Posted 3:53 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023
Writing in Finance
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. Nilakshi Borah, Associate Professor
Department, Speciality Area, and Classes Typically Taught: I am in the department of Finance. My specialty areas are corporate finance and international finance. I frequently teach a capstone writing-emphasis class using real-world business case studies (FIN 485), an elective class for finance majors but a required class for international business majors (FIN 440), and a required class for all CBA majors (FIN 355).
Current Writing Project: I am working on revisions of an academic article. The project examines the impact of firm-level political risk on cash flow sensitivity of cash using a large sample of US firms from 2003 to 2018.
1. What are you currently reading?
I hope audiobooks count as I am not currently reading any book besides storybooks for children! However, I felt happy while reading books in my native language in the summer. I was traveling and had an opportunity to read books.
During the semester, I read writings of my students since I am currently teaching three sections of a writing-emphasis class. I feel happy to see growth in my students' writing.
2. What type(s) of writing do you regularly engage in?
I regularly engage in formal writing--writing for peer-reviewed academic journals. I try to engage in informal personal creative writing too while challenging myself to keep writing in my native language.
3. When/where/how do you write? What are your “writing necessities”?
Depends on whether I am engaging in formal or informal writing. I feel I can write everywhere and anytime, mostly after being a parent. As for writing necessities, I need a computer for formal writing and may be a cup of tea and some background music. I write informal writings mostly in a notebook using a pen as I cannot type my words in my native language. I enjoy writing in a couch while our dog is sitting with me. I mostly finished writing my dissertation on a couch and I acknowledged our dog in my dissertation!
4. What's the best writing advice you've received?
Just write! Once you write your ideas down, you can always go back and revise before a submission. I attempt to avoid writer's block by taking a pause and let words come to me. For example, somehow for a long time, I was thinking my answers for this blog post needed to be perfect. Not sure why in my mind, I was thinking that my blog post has to be one with great writing advice for students. But then I took a pause and sit down in my couch, and let words come to me to finish this blog post.
5. How has your work experience influenced how you write?
My work experience has influenced me to listen more and write concisely.
6. What do you think students need to know about academic writing?
Academic writing in my discipline is formal writing. Students after graduation in my discipline mostly engage in formal writing by writing a report, memo, etc. I believe reading helps a lot before engaging in academic writing.
7. For whom do you write?
While engaging in informal writing, I hope to write for my friends and family. My parents kept a piece of my writing (poem) that I wrote to express grief while I lost a friend that shared the same first name with me during my elementary school years. To me, writing captures the memory/the moment and I hope to keep storing those memories with words. On a personal note, I am working on a project that hopefully captures most of my memories with my dad. My dad has Parkinson's disease and I hope my writings won't let him forget me. I am hoping to make a good progress for this project during the winter break.