and eventually creating a separate page). It’s been rewarding to build stuff and see everything taking shape little by little. Over time, my duties have organically expanded to some editorial work such as reviewing submissions and providing feedback, in addition to administrative work, publishing pieces, and blog maintenance. The most interesting aspect has been learning about the writing center field through submissions from and dialogues with scholars.
- You joined the blog while working on your doctorate. How did you navigate that while doing the blog work?
Earlier, I described how my role has evolved at the blog in the past three years. Meanwhile, between then and now, I have gone from a full-time doctoral student working on her dissertation proposal to a full-time writing center staff member. I successfully completed my degree while working full-time. It was definitely do-able because by the time I began my current job, I was in the revision phase. Plus, my committee and I went about it in smaller sections, which means each time it wasn’t a lot to work with on my end. I think it’s common for folks to imagine dissertators writing all the time or think that’s the only way. In my experience, there was a lot of waiting between sending out revisions and receiving feedback. Even when I was actively drafting, it was probably five hours a day at most. I’m very much against the page count mindset or using good days or bad days to describe levels of productivity.
Practically, I feel like those so-called best practices play a part in my daily life, for example, prioritization, breaking things down into smaller chunks, and having a consistent schedule. I just happened to develop them little by little over time. The other thing is, I try not to make anything more important than my wellbeing. That includes getting enough sleep, eating well, and dabbling in my academia-irrelevant hobbies. Having multiple commitments wasn’t difficult for me; the actual difficult part was staying firm about what matters to me and being intentional about what I choose to do.
- How does the writer in you find space to exist amidst all of this work?
I mostly engage in two types of writing: academic and personal. Of course, my dissertation has been perhaps the biggest academic piece I’ve done. Back in my full-time dissertation phase, I worked on the draft everyday except one day out of the weekend. It’s that idea that you need to work on it consistently. Books like Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks talk about it. I also heard similar ideas from my research participants. At the moment, I’m carving out a 2-hour block on my weekly calendar for a draft manuscript.
On the other hand, I want to write for myself more. For instance, I often use writing to think through and reflect on experiences and encounters to gain more clarity and stay in tune with my feelings. There’s a quote from the author Kurt Vonnegut I really like: “If you can’t write clearly, you probably don’t think nearly as well as you think you do.” Because I’m an audience for my own thoughts, I definitely need to make things clear to myself before expressing them to another person, if that’s my intent. For this, I don’t have a routine yet. I’ve had times when I naturally turned to writing because I had so much to say while other times I just type down keywords in my phone for drafting at a later time.
- What would an ideal week look like for you? What aspects of that ideal week have you managed to bring into your actual weeks?
Most of the time, I get the blog work done within my weekdays while at the office. For example, I find pockets of time to reply to emails and scheduling pieces. I always schedule the feature releases in advance so that I only need to make some minor design changes in the back-end after they publish if needed. In a nutshell, I prepare things in advance as much as possible – it’s ideal. As for the week, it’d be ideal to have a mix of being out and staying in on weeknights plus one main activity (e.g., hiking) on the weekend. It’s not really blog-related though!
Also, in my weekly schedule, I include things I look forward to, like live performances and talks on campus or course movie screenings. I’m also involved in weekly West African drumming practice (it’s been over a year) and Gamelan ensemble (new this year!). They help me go through days when I’m very drained from lots of brain work.
- If you could offer one piece of advice to your past self before you took on your roles, what would you say?
Trust your instinct. I usually make decisions that my future self would mostly agree on 🙂
- Just like other types of academic service work, editorial teams can be transient. How do you cope with/embrace this while doing your work?
I’m aware that we’ve all got our own stuff going on; our needs and priorities are evolving. In the meantime, the blog has been through a few batches of editors since its conception in 2012. So the transient nature doesn’t really bother me. Now that I’ve entered a new phase (working full-time and no school), I’ve thought about transitioning out of my role at the blog in the near future. When I joined the team in 2020, my idea was to stay for a while because it was a good opportunity for a student like me to branch out, learn, and network. I didn’t have a set timeline or anything in mind. Now, after doing it for a few years, my understanding is that we editors are realizing the blog’s founder Muriel Harris’s vision in our own takes. I’m happy and truly grateful to be part of the team and the WLN family. I’m glad we’ve been putting out good work!
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