Tags
Emotion & writing, Staying realistic with writing, Writing as social identity; the reader as significant other
By Susan Carter
Several triggers prompt this post. One is my own data from a set of questionnaires seeking supervisor experience [n226]: frustration, anger, despair and resentment came through significantly. So did supervisors’ perception of how hard it is to give constructive feedback when doctoral students respond with alarmingly negative emotion. The causes of student emotion were also anatomised. This confirms findings with data from 36 doctoral students and 29 supervisors (Aitchison, Catterall, Ross, & Burgin, 2012).
The second was a conversation with a doctoral student colleague. Usually our talk is cheerful and agreeable. But when it came to her doctorate (she’s at the end of her third year) and her inability to write, we stopped the conversation, both cautious about a sense of rising emotion and difference of perspective.
She described how it is simply not her style to crank out writing—she wants to be innovative and do something special, but that causes indecision and she is not progressing. I was firm that she had to find a way to just get on and do it. She looked hot and bothered. I was too—why couldn’t my intelligent colleague see she needed to apply the lovely grounded logic she usually showed in her work? She sounded increasingly ditzy; I sounded increasingly authoritarian. Neither of us wanted to be like that, so we changed the subject.
The third prompt was a different conversation about teaching, and the way that to some extent a teacher’s expertise limits their teaching skill if they don’t take heed of their students’ perspective. Often we teachers need to consciously remember to define terms or acronyms that are household words in our own minds, or explain connections. Threshold concept theory pins down the fact that each discipline has some hard concepts that are obstacles to learner progression—teachers do well to carefully explain these once they recognise what the learner problem is likely to be. I think this principle applies to doctoral emotion, where supervisors have difficulty remembering the emotions of being a doctoral writer.
As an academic now of some years standing, I don’t get emotional about writing. I know I need to do it; it’s part of my job. I like doing it more than much of the work I do each week, but even when writing is not a pleasure, it is still a job that I am responsible for completing. And I expect to be hammered by reviewers, including kindly peers. I see writing feedback as a gift (Guerin, 2014) even though, like others, I mutter abuse when reviewers seem to want to colonise my articles with their own voice or their own approach.
The gift of rigorous feedback takes some getting used to. Gifts like chocolates cause pleasure, but are not that good for you, nor, as a gift, do they show real engagement with who you uniquely are. When the gift of feedback includes a real pounding, it is like deep tissue massage and acupuncture: it hurts, but usually it helps and feels so much better later. So I am aware of harbouring unkind thoughts when doctoral students appear to be drama queens about how impossible it is to write. Although I am outwardly patient, I know inside that all I want to do is find a means of getting them writing again. I want them to learn to handle emotion, control it and move to where they see it as just part of the weird career choice they have made: to become proficient in academic literacy.
Supervisors are usually more aware than their doctoral students of the need to take a practical, workerly stance to writing. We forget that the construction of identity through voice can be deeply troublesome. As a friendly colleague, I was able to simply back out of an emotionally charged conversation—as a supervisor, I cannot. As a supervisor, I express empathy so as not to seem monstrous, but I’m always looking for the opening to move the student back into productivity as soon as possible, with ‘why don’t you try….’ Probably there is always an emotional disconnect between how the student and the supervisor feel whenever student writing stalls.
Do other academics have a way of working with student emotion itself? If supervisors talk overtly about the emotional stress of self-creation through writing, would that help to move the student through that stress, or provide justification for continued non-productivity? Should doctoral students think about supervisor emotions, or does that just heighten the power inequity? Any suggestions? Comments or other posts on this topic would be welcome.
Works Cited
Aitchison, Claire, Catterall, J, Ross, P. I., & Burgin, S. (2012). ‘Tough love and tears’: learning doctoral writing in the sciences. Higher Education Research & Development, 31(4).
Guerin, Cally. (2014). The gift of writing groups: Critique, community and confidence. In C. Aitchison & C. Guerin (Eds.), Writing Groups for Doctoral Students and Beyond (pp. 128-141). Oxon and New York: Routledge.
DoctoralWriting SIG 
Dear Susan
What a great article and perfect timing for me, thank you, much appreciated.
Regards
Terry
Thanks for this important point about emotions and writing. Interestingly it came up as a conversation yesterday in a Shut Up and Write session. The strategy that emerged was the value of guided meditation to bring a mindfulness, sense of clam and stress relief prior to writing and during writing as needed. Let me recount snippets of the conversation.
One 3rd year student who is into over-time is struggling with her writing and was keen to tell us about what she has discovered. She explained to us about the enervating and counterproductive emotions she had been experiencing related to her research writing. She found it physically debilitating too. As an individual with extensive industrial and work experience and a friend doing a creative writing Masters who loves writing, she decided to problem solve and change things.
She then told us about an APP, named HEADSPACE (costs AUS$100), and how it has helped her to just listen and calm down. In discussion, another student, who is also a yoga instructor, discussed the importance of guided mediation, which is what Headspace is. So we listened for a while and then felt calmed. The yoga teacher told us a little more about using a mantra to help relax and she then took 5 minutes to work with us to meditate some more. After that we blissfully just went off to write! Wonderful!!
I have been using guided meditation in my doctoral writing workshops for about 10 years. Initially inspired by Prof. Margaret Somerville (UNE), I use it as a pre-writing activity. Students often respond that this activity really helped them. They will then just get immersed in ‘free writing’ (Peter Elbow) for at least 15 minutes if not longer. At first I thought it was very risky, but it works so well!
The second strategy that I think is really important is to remember to say: ‘You write well’ and ‘This section was a joy to read’. Such comments go a long way and are not forgotten. Then we need to continue to hone the skills at providing ‘constructive feedback’ which by definition is helpful and not hurtful.
Hopefully, this reply comes through this time. My second attempt to post.
Thanks for this Monica. It is really worth knowing of alternative approaches to overcoming negative emotions round writing. And could not agree more that positive comments matter. I think they matter though not only because of the emotion boost, but quite rationally because they show the student what they are already doing well–they teach which rhetorical strategies are strong for future work.
The Meditation Oasis site has some wonderful, and free, guided meditations. I use the “mini break for work and study”, and the one for creativity, a lot. http://www.meditationoasis.com/podcast
This sounds in line with Monica Behrend’s approach. And different approaches work well with different people. All good.
I wonder if there’s something about the experience of doctoral writing that almost requires more emotions than that of established-academic writing. You touch on this when you say:
“Supervisors are usually more aware than their doctoral students of the need to take a practical, workerly stance to writing. We forget that the construction of identity through voice can be deeply troublesome.”
Is there a risk that doctoral students adopting a practical, workerly stance too soon could skip over some important construction of identity work? Is there actually a productive tension between the two objectives that doctoral students need to inhabit?
I suspect that being overly focused on output could prevent some students from really engaging with the material and developing their unique contribution. This would be less important for established academics because they can rely more on their already-constructed intellectual identities to ground their analysis.
Yes, I am sure you are onto something here. I’ve sometimes wondered whether we would love our children as much if they were not so hard to give birth to, whether that pain and anxiety were essential to the bonding and valuing process, and maybe it is the same with out research writing. It is just finding that happy middle point where the challenges give edge without stopping the writing….
As a new supervisor working with my first doctoral student, this post is helpful in prompting me to think about how I talk to my student about her writing. I too take the workerly approach, although I frequently got stuck in indecision and self-doubt in my own doctorate, and still do in my article writing now. However, I think I also have a ‘get writing again and it’ll work itself out’ faith in the process of thinking through and writing a piece of work, perhaps because I have the experience of having tried that faith and found it supported me, or held. Younger students/writers may not have that faith, because it has not yet been tried and found to actually support them through a difficult writing patch.
Perhaps, as supervisors, we can create smaller writing tasks within the bigger ones that require students to just keep muddling through, trying to have faith that the thinking and writing will work themselves out if they do keep moving in a productive direction. Once they have tried this and created writing that works or that pushes them on, we can debrief to raise their (and our) consciousness about what did work, and what did not, and how the process felt that can then become a bigger part of the writing toolkit, both practical and emotional.
I really like that advice of breaking writing tasks into small manageable pieces so that it becomes less daunting. And yes, the more we find success with supporting students who are stuck, the better our confidence as supervisors increases, and that has to be beneficial too, I think. A lot of this is about levels of confidence.
I think, as a PhD candidate I went into the programme with my eyes open but that isn’t always the case. I researched doing research and the opinions of those who had been through the process gave me the info I needed to make the final decision to step up and start my candidature.
What worked for me was experimenting with two things:
1. Committing to a shut up and write buddy to meet and write for 2 hours weekly
2. Using the pomodoro technique (25 minutes focused writing, 5 minutes break) to engage in writing my thesis every day – 4 pomodoros 6 days a week.
I tried these for a number of weeks and saw the benefit in my writing not just for me but for my shut up and write buddy…
I think suggesting these things to a doctoral student struggling to produce may help. Offering it up as an experiment and get the individual to commit to doing these two things for two months and journal about it may just offer them the evidence they need to write like it’s a “job”.
The biggest problem in my mind is researchers are questioners and don’t like to be “told” how do do things they like to work it out on their own based on their own investigation…so offering up books, blogs, real first hand experience from someone they trust may help to keep the emotion out of it.
Although many find it hard to find their “voice” I think the only way to do that is to read, read a lot and write, write a lot – consistently in order for it to emerge. This worked for me and for many many writers. Waiting for lightning to strike and give you the aha moment in order to offer the discipline your enlightened thoughts is never going to happen.
Happy writing.
Thanks for these suggestions–I do like the idea of the pomodoro as something maybe supervisors could do with their students, and finding buddies to give emotional support is a great idea–it covers lots of issues, like the loneliness of working on writing.
I advise my students to find an isolated place and immerse in writing. A detailed plan can help stay focused. Just follow it step by step without worrying about the results. If you have any concerns about something, discuss them with your supervisor. And my last piece of advice: Hillary Clinton says, “Take criticism seriously, not personally.”
Reblogged this on Library Competencies.
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Thank you for your insight. I’m a PhD student and I’m at the end of my 2. year. I am at the beginning of my writing phase. Whenever I turn my computer on, my heart is racing and I imagine how difficult it will be to start writing. I should be just focusing on one thing and progress slowly but I think of the upcoming chapter 3 and how my knowledge will be insufficient for that part, etc. so I can’t even focus on what I already know and what I can articulate. I know I have to be calm and be in a non-emotional state to begin writing, but I’m literally dizzy each time I tend to write a little (the core reason for this anxiety is: I feel that I’m too late, and meanwhile it is really getting late). Do you have any recommendations on how to deal with such anxiety and be proactive? My supervisor is too busy to discuss these details and doesn’t care about my emotional wavelength, she just wants to see a draft at the end of every six months. So I turn to friends and other professors who still have the compassion.
Do you have any recommendations on how to deal with such anxiety and be proactive? I know there’s no easy way out of this but I would appreciate any suggestion. Thanks a lot.
You could see whether your institution has a counsellor who might be able to give good advice about controlling anxiety. It may be there’s a medical solution to a racing heart when you settle to write. And you could contextualise your need to overcome writing anxiety like this: the self-management that you learn as you do a doctorate strengthens you for other challenges in your life. So it is worth taking a metacognitive overview. Ask yourself why you are so emotional, and then trial ways of controlling that. The best I know of is reminding myself that this is simply a chore that human beings do and I am a human being, so I ought to be able to do it, bit by bit. Begin by writing what you do already know, and get every paragraph or sub-section written that you can. Then begin filling out the gaps in your knowledge and writing as you do so. Stay managerial–watch yourself working methodically. Be proud of all the progress you make overcoming emotional blockages. Be proud of your future self, who has learned to manage writing and anything else you need to do and find hard.