Doctoral writing: developing metacognitive awareness

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Emotion & writing, Writing motivation

By Susan Carter, with thanks to Peter Arthur, UBC

One of the most important things learned when writing a doctoral thesis is the kind of self-knowledge that enables self-management. That skill alone makes the doctoral experience worthwhile, even when the journey is arduous and frustrating. A recent seminar by Peter Arthur on undergraduate metacognitive skills development prompted me to write this post on how metacognitive awareness can be applied to doctoral writing.

Peter had a series of questions for undergraduate students to prompt them to see the metacognitive expectations of a set assignment or in examination preparation. It seemed to me that his line of enquiry, which included drawing on Carol Dweck’s (2008) growth versus fixed mindsets, could be adapted for the purposes of doctoral writing.

Lyn’s Favourite Things: Time Management Strategies

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time management, Writing motivation

In this post, Dr Lyn Lavery offers some excellent advice to doctoral writers for managing their time productively.

I’m a big fan of making the most of the time I have as it means I have more time to spend on the things I enjoy. Here are my three favourite strategies for doing just that.

Eat a Frog

If you’ve ever had the experience of sitting down to check your emails first thing in the morning, only to realise three hours later that the most productive time of your day has disappeared, then I highly recommend frog eating. The idea comes from Mark Twain – he suggested that if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you’ll know that’s the worst thing that will happen to you all day. (There’s a thought for when your doctoral writing is getting on top of you.)

The developing thesis proposal: questions to launch doctoral writing

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research questions, Writing motivation

By Susan Carter

A potential doctoral candidate choosing their topic might ask themselves: ‘”What are the subjects that interest me—that I want to make sense of?” “Who do I want to talk to about these subjects?” And “What can I bring to the conversation?”’ (Kempe, 2005: 2). These are three pertinent questions that Anne Sigismund Huff saw as initiating research direction. From there, though, it is rarely that simple.

Moving beyond ‘because I said so’ – motivation for thesis writing

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completion of doctorate, Disciplining the writer, Emotions and academic writing, Writing motivation

Dr Kay Guccione (@kayguccione) works at the University of Sheffield. Kay designs mentoring programmes for researchers and her work is centred on linking people together to talk about the things that matter to them.

By Kay Guccione

Writing a thesis of 80,000 to 100,000 words is something we expect of everyone in almost all forms of doctorate. In a PhD it’s impossible to avoid doing some writing — our writing is what we are assessed on and how we communicate our research in conventional forms. With ‘publish or perish’ resonating down every corridor, our attitude to writing is our gateway to the currency of research careers. We are emotionally preoccupied with the fear, excitement, dread, satisfaction, guilt and elation of writing (Wellington, 2010) — see #AcWri #AcWriMo #shouldbewriting #shutupandwrite…

But for some, writing in thesis form seems a futile endeavour at first glance.

New Year’s resolutions and doctoral writing: best wishes!

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writing habits, Writing motivation

By Claire Aitchison, Cally Guerin and Susan Carter

Turning from one year to the next brings out self-auditing tendencies, the New Year resolutions. We have written on this before: drawing on psychology to build self-control so that those resolutions are actualized (2016) ; suggesting a series of practical approaches that might help doctoral writers get more pleasure and productivity (2015) ; and considering ‘habits of mind, body, time, place and pace’ with a range of options used by famous authors (2014) . That was useful advice, and the posts are still there for any wanting new year re-energisation. This year, though, we thought we would each describe our own aspirations for 2017.

Claire

This year Susan has set us on a provocation to declare our New Year’s writing resolutions. It’s a delightful (although slightly scary) suggestion to make something public that is generally private.  As usual, during the Christmas break I took down my annual writing schedule from above my desk, and before throwing it out, reviewed what I had achieved. It’s a satisfying task to reflect on what has come in as anticipated and to ponder further on what was not achieved. The most exciting thing for me is the little buzz that I get from the writing that happened serendipitously, not even imagined at the beginning of the year.

Over the years I have become better at planning my writing for the year ahead. I’ve also learned that the most crucial variable is how much control I have in my life.  There have been some years when new demands have seriously limited my ability to progress my writing goals. As a consultant over the last few years I have had more control over my workload and thus have had greater success.

I often co-author with colleagues with whom I have established productive working relationships.  Some years January commences with a number of commitments already in train and other times the horizon is pretty clear. Conferences and colleagues are always built into my planning – for me, both are powerful motivators.

But, what of my plans for 2017?  This year my job has changed and I am beginning to see how I can bring the learning from that into my work around doctoral writing. I enjoy new challenges and particularly enjoy working with colleagues who push my thinking. I always learn so much from working with others, whether it’s a simple trick with Word, or a new perspective; I find it invigorating. In addition I find stimulation from my work – many workshops have ended up being posts and then extended further into papers.

I also like to extend myself with a new theory  or a topic.  For example, I may be intrigued with a thought that returns and shapes up over months (or years!). Sometimes the theory comes first and sometimes it is the problem or issue that surfaces and troubles my thinking. The beginning of a year is a good time to do a stock-take to see if I can nail this down into something publishable.

So, what does this add up to? I’m devising my own year as a foray into new areas of interest.I will also continue to write with old friends and colleagues. Reflecting on my process for this post lets me see what might be of use to doctoral students; namely:

• Make a schedule: to keep you anchored when things are madly busy and for a self-auditing.
• Use the aspects of writing you know inspire you as motivation—acknowledge them and factor them in.
• Accept that some writing obstacles are outside of your control.
• Identify and acknowledge the learning you do as a writer.

 

 

Cally

Last year I tried to finish off a few writing projects that had been hanging around for some time. I wanted to get them off my desk to clear space for new thinking in 2017. So now I’m allowing myself to start work on some new projects.

As a first step, I’m preparing a couple of ethics applications. I hear from others about their frustrations at being forced to fill in the forms, and what they experience as delays when they have to amend applications to meet the requirements of their ethics committee. But in my field I don’t have the complications of human drug trials and medical interventions, working with children, with indigenous communities, nor negotiating the sensitivities of vulnerable groups. My work is regarded as ‘low risk’ in that I just want to talk to people about topics that are not particularly contentious or disturbing. This means that it’s usually fairly straight forward and at my university these applications can be approved by the core committee – I don’t need to meet particular deadlines posed by the less frequent meetings of the full committee. On the whole, I find ethics applications provide a very useful process that makes me think carefully about method and project design, why I want to do what I do, and how it can be useful to others. Obviously, I want my research to be ethical, and paying proper attention to this at the very beginning is appropriate and leads to better outcomes – in my experience, at least.

I’ve also been thinking about more creative, alternative research methods, and want to take the opportunity with new projects to try and push this a little further. One book that has inspired me is Helen Kara’s (2015) Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide (Bristol: Policy Press). She talks about shadowing, mapping, and transformative data gathering, all of which I find interesting. Others are doing fascinating work using big data and social media in their education research. I certainly don’t feel very confident about how to do anything like this, so it’s bound to be a steep learning curve! It feels promising to start the New Year with some new writing challenges – I’m keen to get on with it.

Susan

I’ve been in the habit with my academic writing of simply listing what I want to complete in the new year. There is something confirming about reviewing the year that has gone and looking forward to the one ahead. Primary questions are

• When I reach the end of this new year, what writing will I be most satisfied to have completed?
• What must I do?
• What really interests me?
• How theoretical am I willing to be? Am I willing to go further into theory this year?

Doctoral students usually find ‘what must I do’ the most important of these, and rightly so, but it is worth taking the annual cusp opportunity to face up to other relevant questions about direction.

It’s quite a personal consideration because it includes the persona in style and voice as well as the topic focus. I sit with an overview in mind and list goals for the year, usually on paper. I think about the pattern of the year, that is, when I might want to take a break; when teaching might be heavy; when there are deadlines that I already know I will need to meet. As the year feeds through, I follow this up with monthly goal-listing and weekly goal-listing. Somehow sitting and writing this down usually anchors my writing flow throughout the year. The trick is to take your own deadlines seriously.

This year, though, I am thinking differently. I want to focus on increasing the pleasure that I find in academic writing. So I intend to consciously treat both my writing and my academic work as a game. I am convinced by Jane McGonigal (2010): when we’re in game worlds I believe that many of us become the best version of ourselves, the most likely to help at a moment’s notice, the most likely to stick with a problem as long as it takes, to get up after failure and try again. And in real life, when we face failure, when we confront obstacles, we often don’t feel that way. We feel overcome, we feel overwhelmed, we feel anxious, maybe depressed, frustrated or cynical. We never have those feelings when we’re playing games; they just don’t exist in games.

I want to put behind me the irritation that I feel when writing doesn’t go well, or the dread I feel towards the drudgery of revision for consistency. I want to find pleasure in what I do, and courage to change my own patterns if I feel that they trap me in the same rut. For me this year, my ambitions are less with productivity and more with attitude.

McGonigal, J. (2010). Gaming can make a better world. TED, Feb, 2010. Available at http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world/transcript?language=en#t-161000

Peer review of writing: the mechanics of how

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Accurate word choice, feedback on writing, structuring argument, talking about writing, writing fun, Writing motivation, writing retreat

By Susan Carter

Doctoral peer review of writing seems like wise practice to me. It widens the source of feedback: if students have any dissatisfaction with the way their supervisors review their writing, quite simply, they can supplement that elsewhere. The groups I run are generic, with people bringing writing from any discipline. Groups can be really productive within departments or faculties, or can be, like mine, centrally situated.

Setting up a group recently where there was some initial uncertainty about how to give helpful feedback to colleagues, I set out some criteria. Since no one could think of more to add, we set out with this as guidance:

Watch out for emotions. You will get the most from the session if you are open to critical feedback, but try to gauge how much advice works best for you as an individual. Then as a reviewer take care according to the sensitivity climate. Humans have a tendency to be critical rather than praising: we are trained as researchers to do this. Remember that in this case reviewers must talk about what works well as well as giving constructive feedback for improvement: begin with what works well and why before moving into what could be improved. Ending on a reaffirmation is often recommended too.

Being concrete and specific about what has worked well is important: group talk about exactly what we like gives pointers to improving writing. It has benefits beyond the emotional boost for the writer.

Writers can ask for specific areas to be given thought:

• Is the structure ok?
• Are you convinced by the X section?
• Is the Y section clear?
• Do I need to explain more about Z?
• Is this just too simplistic?
• Is this too obscure and hard to read?
• Do I sound authoritative in my use of theory?
• Could you watch for grammar or punctuation problems?
• Please suggest better words for any of my phrases.

As a reader follow the writer’s direction. You could also look for other stylistic qualities.

• Are there any times when the tone slips, for example, when language becomes too informal, or too stilted, or too obscure, or too naive?
• Are there any disjunctive colloquialisms? Any dead clichés? Or any words that you suspect may be problematic (e.g., ‘naturally’ if you are in a constructivist framework where nothing is assumed to be natural)?
• Is the tension right? Could the prose be tightened: is it too loose with many sentences yielding little of real value? Or is it too tight and dense to be understandable?
• Is the level of definition and explanation right? Are there any points when you need more explanation? Or are there places where there is too much spelt out so that this detracts from the flow of ideas?
• Are there repeats at word level or in sentence structure that would be better avoided?
• Are there any sentences that are too long and complex? If so, suggest a way of splitting giant mutant sentences into more than one.
• Are there times when emphasis seems inaccurate?
• Could you add any suggestions at times when ideas seem promising but not fully developed?

In peer review practice, I suggest that while staying aware of the emotional dimension reviewers should offer any suggestions that they believe would be helpful. Whenever a sentence is hard to follow, they should indicate this, and offer a way of clarifying it. It is so helpful when reviewers suggest how to restructure more logically, or find a more precise word, or ask questions that drive the author to see what is missing. The author has the option of rejecting suggestions, but will get something of value: a truthful view of their own work through another reader’s eyes.

That was where my criteria ended. As the group met for review over several sessions, we learned more about the mechanics of peer review.

This semester, several participants commented that it is really helpful getting feedback from someone who is not in their discipline.

A light came on for me when a reviewer said ‘I don’t know how to review this; the topic is so far out of my understanding,’ the biophysicist author helpfully suggested, ‘if you replace this big term with A and this one with B and this one with C, would it make sense to you?’ She’d articulated what I have found for years: if you ignore the content, and follow reading for logical progression, structure and grammar, you can give a great deal of useful feedback to writers without actually understanding the content fully.

In many ways this sort of feedback from someone who doesn’t understand is as important as feedback from insiders who do: the outsider reader is then reading the mechanics of language without being distracted by engagement with the content. Clarity is likely to result from a diligent unknowing reader. Another participant noticed that she really liked what she called experiential comment: times when someone said ‘at this point, I wondered why…’ or ‘here I am feeling that…’ and gave a real sense of the reader and their needs as they move through the writing.

The impetus generated by reviewing writing together is huge. One of the huge benefits of peer review is that it literalises the reader, someone who can slip out of focus if you are writing alone from a writerly perspective. In a writing group, the reader gives formative rather than summative feedback. It’s friendly. There’s sometimes laughter. Yet a lot is achieved too.

Several people in the group had significant breakthroughs with how to structure their work by talking through the difficulty they were having with sympathetic listeners hoping to help. In that group now, some of our time allows for problem talk and feedback. I suspect that in each case it wasn’t so much the feedback that caused the threshold crossing moment, but the act of explaining what was hard led the writer to solve their own problem.