Posted 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 5, 2023
Writing in Sociology
The Write Here, Write Now blog invites writers from the University of Wisconsin and La Crosse communities to respond to a series of questions that shed light on their writing lives. As readers of the blog will discover, learning to write is an ongoing, life-long process and all writers, from first-year students to career professionals, benefit from reflecting on the writing process and sharing that process with others.
Name and Title: Dr. Lisa Kruse, Associate Professor
Department, Speciality Area, and Classes Typically Taught: I am in the department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. My specialty areas are criminal justice and methods. Specifically, I am an applied researcher which means that I evaluate criminal justice programs and initiatives to assess how successful they are at their goals. I teach Introduction to Sociology (SOC 110), Methods of Social Research I (SOC 250), Law and Society (SOC 313), Surveillance in Society (SOC 318), and Criminal Justice (SOC 324).
Current Writing Project: I currently have two grant funded evaluations that I am conducting with my colleague, Dr. Nicholas Bakken. First, we are evaluating the System of Care, a diversion program for youth who attend La Crosse public schools. The program seeks to provide wraparound services to youth who are getting into trouble. Rather than ticketing and sending them to court, the System of Care connects them with a social worker who provides support for the individual and their family to address the behavioral issues outside of the system. Second, we are evaluating the adult pre- and post-charge treatment and diversion program for La Crosse County. Individuals who are charged with low level offenses and who are also low risk for reoffending will often be offered a diversion. This is a deal whereby the individual completes certain requirements (like treatment or community service) and pays restitution in exchange for dropping the charges against them. In this evaluation we are looking at a variety of things – how likely is it that someone who received a diversion ends up committing another crime? Why is there racial disparity in who is offered diversion? How long does it take someone to complete their diversion program? Why does it take longer for some to complete than others?
Additionally, I have an undergraduate research assistant, Katie Last, who is helping me collect and analyze data in partnership with the District Attorney, Tim Gruenke on racial disparity in arrest. La Crosse County has long known that there is substantial disparity in arrest rates. The question remains: What can we do about it? Through this project, we hope to have some better insight to answer this question and assist the county in making meaningful progress in reducing this disparity.
Finally, Dr. Bakken and I are writing up a second academic article on drug treatment courts in which we are analyzing observation data collected during our evaluation of a treatment court. We sat in on 27 court sessions and have found that a lot of what prevents individuals from being successful are external to the court. For example, they cannot get into treatment programs for months—a central focus of the court, or they have trouble getting housing and transportation. The literature on these types of courts has largely failed to document these struggles and we hope to add awareness to these issues. Aliyah Langrehr, my Eagle Apprentice, is helping us with this work.
1. What are you currently reading?
I am an avid reader of both fiction and nonfiction and am always reading at least one of each. My current fiction read is Happiness Falls by Angie Kim. It is fantastic. For nonfiction, I am reading Evidence of Things Seen: True Crime in an Era of Reckoning, an anthology edited by Sarah Weinman. I am also reading Walk the Walk: How Three Police Chiefs Defied the Odds and Changed Police Culture by Neil Gross.
I strongly believe in reading. I think people should read whatever makes them happy. Audiobooks count (in my opinion). I don’t like how some books are thought of as “trash” or “embarrassing.” Just read and enjoy it. The act of reading is beneficial.
2. What type(s) of writing do you regularly engage in?
Most of the writing I do is in the form of technical reports that are submitted to the county and federal funding agencies on our findings from evaluating programs. These are different than academic publications in that they are not peer-reviewed, are specific to the programs we are evaluating, and focus on recommendations for further improvement. I also write peer-reviewed academic articles. My most recent publication is "Creating Legitimacy in a Drug Treatment Court: Testing the Theoretical Framework of Procedural Justice and Therapeutic Jurisprudence" in the journal Drug Court Review. I’m particularly excited about publishing in this journal because it is open access (there is no paywall) and it is tailored to academics and practitioners. I am also excited about this piece because it centralizes the voices of active drug court participants and how they experience the drug treatment courts, a perspective that is lacking in the literature.
3. When/where/how do you write? What are your “writing necessities”?
I write everywhere and anytime. It wasn't always like this but I've learned that productive writing is about being flexible. I'll write in my office on my "big screen" or on my couch looking out the window or at my dining room table. Or in a coffee shop if I need to get out of the house/office. I tend to write where I feel like sitting at the time. As for writing necessities, I need my computer, often a printed document of a previous draft or annotated bibliography, and a notepad and pencil. If I'm at home, it helps to have a cat sitting with me.
4. What's the best writing advice you've received?
The chair of my dissertation committee once told me “no one writes a dissertation.” Instead, one writes sentences, paragraphs, and sections of a dissertation. One writes multiple drafts of these parts. Your approach to writing should be this mentality. If you go in thinking you must write as if you are writing a whole essay and a final draft of that essay, it’s overwhelming and counterproductive.
5. How does your discipline, background, and/or life experiences affect your writing style?
I got into criminal justice because I am someone who probably should have ended up on the other side of my writing. I was a terrible delinquent with a home life full of disruption and abuse. I spent time in a foster home. I was a runaway. My friends were the deviants and outcasts who understood me but who also dropped out of school, died of their addictions, or went to prison. None of my closest friends from high school went to college. My Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) score is as high, if not higher, than those who are in the system. I want my writing to include the voices of those who are often not included in academic writing, and I hope that my experience with, and closeness to, those who are part of the system will help make it better. I also want my writing to be accessible. I spend more time writing outside of academic journals because I believe that I, personally, can do better that way.
Also, when I had my child in 2016, I realized that if I was ever going to write something again, I had to be efficient. I had to be able to write in the half hour she was napping or at odd, random hours. This really helped me shatter the notion of needing several hour periods of time and a clean, chaos-free environment to write in.
6. What is your best tip for getting started and/or for revision? How do you avoid writer’s block?
Just start writing. The introduction and conclusion should come last, and your draft should start with ramblings and lists of ideas. If you try to start writing as if it is your final draft, you’re really trying to climb Mount Everest as your first attempt at mountaineering. Also, you should not go into writing an essay with the thought “I need to write this essay.” Instead, you should think of it in terms of smaller tasks. Separate the essay into sections. “I need to sit down and list out my ideas for answering this particular question” or “I need to write up a draft of this paragraph.” This makes the task seem more manageable and I find that I am more motivated to sit down and write something that seems like a doable, even easy task.
When I get revisions back from reviewers for a revise and resubmit, I start with the easiest revisions and work my way up to the hardest ones. If I start with the hardest or most time-consuming revisions, it leaves me feeling overwhelmed and unmotivated.
7. How has your work experience influenced how you write?
I started my position at UWL in 2013 and quickly got involved in the local criminal justice system as a citizen member of the La Crosse County Criminal Justice Management Council. My involvement snowballed from there and I've spent my career working alongside practitioners. It has shaped my writing tremendously. I understand the importance of academic writing but also the limitations of it when it comes to practical application. I try to write outside of journals as much as possible knowing that journal articles are often inaccessible to those who would most benefit from the information. I also try to limit the academic jargon and think of my audience as a wide range of individuals with various levels of knowledge about the methods I use, the theories in the discipline, and so on. Finally, one of my heroes, Bryan Stevenson (lawyer, professor, activist, founder and director of the Equal Justice Institute, and author of the book Just Mercy) argues that in order to truly understand a problem, you have to have proximity to that problem. If you do not get close to the people and systems you are writing about, you do not have an adequate picture of what is going on. I believe this to my core.
8. What do you think students need to know about academic writing?
Being able to write clearly is incredibly important. Take the opportunities you get in college to hone your written communication skills. For example, one day you may need to write an email to advocate for a client. A poorly worded email or one that includes way too much information may work against your client. But also, writing helps with other skills such as critical thinking. Being succinct and making connections in essays is practicing critical thinking skills. So, don’t “write off” writing 😜