the last step of writing an article: the celebratory organization

writing an article always begins neatly: i have an idea, i write down a few guiding thoughts, i begin my literature search.  i create four folders on my computer: the main folder has the working title of the paper, three folders inside that are titled “drafts,” “data” and “literature.”  from this point on, during the creative, expansive part of writing an article, things are not neat.

i’ve looked around my desk while working on an article and have thought it looked like it exploded.  the desk is covered with stacks of articles for the literature review, printouts of tables and graphs, scraps of paper with notes i took while on the way to my office, and books.  if i’m working with co-authors, it’s just that much more disheveled because i’ve got copies of the articles they’ve read on my desk too, with notes in their unfamiliar handwriting.  it’s a visual mess.

at the end of the writing process, after i’ve submitted a manuscript, i like to bring it all to a close with some celebratory organization.  i create a hanging folder with a tab with the title of the article.  inside the folder i put the copy of the submitted manuscript up front, along with any copyright forms or checklists.  behind that i put clean copies of all the articles i used in the bibliography, organized in file folders by author’s last name.  i save pdfs of the articles too, in the “literature” folder on my computer; i also title the pdfs with the author’s last name.  i create a folder on the computer titled “submitted” and put in there the final version of the submitted manuscript, any tables or figures, and a scanned version of anything i had to sign when i submitted the manuscript.

bringing a neat closure to the messy process of writing feels like celebration to me.  once those things are neat, i move on to my next project or article and start the process all over again.