Ah, That's Better!
Sep. 29th, 2004 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stoutfellowWell, I got the tests graded and handed back, so that's off my mind for now (although I gave a quiz in Calc this morning, so I have that to take care of). More importantly, I finally got a handle on one of those papers I'm supposed to be writing.
The problem, writing a paper, is organizing it. As long as it's just a jumble of ideas, I can't - almost literally can't - make myself write it. There needs to be a clear narrative, or it doesn't work. And that was what was going on with that first paper. I had a set of techniques for studying polygons, some general (but not very interesting) applications, some more specific applications (working only for triangles), and then some partial generalizations of the last to certain other classes of polygons. It felt shapeless, lumpy.
This afternoon it hit me: if I swap the last two parts I get a decent flow. Here's the not very interesting stuff about all polygons; here're the rather better results which apply to certain kinds of polygons; and these are the neat things that happen when you specialize to triangles. The field of view narrows, but what's visible expands.
I've got my narrative. Now I can write it.
The problem, writing a paper, is organizing it. As long as it's just a jumble of ideas, I can't - almost literally can't - make myself write it. There needs to be a clear narrative, or it doesn't work. And that was what was going on with that first paper. I had a set of techniques for studying polygons, some general (but not very interesting) applications, some more specific applications (working only for triangles), and then some partial generalizations of the last to certain other classes of polygons. It felt shapeless, lumpy.
This afternoon it hit me: if I swap the last two parts I get a decent flow. Here's the not very interesting stuff about all polygons; here're the rather better results which apply to certain kinds of polygons; and these are the neat things that happen when you specialize to triangles. The field of view narrows, but what's visible expands.
I've got my narrative. Now I can write it.
