My supervisor after going through my literature review said in his own style, “Hatoon! Your English is really good, then why your literature review does not reflect that?” He was comparing my first draft of literature review with the research plan; both prepared by myself and submitted at very short intervals.
The difference was that the literature review had to be written following very strict academic style of writing, and as someone who writes down whatever comes to her mind, it was a real challenge. I write blogs in the Arabic and English languages and I write the scripts for my YouTube show without any problem but writing following certain academic standards and protocols is just not easy. It feels like having to wear high heels and walk in the middle of the street, while you are used to wearing tennis shoes every day. It has always been a great challenge to me.
I really find it difficult to paraphrase. And in literature review, paraphrasing sometimes is just inevitable, and in that case, it feels like driving a car that is not yours. You need to reach a destination but lots of efforts are needed for that and in my case those efforts sometimes materialize in the form of broken English.
After I am done with paraphrasing, I always make it a point to do a second reading and each time feel that it definitely does not sound correct. Mostly it serves my goal as a piece of information but the language sounds weird.
Since it was my first time I did not invest on editing services and just submitted the work which was (according to the supervisor) good in providing cohesive reporting for the current literature in the field but the language required lots of improvement, and at that time he thought that it was language limitation.
However, when he saw my other report he got confused. He was surprised to notice my proficiency in English but it did not reflect in the literature review.
Upon coming to know about the problem I was facing, he told me to always write freely. After getting done with the initial writing, he said. And then only try to fix the language and to standardize it according to the academic style, he added.
Even if I am reporting or citing another author, I should first write it according to my understanding and in my own style and then fix it after all the ideas are clear. This may not apply to everyone but for me following this was really necessary, restricting my writing style was restricting me from articulating my ideas. I really felt relieved and the advice helped me a lot and the task became lot easier for me. And as a result, I submitted my 18,000 words updated report and I passed without correction, of course I invested in proofreading, which I think in unavoidable, but not much editing was done to it, it was actually mostly proofreading and styling.
Still I enjoy freestyle writing more and currently I am working on data analysis and really enjoying writing about my own data, which feels like talking about my own children. Good luck to everyone!
