Via Heather I got to this piece by The Thesis Whisperer, who has just switched from Microsoft Word to Scrivener, about word processors and their influence on our writing.

This got me thinking (again) about the connections between research thinking, the actions required in research writing and how the computer shapes both – mostly invisibly. The Philosopher Michel Foucault claimed (and please forgive the drastic simplification those of you who are steeped in the subtleties of Foucault) the way we think and act is always shaped by the action of other people and things. These other actors have the most influence on us when we think they are not acting. The bird who sits in the cage even when the door is open has failed to notice the cage anymore; the bird accepts its imprisonment not as an action of a cage, or an owner, but as a simple fact of existence.

So it is with Microsoft Word I am sorry to say. Using Scivener has made me realise why I find writing research papers so damn frustrating. Put simply, over the years Microsoft Word has ‘domesticated’ me. I think and do things the way it wants me to and it is cramping my style.