Enabling writing behaviours of successful professors: Insights into optimising research writing practices

ABSTRACT Scholarly investigations continue to explore academics’ behaviours towards writing in an effort to optimise research writing productivity. One such suite of behaviours which has received limited focus from previous investigations is known as ‘enabling behaviours’ – behaviours used to intentionally create environments that enable and optimise writing productivity. This qualitative study reveals and explores the enabling behaviours of 16 successful professors from a research-intensive university in New Zealand. These behaviours that emerged from the analysis centre on creating writing rhythms and relationships with technologies and locales. This study provides insights into the relationship formation processes with time, technology, and space as the enabling behaviours of successful professors. These insights are useful for research writers to optimise their own research writing practices.


Introduction
University academics struggle with the never-ending search for time to write research (Clark & Sousa, 2018;Sword, 2017).How does an academic secure time to write?These same questions can be posed about the technologies to write with and spaces to write in.With academic life constantly speeding up, how could university academics secure or even identify those spaces and tools to help them write?The answer could be revealed by exploring the behaviours of academic researchers who are identified as successful writers.
Researchers who are successful producers of published written artefacts could be seen as obtaining more meaningful livelihoods as knowledge creators.These successful authors, through their achievements as writers, may have perfected behaviours that have allowed them to shift from merely participating in publishing academic research to producing sufficient written artefacts to realise notable livelihoods as researchers (Brew et al., 2017;Curry & Lillis, 2018).
One way to become a successful research writer is to learn from researchers who are successful (e.g.Reed, 2017;Sword, 2017).Wenger et al. (2002) suggest that novice community members be exposed to and mimic their more successful and senior peers' CONTACT Nicholas Baker Nicholas.baker1@gmail.comThe University of Otago, Higher Education Development Centre, Dunedin, New Zealand behaviours.Consequently, this study aims to explore the behaviours of these successful professors -as we refer to them throughout this study.
The suite of behaviours in question here is called 'enabling behaviours' -behaviours used intentionally to create environments that enable and optimise writing productivity.However, little is known about how successful research writers utilise these enabling behaviours to become productive agents of knowledge in academia.If identified, novice researchers could employ these behavioural insights as guides to enhance their own productivity and overcome potential constraints to becoming successful research writers.
In order to understand the enabling behaviours of successful professors, it would be useful to review what we know about these behaviours from the literature on research writing.

Related literature
Research writing requires time to happen.As many academics have experienced, time is constantly being negotiated or allocated and re-allocated between academic roles and one's personal life (Boice, 1990;Clark & Sousa, 2018;Sword, 2017).Debates continue to rage on how academics behave towards or treat their moments of 'when to write'.Different views have been offered to guide academics to be productive: they have to write daily or regularly (Boice, 1990;Sword, 2016Sword, , 2017;;Thomas, 2016), they should be accompanied by a sense of being energised to write or have a positive emotion (Silvia, 2015;Sword, 2017), and they should treat writing moments as either fixed, opportunistic or a blend of both (Clark & Sousa, 2018).
Other authors have suggested the research writers' relationship with technology is a behaviour (e.g.Sword, 2017).Technology functions as a tool to furnish academic writers with the means to write within their writing spaces, improves efficiency in writing behaviours, and creates meaningful 'private sanctuaries' that enable writing to occur (Ezer, 2016, p. 95).
Space is considered essential for the research writer to write (Dobele & Veer, 2019;Hilton, 2015;Waight, 2022).Such spaces can include the office, the spare room at home, or a table at the local café.A view of space in relation to writing is that mobility is required to enable academics to write in different locales.This emphasis on mobility emerged due to the on-the-go nature of dealing with multiple roles.The impact of such mobility led to academics writing in different environments instead of in one stable environment which appears to regularly hinder writing efforts (Henkel, 2010;Sword, 2017).Thus, research-centric writers are constantly forming new behavioural relationships with spaces to enable their research writing to occur.
While past research has identified behaviours towards time, technology, and space as important for writing productivity, little is known about how successful professors utilise these behaviours to be productive writers.Individuals who hold the formal job title of professors are generally considered role models, and their position is an aspiration for many research writers.As such, successful professors could provide useful insights as to how they utilise these behaviours to maximise productivity.
This paper identifies the behaviours of successful professors and then explores how these behaviours are applied to optimise productivity.

Methods
This qualitative study sought to collect data from 16 'successful professors' from a research-intensive university in New Zealand.In this study, 'professor' is used to refer to academics of the highest rank who are experts in their discipline.They provide academic leadership and are recognised as excellent teachers who also contribute significantly to local and international research environments.Then, we defined 'successful' as individuals who are not only internationally recognised for their level of excellence through their publications, but also graded 'A' by a New Zealand (NZ) national ranking system called the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) (The Tertiary Education Commission, 2019).According to PBRF criteria, an 'A' graded researcher is described as a producer of research outputs of world-class standard who receives significant international peer recognition.We acknowledge that the terminology used to identify the roles of academic staff varies in different countries and contexts.
After institutional ethics approval was obtained (Ethics approval No D19/014 from the University of Otago, New Zealand), data were collected through semi-structured, openended interviews, which ran for approximately two hours each.The interviews employed what-and how-centric questions, such as 'what role do you feel writing has played in your success [as a researcher]?' and 'can you describe to me how you write as a researcher?'.These questions allowed the successful professors to identify and describe how their behaviours and functions are formed.Data were analysed using Charmaz's (2014) thematic analysis approach.The transcribed interviews were first read by the primary author, who independently defined the descriptive codes of behaviours.The primary author clustered and interpreted the full data set and finally, key themes from the data were derived with guidance from the secondary authors.Codes and key themes, in relation to the behaviours, were discussed to reach consensus amongst the authors.
Before continuing, a point of clarification on 'guidance' is required.We refer to guidance from the secondary authors as mentoring and advising the primary author during the investigation, while acting as his PhD supervisors.During the publishing of this work, the same individuals employed the primary and secondary authorship roles and responsibilities respectively, as outlined in the Vancouver protocols (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 2022).

Findings and discussion
The findings from this study indicate that successful professors as writers displayed three types of behaviours: creating relationships with time, creating relationships with technology, and creating relationships with space.These three types of behaviours are labelled as enabling behaviours in this study.

Creating relationships with time
The first enabling behaviour of the successful professors was to create writing moments.Time, as in when to write, was a core consideration for all the professors, as they recognised the importance of time dedicated to writing that allowed research writing to happen.However, time was identified as limited, with multiple professional or personal roles and obligations in constant competition for it.
Despite an awareness of time as limited, several professors stated that writing could happen 'any time' (e.g.Professor 2) or occur daily as scheduled moments (e.g.Professor 11).However, just grasping these temporal moments was not enough to create desired writing moments; they also appeared to require an emotive-centric trigger.

Preferred writing moments
The successful professors' identification and adherence to writing moments were not solely based on 'I have an hour free, I can write' or a set schedule but instead emerged from emotive-centric triggers.The majority considered research writing to be 'creative', requiring a high level of energy, expressed as a 'bit of energy', 'in the mood', 'stimulating', or 'I am hungry' to write (e.g.Professor 5 and Professor 13).Others identified these writing moments as requiring mental focus, conveyed as 'my guard is down', 'chilled', 'comfortable' or an 'emptiness', instead of a headspace that was distracted or bombarded by issues or events of the day (e.g.Professor 11 and Professor 12), draining their attention from the task in front of them as the day progresses (e.g.Professor 16).This range of variations reflected that the professors were aware of their own 'preferred' moments to write research through their emotive prompts acting as triggers to notify them that this is a moment in which to write.
The emotive prompts for creating preferred writing moments appeared for the professors regularly during the day.For instance, many professors expressed mornings as a preferred time to write based on their positive emotive triggers.Alternatively, a small group of respondents identified the afternoons as a preferred time to write.On the other hand, many professors commented (including most who also wrote in the mornings) that evenings were a good time to write, as reflected in the comment 'I will steal a lot of time from outside of work hours to do these things [research writing tasks] because I find them personally stimulating and personally interesting' (Professor 10).Many professors went beyond weekdays to include the weekends as a time to write, while attempting to uphold some form of work-life balance.

Non-preferred writing moments
Many professors also identified an awareness of moments they preferred not to write, based again on an emotional component.These non-preferred writing moments were identified through emotional triggers linked to specific times.They indicated that being in a 'low space' or 'tiredness' affected their writing time choice (e.g.Professor 9).
These non-optimal times were either used by the professors for non-creative writing moments or for some form of rest away from any research writing act, identified by being 'emotionally drained' (Professor 13).Other professors identified the evenings as an emotional low time, preventing creative research writing: 'After 5 o'clock forget it . . .It's just not going to happen' (Professor 16).
However, several individuals (e.g.Professors 1 and 2) indicated that if deadlines had to be met or an emergency arose, they forced themselves to commit to a non-preferred time, compromising the above positive emotional conditions.Professor 2 warned us that if you force yourself to write, but the feeling to do so does not emerge, then it is best to stop, as the work you create could be unproductive and detrimental to your writing goals.
Combining these moments, a cycle emerges, representing what we have labelled the 'writing moments cycle'.Several successful professors indicated an awareness of this cyclical relationship as 'rhythmical', with non-preferred times being 'lower spaces' or 'low side' (e.g.Professor 9), and preferred times being identified with more intensely positive emotions or a high side (e.g.'a bit of energy' Professor 5).Identification of this cycle suggests that the successful professors are aware of a cyclical rhythm to their writing moments.Figure 1 is a representation of what a daily rhythmic cycle might look like, based on a compilation of several professors' descriptions.The figure depicts the emotional highs that create optimal writing moments and the emotional lows that create suboptimal writing moments.Interestingly, the cycle is not restricted solely to a daily rhythm, with several professors noting a weekly and even yearly cycle of writing 'highs' and 'lows' (e.g.Professors 2 and 14).As indicated by professors, however, their writing rhythms (e.g.daily, weekly, or yearly) are not always consistent and can fluctuate if there is an urgent deadline to meet or even unscheduled obligations (e.g.Professors 1, 2 and 5).
The finding presents a structured process that partly identifies the ideal and non-ideal indicators of when to write from the successful professors' perspectives, which, in turn, can complement literature exploring time as an enabling behaviour of research writers (i.e.Boice, 1990;Sword, 2017).The finding also describes the emotional enablers as a 'bit of energy', 'mental focus', 'clarity', 'calm', 'chilled', 'comfortable', 'emptiness', 'in the mood', and 'a hunger'.When considering the optimal writing moment, mornings, afternoons, evenings, late nights, or any time, Sword's own findings (2017) seem to echo those of successful professors in this study.By using the structure of a) identifying optimal writing moments via emotional triggers and b) identifying when they occur, we can extend the literature by showing a clear set of identifiers to elaborate and optimise academic writers' behaviour towards writing.
The relationship with time is an indication of an enabling behaviour where successful professors consider both optimal and suboptimal writing moments via emotional triggers to enhance productivity.

Creating relationships with technology
A second enabling behaviour identified was that of creating relationships with technology.The professors integrated the use of technology into their writing to enable writing to happen and to protect a state of flow in writing action.The state of flow implies creating ease and accessibility in the process.This flow emerged from the broad choices of electronic devices (e.g.desktops, laptops) or analogue writing tools (e.g.pen and paper) used to write.The professors considered a perceived bottleneck resulting from the constraint on writing caused by using the slower (in regards to output), clumsier, and messier pen or pencil (particularly in regards to correction), in contrast to the newer alternative, the computer.The bottleneck is a restriction on the flow of the writing behaviour caused by the technology being used (e.g.Professor 5).The preferred writing tool was the one perceived as promoting flow and ease of composition and reducing the occurrence of bottlenecks.
When deciding on a preferred technology, the professors considered several factors to optimise their writing experience.The first consideration was ensuring ease of access to information to create flow, which allows the writer to be as productive as possible.For instance, several professors commented on the role of a large desktop screen or multiple screens as options to create ease of access to the writing and materials being used.Having eye-level access to requirements saved the writer time (e.g.Professor 1) instead of being surrounded by piles of papers where the flow of writing is interrupted by the physical act of finding the material (e.g.Professor 12).
The second consideration is selecting a tool that enables writing to flow and have more depth.This was reflected in some professors' comments on a preference for a keyboard, highlighting the speed with which they could type, rather than write with a pen.Drafting or writing in pen was perceived as a hindrance to the speed at which they wanted to write, in comparison to pressing keys (e.g.Professor 1).Different writing software used by the professors (e.g.Professor 3, 5 and 10) also enabled flow.
However, it was not just different digital technologies that were preferred to create a faster flow state.Other individuals commented that traditional means of writing could be more effective than digital options in some situations (e.g.Professor 1 and 12).They pointed out that while typing, speed gets in the way of clearly developing the idea (thus, speed becomes a bottleneck).However, the pen (or other implements, e.g.whiteboards) can act as an alternative, forcing them to slow down and develop the idea as they write.
The professors' choice of technology also centred on seeking out technologies that provided a state of 'convenience' for research writing to happen in different places.The following example reflects a common issue noted by many of the professors (e.g.Professors 11, 13 and 14): These comments reflect that keeping the writing flowing through technology creates convenience to enable research writing in alternative spaces.However, the act of creating convenience involves compromising the preference for the desktop and its two screens with the ease of access to materials they provide.
The most significant observation drawn from the technological enabler is that the professors were constantly forming relationships with technologies to allow their writing to flow.These relationships either (a) create a more optimised and barrierfree writing experience or (b) enable the writing experience to occur in multiple locales and reduce potential space-based barriers to transforming locations into positive writing environments.However, it appears, these behavioural choices cannot happen at the same time.
The finding mirrors the findings of Sword (2017) regarding technology's role in an academic's writing.Sword describes that technology functions as a tool to furnish academic writers with writing spaces in which to perform effectively.However, these insightful initial descriptions from Sword lack sufficient elaboration on the possible processes individuals used to build their relationships with those tools.Such limited evidence or theorisation of the processes could undermine the understanding of how the tools were used to such effect.Further, it limits how others could replicate the effect of using technology while writing.However, the process described in this creating relationships with technology finding could provide insight into how those relationships were built.
It is important to delve further into the language of flow that emerged from the interpretations of the data that formed the finding.Flow is not a common descriptor in the academic writing and writing identity literature reviewed in this work, with Sword (2017) a notable exception.Nevertheless, this concept of a state of flow is not new to the academic community, and possible parallels can be drawn with flow state literature regarding human performance (Gold & Ciorciari, 2020;Jackman et al., 2019).
Flow state according to human performance scholars is a state of action where the individual is at their fullest in the moment (or optimal state) of action or behaviour, enabling that individual to reach a high output of performance and creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002).When considering the summary description of this finding, it could be argued that creating relationships with technology supports research writers' efforts to achieve a possible optimal state or 'flow state' through their writing practice.
Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to conduct an in-depth exploration of flow state, we draw attention to one of the nine characteristics used to comprehend and realise a flow state in performance: 'state of control' (For a concise summary of the nine characteristics, see Gold & Ciorciari, 2020, p. 3.).'state of control' is a characteristic where the individual in question has control over the devices being used in a manner that does not interfere with and/or in turn supports the actions being taken to achieve their objective.'state of control' aligns with the finding's expression of state of flow and refers to the individual having personalised control of the act on which they are focusing (Gold & Ciorciari, 2020;Jackman et al., 2019).This state of control is obtained by the successful research writer through their personalised choice and use of technology that, through their experiences, does not hinder but enables or even enhances the writing act.For example, different software on the computer allows them control over how to write in a manner that supports their productivity and creativity.
These parallels strengthen the claims made about this finding and its value as an enabling behaviour of research writers.The horizons of what constitutes successful writing behaviours can be broadened by considering other disciplinary interpretations used to describe states of optimal performance and processes of success.However, such efforts remain underdeveloped in current discussions.

Creating relationships with space
A third enabling behaviour identified is the relationship with space.All professors noted, to varying degrees, that writing at the office was not always possible despite it being their intended primary space for research writing.In general, the professors had to contend with a multiplicity of roles, such as teacher, administrator, researcher, advisor, writer, or head of department (HoD), usually occurring in or from the same office space.Competition between these roles could lead to the space being broken up, as each role affects the location's functionality for the other roles.Administrative roles were the most commonly expressed cause for compromising the office's functionality as a writing space (e.g.Professors 1, 4 and 9).Other roles vital to the professors' practice became intrusive and had a negative impact on their writing role.These roles forced professors to 'share the office' among the roles.As a result, the value of the office as a space for writing was fragmented, which, in extreme cases, saw the professors pushed out of the office during periods that were intended for research writing.
To resolve the above situation, many professors described how they wrote in different spaces outside the office, such as at 'home', in a 'café ',in 'hotels',in a 'friend's flat',or on 'airplanes' (e.g. Professors 1,4,11 and 16).This sense of travelling from locale to locale can be seen as a process of changing their relationship with these spaces to enable them to write.The successful writer's nomadic approach varied from individual to individual; however, all professors shared a similar reasoning process when changing how they connected to spaces.This connection was identified via four notable channels in the data -physical characteristics, emotive links, personal obligations, and opportunism.

A repurposed relationship based on physical characteristics
The first channel redefining the relationship with different spaces was to find a degree of isolation and to escape location-based interruptions at the office.Even though the primary function of such alternative spaces was not research writing, they met individual needs for, or perceptions of, a place to write.The professors altered their perception of the alternative space's function as one for writing and/or altered its physical properties to be conducive to writing (e.g.adding a TV as a screen as noted by Professor 13 or shifting objects around as noted by Professor 14).These alternative spaces [e.g. the home (Professor 2) or a café (Professor 14)] provided spaces with the required characteristics for the professors to be isolated from their own role-based interruptions while still being able to physically write.

A repurposed relationship based on an emotive link
Other professors provided a more emotion-based reason for using alternative spaces.They described a possible relationship centred on feelings of comfort, preference, or positivity in writing in the alternative location or its particular physical or people properties.Some professors identified this emotive link with respect to writing at home (Professor 11) or in cafés with people around (Professor 14), as they felt more at ease writing in such spaces.For example, in the quotation below, Professor 12 formed a personal connection with his dialysis chair, based on fond memories of writing in the chair while receiving his treatments.The chair now resides in his home and has become a preferred writing space: My favourite writing space at home is an aging La-Z-Boy in which almost all the operative springs are gone.And I cheerfully write with the television on.(Professor 12)

A repurposed relationship based on personal obligation
Others find spaces that prompt a sense of responsibility or commitment to write.They put themselves in locations where they are obliged to write and be productive; hence, they use the space in a manner that pressures them to commit.For example, personalised writing retreats at hotels or holiday homes (Professors 1 and 13) or purposefully writing at a colleague's house for several days (Professor 16) reflect financial, time, and relationshipcentric commitments or costs, resulting in an obligation to writing productivity.The impact of such repurposed relationships is clearly articulated by the following comment: Occasionally I would schedule mini retreats . . .intensively writing or analysing data and that was surprisingly productive.(Professor 1) In this example, factors of obligation and ethical responsibility emerge, as the professors created a prerequisite need to write, which inspired the idea of a personal retreat, and that in itself committed them to writing.

A repurposed relationship based on opportunism
Finally, others create writing spaces when there is a sense of limited, or even no choice.These individuals are 'opportunistic' in that they find themselves in situations where the location is not by choice (e.g. in spaces waiting to teach, on a plane, or in a waiting room etc.).They accept the space for what it is and take the opportunity to write, thus surrendering to what the space has to offer.For example: I'm on my laptop and I'm in a hotel room [and] that's actually got a lot of writing done.Like, if I go to a conference, because of my job here we don't have much opportunity anymore as a HoD to actually sit down and just write.(Professor 9) Several professors indicated that they wrote 'anywhere', or, as one stated, 'just where I was or happen to be' (Professor 3).These writers are also opportunistic and write in whatever circumstances they find themselves.
These four variations of behaviour and examples show a shared approach among the professors to adapting spaces to be used as research writing spaces.In addition, the data also suggest that these four variations could be combined or sequential; for instance, the physical approach could be a prerequisite for the other three approaches.Also, the data suggest these same relationship identification processes can be used to identify undesirable locales.For instance, Professors 1 and 5 refused to write at home unless an important deadline was approaching, as home is seen as a desirable locale of rest, not work.This decision not to write in such a space reflects for them a relationship with home, based on an obligation of personal care and rest.This condition lies in opposition to the nomadic approach of a repurposed relationship based on personal obligation for creating a space in which to write.
Considering the use of multiple locations in which to write, the professors could be viewed as 'nomadic writers'.These nomadic writers migrate from one location to another, looking for the best possible space at a particular moment that could meet their need to write, and then they occupy it.As a result, we see successful professors as writers who refuse to stay still if their primary writing space is compromised.Instead, they are willing to be nomadic and find spaces that allow them to be the most productive producers of written research works possible.
This finding highlights the processes successful professors use to identify and reform relationships with different locales to enable writing to occur.Although possibly unique to successful professors, the resulting description of how they build relationships goes beyond the initial descriptions provided by previous authors (e.g.Ezer, 2016;Silvia, 2015;Sword, 2017).For example, Ezer's study provided depictions of the spaces and corresponding actions of choosing a particular space in which to write.These choices were centred around building a 'dialectic relationship' with the space to shift its purpose to be a space that enables writing behaviours to function.Ezer also noted that the space in this dialectic relationship affected how authors write, potentially causing them to either alter their own actions or perceptions or alter the space itself.Academics being able to alter multiple spaces to suit their writing needs reflects the phrase 'movable feast' (Sword, 2017) -a view that academics are constantly shifting from one locale to another and can still write in those locales.Through our explanations of the successful professors' relationships with space, we now have the beginnings of a process to reveal how such 'movable feasts' occur.
Consequently, the key emphasis is the formation of a relationship with space that enables professors' writing behaviours to occur.The professors appear to have a stronger awareness of this process of relationship construction with space because of the nomadic nature of their roles, leading to re-evaluating spaces (e.g. the office as noted by Professors 9 and 4) and creating new spaces as alternative writing locales.
Understanding this process and determining its uniqueness revealed that in other disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, a similar approach in the form of a conceptual framework called 'sense of place' is utilised (i.e.Cross, 2001).From the perspective of sociology, the sense of place describes humans' means of connecting with spaces by forming either long-or short-term relationships with it.This, in turn, can shape a location's desired functionality (Cross, 2001;Nelson et al., 2020).Relationships are based on emotional, physical, and/or perceptual factors that ascribe meaning to a locale for a particular purpose, such as a behaviour or role.The resulting comparison with the sense-of-place vs space provides a clear description and validation of how creating relationships with spaces is an enabling behaviour.This process could advance current views regarding the ways in which academic writers build their relationships with spaces in which to write (i.e. Silva, 2007;Sword, 2017).

Conclusion
This exploratory study of successful professors has revealed new descriptions and clear processes regarding the creation of relationships with time, technology, and space to enable and optimise their writing experience.These new understandings add to the growing dialogue on writing enabling behaviour formation.This paper will therefore be relevant to academic developers and others in the higher education community involved in supporting staff or students' efforts to develop or optimise their research writing practices.
The findings also provide a potential resource for any research writer wanting to develop reflective approaches to optimise their enabling behaviours when writing.Such efforts could be formed by systematically comparing and evaluating their experiences and practices against the findings to optimise their own relationships with time, technology, and space.
The research presented here could also be integrated with existing works (e.g.Clark & Sousa, 2018;Dobele & Veer, 2019;Holzweiss, 2022;Mogey & Hartley, 2013;Sword, 2017) to inform the creation of useful resources.For instance, the emotional identifiers and the rhythmic cycle in the relationships with time finding could enhance Sword's (2017) timecentric descriptors and approaches for academics to find and cultivate their most optimal times for writing.Additionally, the insights from the relationships with technology finding could explain the beneficial and non-beneficial effects of different technologies to enable or optimise researcher writing (e.g.Sword, 2017) or even academic writing practices (e.g.Mogey & Hartey, 2012).Also, the insights from the relationships with space finding could, in combination with Sword's recommendations (2017), act as a framework or guide to support a wide range of research writers in developing optimal relationships with space.Overall, the potential resources emerging from these findings could guide research writers in optimising their practice and minimising potential interruptions when writing.
When looking to the future, the processes for building relationships with time, technology, and space represented here could also be expanded on.An additional direction for future research could be the exploration of the different enabling behaviour processes of non-desired and desired times, tools, or spaces and how to identify them.Future research could either explore each enabling behaviour separately or several enabling behaviours together.Exploring these enabling behaviours together may be advantageous, as, in this study, all three processes worked together to assist the professors in being successful research writers.Finally, other future studies could explore the possibility that successful professors' productivity is influenced by their privileged access to tools, time, and opportunities that other university researchers (e.g.junior academics) do not possess.
Akin to the adage 'learn from the past to plan for the future', aspiring research writers can look towards the successful professor as inspiration for their future development as writers.This study describes the enabling behaviour practices used by successful professors to become productive research writers.Enabling behaviours create a relationship with our environment, allowing writing to occur as productively as possible.By mimicking or modelling successful research writers' enabling behaviours, other research writers within the academic community can also optimise such environments.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Most of my writing's done on my laptop.Not by preference; I'd rather work here[office]  where I've got two big screens, and a really nice, big keyboard . . .But because I take blocks of time away from here, I end up writing on my laptop.(Professor14)