Back it up!

This post is from Dr Ali Daws and originally appeared on his most excellent blog, Writing on Writing. Ali is quite extraordinary, not the least for the fact that he is the only person I know to go and do a Masters degree AFTER he got his PhD ( just for interest – like you do).

This post is reposted from his blog by his permission because I thought the topic of backing up was both important and interesting (well, Ali makes it interesting). Enjoy. 

I will always remember one scene in Wonder Boys, even though the rest of the plot has become hazy for me over the years. In this scene, a tortured writer (played by Michael Douglas) watches as the hand-typed pages of his manuscript blow away. All twelve thousand of them. The thought is enough to send chills down my spine.

Just a plot device, I hear you say. It wouldn’t happen in the age of computers. Oh really?

What’s your backup plan?

Some of you may be thinking to yourselves, “but Word saves automatically, doesn’t it?” Others, “what’s a backup plan?” But there are some of you who know exactly what I’m talking about. The ones who’ve lost data.

I was busy in the lab one day writing my Honours thesis when the fire alarm went off. I assumed it was a drill. I kept on writing. That is, until the fire warden found me. He said the lab next door was on fire and told me to get the hell outside with everybody else. I stared at him, then at the ageing Apple Macintosh computer with all of my precious words painstakingly hammered into place with two fingers. (This was before I could touch-type.) Then I looked at the jars of extremely flammable fixative and solvents and God-only-knows-what-else lining the shelves. (This was also before occupational health and safety was given much credence.)

I can tell you one thing—Word’s auto-save feature didn’t give me much comfort on that day. I fought off the fire warden long enough to unplug the computer from the wall and disentangle it from various peripherals. Then I carried the damned thing downstairs in my arms.

That was when I started backing up my work religiously.

I developed an intricate system when I was working on my PhD thesis. It involved saving each chapter on its own floppy disk at the end of the day. I actually made two copies, and took one set of floppies home in a box so that when the lab inevitably exploded I wouldn’t lose everything. Some of you are no doubt smiling at the memory of little boxes of floppies we all used to carry around. For the rest of you, floppy disks are what we had before we burned things to CD or DVD or USB drives. You know that icon you hit to save your work? The square one?

That’s a floppy disk.

You’re welcome.

Today my backup schedule is a little different. For one thing, disk space is ridiculously cheap. Backing up no longer means saving each chapter to a different disk. But the biggest difference comes from the ingenious backup features built into Scrivener. Every time I close a project, Scrivener zips the whole thing up and saves it in a designated place. The Preferences pane gives a range of options for this kind of regular backup, including how many backups to keep (in my case, the ten most recent) and where to save the backups.

Scrivener also supports a version of off-site backups, which means that if my laptop suffers a calamity—possibly involving coffee, given my writing habits—I have a zipped copy of my work to restore onto whatever replaces my trusty MacBook Air. Once a day I go to the File menu and choose Back Up > Back Up To. This menu option lets me choose an external drive as the target for my backup instead of the folder on my laptop used by the automatic backups. I have a shared network drive at home. (editor’s note: if you want to read more about the word processing program scrivener, visit this earlier post)

You can also use something like Dropbox that hosts your files in the cloud somewhere. (Just be careful to read the terms and conditions of online file storage services—some include the right to copy and even sell your documents.) The advantage of these services is that you can access your files from anywhere in the world.

My backup strategy has changed over the years. When I adopted Scrivener for all of my writing it took a giant leap forward. If this post has made you think twice about the way you backup your own work, then it was worth the time it has taken me to write. Save yourself the trauma of losing everything. Backup your work.

Have you ever lost a bunch of data or writing in a digital catastrophe – or had a near miss? How do you manage version control between all your files? We’d love to hear some of your data management strategies!

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Researching then and now

Sometimes I just sits and thinks, and sometimes …

This post is by our regular library correspondent, Dr Karen McAulay. In this post Karen asks: where and when do you do your best thinking? Are libraries the answer?

Recently I read a blog post by Richard Watson, in which he reported that he had once asked a thousand people when and where they did their best thinking.  And guess what?  Quiet, distraction free places won, hands down.

I must admit that my favourite was, “37,000 feet and half way into a gin and tonic”, but let’s face it, that precise combination of circumstances happens infrequently for most of us!   Similarly, although I find that a single glass of white wine beside the computer at 1.30 am is actually very conducive to the writing of dissertation chapters, I do agree that it’s not a good idea to make a habit of such nocturnal activity.

But about halfway through his blogpost, Richard got onto the subject of libraries.  He mentioned the plight of some public libraries who seem to be struggling with a feeling that they’re irrelevant to a large percentage of the population.  I sat up and paid attention when he stated, quite categorically, that in his opinion libraries should stop trying to be Starbucks and instead cultivate the quiet stillness that is so hard to find elsewhere: “We need to preserve silent spaces”, he said.  And he meant not just in libraries – they were just one example.

Now, it would be easy for me to leap onto my soapbox here.  I am, after all, a librarian.  I personally love deeply quiet research libraries.  My favourite place in the whole of Glasgow is the Special Collections at the top of Glasgow University Library.  What could be nicer than being twelve floors up, with fabulous views over the city and beyond, and – inevitably – an absorbing historic text on the desk in front of me?  If it’s sunny, the views are especially fabulous.  If it’s a howling gale or even a tumultuous storm, it’s still a lovely comfortable haven from which to observe it behind glass! It’s all the nicer knowing that mobile phones aren’t likely to ring, voices will be subdued, and everyone else will be working with the same level of concentration as my own.  Is it any wonder I like studying there?

Now, my own library – well, the one where I’m a subject librarian – has a very different atmosphere.  I work in a conservatoire.  I wouldn’t say it was like Fame Academy, but our students are very sociable, like working together, and interact with each other almost constantly.  Even our research is ‘practice-based’, which means there are lots of composers and performers (although the composers are likely to be at home or in a music studio.)

The only time you get deep stillness in our library is when there’s hardly anyone there…  And for that reason, we have a ‘Silent Study Zone’ in a glazed room at the far end of the library, so that the hermits can get peace while the extroverts are busy interacting.  It’s still not like Starbucks, though.  We don’t mind covered drinks being brought in, but mugs of coffee aren’t welcome and there certainly aren’t any cookies!

If you’re a research student or lecturer reading this, you may already be shuddering at the thought of such a buzzing atmosphere.  But rest assured, we do pounce if groups of students are getting particularly over-excited; singers attempting to sing-along-a-CD are shushed; and – most importantly – regular user surveys confirm that the vast majority of our readers like the library just the way it is!

Recent postings on The Thesis Whisperer have reflected upon places where we like to work.  And the ‘Shut Up and Write’ movement is proof enough that not everyone needs total silence in which to work.  Sometimes a gentle background noise is quite soothing, so long as it’s not intrusive – and here’s the crunch – so long as we aren’t required to interact with it.  If you can sit and write with a few friends, comfortable in the knowledge that they’re not going to interrupt you with chatter, but equally that you expect everyone to be writing rather than checking texts and Twitter, then you’re well set-up to get some meaningful work done.

So actually, I don’t think this ‘where do you do your best thinking?’ question has any single best answer.  Rather, I think you need that indefinable combination of relative peace and quiet, an absence of other distractions, and a bit of self-discipline. Where do you get your best ideas? Is a quiet library your idea of heaven – or not? Now, who’s going to suggest some really imaginative, maybe unusual places for getting those creative juices flowing?

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5 ways to soothe an anxious PhD student

As one of the more visible of members of RMIT staff, I often have conversations with students about how they are traveling. Oftentimes the topics are academic or administrative, but sometimes it strays over the edge into personal life. This is inevitable as the PhD process involves the whole person – and their significant others of course.

A few weeks ago I had an email conversation with Krystle, a student who is in the final stage of her degree study at RMIT. Krystle is struggling with a common relationship difficulty during PhD study, as she explained to me:

“I have been going through a bit of a rough time over the last couple weeks adjusting to the looming thesis deadline and the stress/anxiety/nervousness that it has induced. I am doing all of the ‘right things’ such as seeing someone at RMIT counselling service, eating well, getting exercise, rattling off positive affirmations, etc.
However I can see that when I start to break down my relationship tends to bear the bulk of my neurosis. One of issues I can see coming up time and time again is that, when I begin feeling overwhelmed, my natural reaction is to call my partner for comfort. But as he is not a PhD student (which I believe most students partners are not) he always seems to say the wrong thing… I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to thesis issues we just seem to not speak the same language. I can’t describe what I am going through, and he doesn’t understand. I am very lucky that I have a great support network of other students, or else I am not sure how I would get through my craziness sometimes!

 

Krystle later sent me some examples of repartee between Mr Krystle and herself. These little snippets of domestic conversation made me laugh because I think Mr Thesis Whisperer and I had a few similar ones while I was studying:

 

Krystle: “I got the extension I applied for”

Mr Krystle: “How long”

Krystle: “6 months”

Mr Krystle: “So how long do you have to submit?”

Krystle: “1 year”

Mr Krystle: “Oh my god, I soooo would hate to be you right now!”

Krystle: “I have got so much work to do, its really freaking me out”

Mr Krystle: “Do you need me to say the cereal comment again”

Krystle: “Nooooo, not the bloody cereal comment…this doesn’t help you know!”

Mr Krystle: “Krystle, its time for you to put some cement in your cereal tomorrow morning and harden up!” (Definitely his favourite)

Krystle: “You are so annoying”

(While relaxing over a nice meal and glass of wine)

Mr Krystle: “Shouldn’t you be studying right now? How are you ever going to finish your PhD if you keep boozing up”

Krystle: “Arrrrrrrggggggghhhhhh!”

Mr Krystle: “Is a PhD going to help you get a job?”

Krystle: “Probably not”

Mr Krystle: “More money?”

Krystle: “Nope”

Mr Krystle: “Why are you doing this again?”

 

While Krystle appreciates Mr Krystle has a dry sense of humour and doesn’t really mean to sound unsupportive, she points out that comments like “You just need to work harder”, “Put more hours in”, or “Just get over it” can easily lead to relationship friction. While such comments are technically true and realistic, they don’t really help you through a panic attack.

 

Krystle asked if I could write a list of appropriate, soothing and helpful responses for Mr Krystle which he could stick on the fridge and use whenever she freaked out.  Krystle reckoned such a list would be helpful for partners, parents or other significant others and worthy of a blog post. I agreed!

 

So here are 5 stock phrases, and some reasons why they work, for you to send to anyone who might need them:

 

“What can I do to help?”

 

You might think that you can help the PhD student by diagnosing the problems for them and offering some remedies. But this can come across as condescending to the PhD sufferer who has probably thought of all those things, but been unable to put them into action. By asking “what can I do to help” you offer the PhD sufferer the opportunity to tell you what they need right now. All they may need is for you to listen without judgement. If this listening is accompanied by a foot rub or similar, you are on the path to restoration of relationship harmony (and you might even get lucky .

 

“This too shall pass” (or other similar soothing sentiment)

 

Sometimes a reminder that the PhD is finite is surprisingly helpful. Light at the end of the tunnel and all that.

 

“What did you do last time you had a similar problem?”

 

By saying this you are prompting the PhD sufferer to see themselves as active and in control of the situation, not a passive victim. Let them talk around the problem for long enough and they might figure out the answer for themselves.

 

“I’m going to leave you alone for awhile so you can work – but I will be back later and we can do something nice together”

 

Mr Thesis Whisperer is a very smart man and quickly realised that freeing up study time to help me finish faster was going to be in his interest as well as mine. He and Thesis Whisperer Jnr attended many social functions without me, or simply made themselves scarce for a whole day on the weekend during crunch times. It was comforting to know they were absent out of love for me, not anger.

 

“This thesis is going to be so interesting / important /worthwhile. I believe in you!”

 

Let’s be frank, many people outside of academia don’t see the point of a thesis. I’m not saying all PhD theses are worthless, but there’s no point in denying that they are not read or used as often as they should be. But it doesn’t help a PhD sufferer to point out the pointlessness of it all. There is value in the activity of studying itself, even if the knowledge itself goes nowhere. If you, as a partner, privately think the topic is pointless, concentrate on the learning instead.

 

Krystle wrote to me today to tell me how the mere act of describing these problems to me has helped her get back her sense of humour. Last time Mr Krystle said something hilariously unhelpful she just cracked up laughing and told him that she was supplying the comments to me for my blog:

 

 ”… we had a big laugh about it. Now we have this running joke about it, and the worse the comment, the funnier it is. So I guess this exercise has helped me turn a negative into a positive. I hope that it has the same effect for people that read your blog “

 

I hope so too! I wonder if anyone else who is suffering through a PhD has some advice for Mr Krystle and his army of long suffering spouses? What do you need to hear when you are freaking out?

 

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Publications in your PhD

I often get asked whether it’s a good idea to publish papers during your PhD. The answer is a bit of a no brainer:  Yes.  You should. But I feel like a bit of a fraud when I give this answer because I didn’t publish very much during my PhD. I was too busy trying to finish it in 3 years and writing papers seemed like a distraction. I wanted people to use my work of course, but I only wrote one paper after I finished then put the thesis in the online repository before I turned my attention to back my job – and building this blog.

On reflection, I wish I had not taken such a laissez faire attitude to publishing during my PhD. Sure, I got my degree quickly, but the chickens are coming home to roost now that I want to get into the grant application game. I think there would have been at least  seven papers in my PhD if I had really tried – seven more than I have now. It wouldn’t have been ‘extra work’ because I could have just used them these papers in my PhD anyway.

In fact, if I had my time over, I would just compose my PhD out of published papers; the so called the ‘PhD by publication’ method. In some countries, such as Sweden, or in some disciplines, such as the sciences, doing a collection of papers instead of a ‘big book’ is a common way to get your PhD. I’m not sure about the UK, but in Australia many universities have a ‘PhD by publication’ stream – but people are usually warned not to enrol in it because it is not a ‘proper’ PhD.

Many people don’t realise there is a difference between doing a PhD with published papers in it and the PhD by publication. There are historical reasons for this confusion in Australia. Before research degrees were supported by government funding in 1999, it was relatively rare for anyone to do a PhD. In many practical disciplines, such as teaching, nursing and architecture, you just didn’t need a PhD to get a job as a university lecturer or to do research (those were the days eh?).

However, as PhDs became more common, we ended up with the curious topsy turvy situation. Some senior members of academic community, who often had very large publishing and research records, did not have a PhD, whereas their younger colleagues, with almost no record, did. With the increasing number of people wanting to a PhD, we needed these senior researchers to be qualified somehow. The PhD by Publication became a kind of ‘recognition of prior learning’ degree. To get one you just put all your published work together and wrote a covering essay, up to about 20,000 words in length.

There has been a fair bit of, in my view, un-warrented snobbery about this mode of getting a PhD. This, in addition to some confusion about how copyright works, has meant that including whole papers in a PhD thesis, which enables the author to graduate with an already populated resume, is not as popular as perhaps it should be. I believe – but check this with your supervisor first please – that anyone should be able to do a PhD which includes publications – in full or in part. I talk about how to do this in some of my workshops and here are the three most common questions I get asked:

How many papers do I need?

This is a ‘how long is a piece of string’ question. The answer I always give is: as many as you can, but not more than eight. At RMIT we set a maximum of 90,000 words, with no minimum. Most examiners will have to read a PhD in their spare time, so I always advise to aim for as few words as you can get away with. It’s far better to have a dense, rich 60,000 or 70,000 word thesis than a 90,000 word one with a lot of padding.

You can have up to eight papers of 7000 word papers in such a thesis with room for a decent introduction and conclusion. But don’t let this large number put you off. If you only have one paper that’s ok – just write the rest as normal. In the introduction you should explain the role of each paper and how they answer questions and / or build and contribute to your argument.

What if I have co-authored the paper, can I still include it?

Yes – although I think it’s preferable if you are the first named author on most, if not all of the papers. In the introduction, where you should have a synopsis of each chapter anyway, include an explanation of your role in the paper and the nature of the contribution from others.

Personally I would be happy to examine a thesis where all the papers are co-authored and some of the papers show the examinee as the second author because I think the conceit of the ‘solo author’ is one of the main flaws of the PhD as a qualification. Demonstrating that you can play well with others is a key part of being an effective researcher, even in the humanities. In the ‘real world’ we all need to work with colleagues – even if it’s only discussing and debating ideas.

However, you need to temper this view with advice from your supervisor. Disciplinary conventions should always be challenged of course, but not too much at once. It’s likely that most examiners would want to see predominately solo authored papers in a PhD. Even I would be uncomfortable if all the papers were co-authored with the supervisor because I would start to wonder how independent the student really was.

If it’s been published in a journal, can I still use it in my thesis?

Yes – but you need to get permission. When you write a for a subscription journal you are essentially giving your work away for free (I’m not going to get into what I think about this system right now, but suffice to say, I’m not a fan). From what I hear, journal editors are happy to give you permission to put a paper in your thesis, but don’t quote me on this. Always check with the journal editor before you sign if you intend to give up your copyright and keep copies of all correspondence. Usually receipt of an email is sufficient, but if in doubt consult the copyright specialist in your institution.

So this is one of those cases where I urge you to listen to Aunty Thesis Whisperer and do as I say, not as I did. Get those papers published! Stick them in your PhD and grow your resume as you go. I could say far more about publishing during your PhD, so feel free to ask questions in the comments section.

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How I use technology in my PhD

Keeping with our Irish contributors theme this week, this guest post is by Ted Vickey, a PhD researcher at the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI) at the National University of Ireland at Galway (NUIG) whose research involves physical activity and how mobile technologies
can increase exercise adherence.

I first read this post on Ted’s blog a couple of months ago and was happy to say “yes please” when he kindly offered to cross post it here. Ted, although a PC user, has an ipad and knows how to make it work for him in his research. Here’s how:

While at the Greek conference in June (yes the same conference at the time of the riots), people were sharing how they have structured their research and what technologies they use to keep organized – from iPads to websites.

I pulled out my laptop and soon had a dozen people watching over my shoulder too see how I have set things up.  This system might not be perfect and might not work for everyone, but it has worked great for me.

iPad

I am lucky enough to have a forward thinking advisor (Dr. John Breslin) who is on the cutting edge of technology. Since I already had a laptop when I started my PhD, he allowed me to use the funds that would have paid for a laptop for an iPad.  I’ve always been a Windows kinda guy, don’t think I will be switching anytime soon, but do enjoy my iPhone and iPad and would be lost without them.  Having my research on my iPad makes working too easy.  I often take my iPad to bed with me, read a few papers before drifting off to dreams of how my research will make a difference in this world…..

Drop Box

Since I love being virtual and working from anywhere (be from my home office in Galway, at the office at the University, a train in China, the airport in Athens or even from my Dad’s 10 acre 150 year old farmhouse in Erie, PA), I wanted a place to store all my files. Any file you save to Dropbox also instantly saves to your computers, phones, and the Dropbox website.  I’ve found the site to be a fantastic and as you will see below, many of my research tools connect somehow to Dropbox.

In fact, I use it so much and have so many saved papers to read, I had to buy additional storage.  I love that I can save a paper in the Dropbox folder on my laptop and within seconds, the paper is synced to the cloud and available from a secure log in, my iPad, my desktop, even my iPhone.  I can also share papers with collaborators.  Super easy to use.

Google Scholar

Most of the papers I use for research purposed I’ve found using Google Scholar.  I find the university library system to be too confusing.  90% of the papers I want are free to download from Google Scholar, those that aren’t I pull from the library.

iAnnotate

A real time saver in my opinion.  iAnnotate turns your iPad into a world-class productivity tool for reading, annotating, organizing, and sending PDF files.  Rather than printing papers to read, I use iAnnotate on my iPad to pull my saved readings from my Dropbox and read on the go.

No hassle of stacks of papers to carry around.  The handy annotation tools allow me to highlight pieces of text I want to reference, email the newly saved highlighted paper with all of the highlighted text pulled out of the PDF and placed into the body of the email.  From my Outlook, it is a quick cut and paste into my master notes files.

Mendeley

I call Mendeley my LinkedIn profile for my academic life. Not only does it allow me to connect with fellow researchers from around the globe and gives me a custom website to showcase my research, it also keeps track of every saved PDF that I read for research.  I’ve tried EndNote a few times but had major issues.   Mendeley connects directly to my Dropbox, and runs a comparison check with Google Scholar for verification.  Not 100% accurate, but good enough to get most of the information populated. For those papers I end up using, I can quickly modify as needed.

Nozbe

In my corporate career, I learned the importance of having some sense of order in how things get done.  I am a big fan of David Allen’s book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (See all Time Management Books),but wanted a portable real time system where I could create my projects and decide on my next action items from my iPad.  I recently found Nozbe and it does just that.  I’ve planned out my research using this online tool, from deadlines to meetings, word count goals to paper submissions.

There you have it, the six tools I use to manage my PhD research.  Do you have a system of your own that you’d like to share?  Editor’s note: Ted’s system runs largely off the ipad, I wonder if anyone else out there uses Android wants to tell us in the comments about equivalent apps for that system – or do a companion post? 

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Marginalised in PhD land

This guest post is by Lucy McAndrew, a second-year PhD research student in the field of Environmental Ethics at the National University of Ireland, Galway. Lucy is a three-time VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) volunteer, environmental representative at local and council level (in a voluntary capacity) and particularly keen on investigating respect for marginalised interests.

In this post Lucy turns her attention to the experience of doing a PhD when you are located off campus – is the feeling of isolation only the result of geographic distance, or is there more to it?

In a sense, anyone who is doing a PhD will experience marginalisation: we’re all at the margins, and that’s a lonely place to be, full of questions from the mainstream who often cannot, and may never, see the worth of what we’re doing.

I’m looking at a contemporary problem, but from an angle which is completely foreign to anyone outside a university. I’m a long way, literally and metaphorically, from being able to integrate what’s happening in my field of study with the rest of my family life. There are two different and mutually exclusive worlds going on in parallel here: family time and study time.

I have to say before going any further that I have some serious pluses in my life: a supportive and loving spouse and two curious and intelligent pre-teens. We live in a beautiful place: a remote corner of north-west Mayo, where the kind of day you have depends on the weather, the wind never stops blowing and the sea is a constant presence.

Until I arranged to work from home most of the time, I would drive off insanely early in the morning to make the three hour journey to Galway and then either reappear long after my children have fallen asleep, or else ring them up to say goodnight. My partner and children never get the chance to see what it’s like for me to be there, on campus, mingling with other students. As far as they’re concerned, whatever I’m up to might as well be happening on Mars.

But being at home doesn’t always help – the distance is still there. I am a ‘pure research’ student and responsible in large degree for how I spend my time. There are the late nights. The early mornings. The weeks that merge into weekends. The promises that I’ll be finished in half an hour, only to find myself immersed an hour and a half later. It’s hard to explain to people who come to the door, or who phone, that I’m not just browsing the web idly, but attempting to locate papers.

School holiday time is particularly difficult. I remember loving school holidays as a kid: the long lies in, the late nights, the sleepovers, the wonderful sense of freedom around holiday time as the routine dips back into a more natural rhythm. In no way do I want to deprive my own kids of that experience, but the groans of “I’m bored” echo as I try to pretend that my own routine, at least for the first few weeks, is uninterrupted by the presence, from noon til night, of the two who I adore but find distracting, absorbing, demanding and exasperating in almost equal measure.

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only one who feels this way. I went round to the kids’ friends house the other day to pick them up and mentioned, with a gloomy face, that next week was the beginning of two whole months of holidays for the kids. My shoulders sagged as I spoke and I looked hopefully towards the other parent for conspiratorial feelings of dread. Instead I got a bright ‘hurray!’ and a fist lifted in the air. Holidays – fantastic!

Another sense of marginalisation which I’m sometimes afraid is unique to me, but which I am sure, on reflection, cannot be, arises from the sense of rural isolation. I feel like I live in a community of people whose values are the antithesis of my own. What seems to be valued by the vast majority who live here is conspicuous consumption and material wealth, and a contempt, at worst, or a sense of proprietorial ownership, at best, of the land.

What I’m trying to teach my kids, and learn myself through my PhD work, is elegant simplicity of living, without the need for most of the trappings of western materialism. But when I think about it for a bit longer, I realise that this has nothing, or only very little, to do with whether one is rural/urban (and in any case, I was brought up in the countryside). It’s much more to do with what you value – voluntary simplicity, wisdom above wealth is marginally represented in the mainstream.

I’m actually learning a lot by occupying these margins. I can now explain in layman’s terms what it is I’m doing, and use all the distractions help me to discipline my working habits. This process includes how to deal with stress in and with with communication issues, in general, and all that helps me to better deal with problems and issues that come up in the family.

I’m here, putting all my energy into something which is unlikely to make me rich, because being rich is not where it’s at for me. Sure, I want a decent job, by which I mean I want to be able to do something interesting as work, for which I’ll get paid. But that’s certainly not why I’ve undertaken to put my kids and my husband through the privation of having a mother who studies more than she works for money. It’s for future gains, financial and otherwise, that I’m doing this. So I have to learn to live within limits: more lightly, respectfully and intelligently.

I’m sure being marginalised isn’t unique to me, even though I experience it alone. It’s no doubt something a huge percentage – dare I say, all? – PhD students go through. Part of this is the process: the long distance loneliness. Part is the content: the reduction of the original idea to a mere corner, and the need to maintain motivation even with this much reduced goal all there is left to aim for. But part of this is the value that doing a PhD expresses: some things matter just for themselves, not for material purpose.

I hope that this gives people a sense that what we’re doing isn’t purposeless. Stretching the boundaries is something our species specialises in. If we can feel at the cutting edge, rather than cut out and discarded, of our communities and our societies, perhaps that will help us to remain committed and motivated to achieve a record of our journeys in the shape of a thesis.

We do it for ourselves, sure, but we also do it for the species, to grow in understanding. If this is so, then marginalisation becomes a much easier place to be because it’s a part of the whole process of being human – and we really are in this together.

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Why do we need a Research Students Association at RMIT?

This post is by Nick May, a final year PhD Candidate in RMIT’s School of Computer Science & IT who is looking into how to make service based computing more reliable. In a past life he was a Software Engineer, so he continues to work part of the time, for the University’s eResearch Office.

Nick has been representing research students in an advisory capacity for the School of Graduate Research at RMIT over the last year. Nick writes about why research students at RMIT – and elsewhere in Australia – need to think about recent government legislation on voluntary student unionism. Continue the discussion on the Research Student Association: Google Site

Now is the right time for a Research Student Association

I guess your first question is going to be: Why?

Well, simply put: Money. A more complex answer revolves around the need for a student run organization that supports research students and has a budget to do so.

But first, a bit of history:

Compulsory Non-Academic Fees

Before 2005, it was the rule, with some variations, that Australian universities required students to belong to a student organization that provided on-campus services and amenities, at RMIT this was the RMIT University Student Union (RUSU).  A compulsory fee for membership to this organization was charged to every enrolled student.

In 2006, the federal coalition government abolished this practice. Their main argument was that: the right of association includes the right that no-one should be compelled to join a union. In the wake of this legislation, student union membership plummeted, and consequently funding for services was affected.  As an example, as of 2011, the RMIT Postgraduate Association (RPA) has only 170 members (paid up with RUSU) out of 11,500 postgraduate students enrolled at the university, despite the membership fee only being $60.

The current government has sought to address the reduction of funding for services by again allowing universities to charge a compulsory non-academic fee. The bill, called the ‘Student Services and Amenities Bill’, passed the Senate in July 2011 and will allow universities to charge an annual fee of up to $250 from 1^st Jan. 2012. In our case, the fee will be collected and distributed by RMIT: however, the main outstanding issue is: how will the funds be distributed?

The legislation is quite prescriptive about what can be funded by this money. Political activities are specifically excluded, but activities allowed include: student health and welfare, the administration of student clubs, helping students develop study skills, advice on university policies, advocacy for student interests, and others. However, this bill does not specify how much should be spent on each activity.

To address this issue, DEEWR have just released a draft of the funding guidelines; see Dept. of Education, Employment, and Workplace Relations: Support for Student Services, Amenities, Representation and Advocacy. This requires that the university must determine its funding policy in formal consultation with elected student representatives and major student organizations. In addition, they must consider the needs of different campuses and student cohorts.

Why a Research Student Association?

Over the last six months, I have been involved with the School of Graduate Research (SGR) through a student consultation group. This informal group has been providing feedback to SGR on a range of issues including: research student privileges, orientation and transitions, annual reviews, etc. The discussions within our group have highlighted that research students do indeed form a distinct student cohort, with different goals and needs, which are more like those of the staff than coursework students.

However, these needs are not currently being met. Currently, the most appropriate organization for our cohort is the RPA: however, there are significant factors limiting how useful they are for us;

• The RPA cannot fund activities outside of the coursework semesters. So all events must be scheduled when most research students are busy with teaching and working with coursework students. Therefore, no funding can be allocated for the five months when the campus is quiet and research students have more time for career development, etc.
• The RPA cannot spend money on specific events and activities for any membership sub-group, such as research students. Also, the student participation rate in RPA activities is typically low. This means that research students will have to organize their own activities and without any funding from the RPA.
• The RPA does not actively engage with the SGR, who are a major influence on the research student experience at RMIT.

A Research Student Association would allow us to organize and fund activities specifically for research students at a convenient time in the calendar year. In addition, it could provide an ongoing  conversation with the Research & Innovation Portfolio (via SGR) to help improve the research student experience.

There are, however, significant services that the RUSU and RMIT do provide.  These mainly revolve around the welfare services that all students require, such as health, counseling, legal advice, career advice and accommodation. An RSA would not need to provide these services.

Why do we need an RSA now?

As a separate cohort, we lack the numbers to influence existing student bodies. By forming our own association it will allow us to have a say in how the funds from our fees are distributed and used to support the special role we have within the University.

So what now? Who wants to get involved? What activities would you like an RSA to organize? How would an RSA be run?

That’s what I’m asking you… Continue the discussion on the Research Student Association: Google Site

Thesis Panic.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about time and work; specifically how there never seems to be enough of the former to do all of the latter.

The reason for all this angst is that I’ve been negotiating to do a book with Dr Sarah Quinell, of “Networked Researcher” fame. It’s a very exciting project, which I hope to talk more about in the coming months, but as the negotiations went on I noticed that I was getting increasingly anxious. How was I going to get this thing done? Life is full of family, work and side hobby projects as it is.

Luckily I recognised this feeling straight away because for years I felt it as a constant, background hum to my life. Thesis Panic.

Thesis panic is caused by what seems like an impossibly large and difficult project coupled with a fast approaching deadline. Reactions to Thesis Panic vary. Some people are good at calm acceptance, while others, like me, walk around with stomach churning anxiety which makes us distracted, irritable and hard to live with.

As soon as I diagnosed my problem I implemented my tried and tested “1000 words a day” method. I get up a little earlier in the morning, have breakfast and then write a subsection of the book. One of the many wonderful things about Scrivener is that it displays a bar with the word count I have set for the session. When the little bar goes  green I stop. Then I have a coffee, relax and start nagging at Thesiswhisperer Jnr to get ready for school. I’m pleased to report that the sense of panic has all but disappeared. I feel in control because I know, if I keep it up, I will have a draft of my 25,000 by the middle of next month.

So is the “1000 words a day” method some kind of a cure for Thesis Panic? Unfortunately, I don’t think so.

Certainly it does help to adopt structured work habits when you are doing a thesis. When I was studying friends and colleagues with PhDs advised me to treat the whole process like a job. “Keep regular hours” one person said to me at a party – “and write everyday”. “Treat your supervisor like a boss” recommended another over a cup of coffee, “think about what makes them look good and do it”. I took this advice to heart, put it into practice and found it worked: I finished in three years, while working part time for most of it.

But treating the thesis like a job didn’t minimise my anxiety very much, if at all. While I was going through these ‘job like’ motions at no time did doing the thesis really feel like a job – at least not a job as I understood it. For one thing I thought about my thesis all the time, even in my off hours – and the thinking made me either excited to get an idea on paper Right Now, or anxious. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the two feelings, but towards the end the anxiety took over and didn’t lift until the day I got my examiner reports back.

It is hard – very hard – to talk yourself out of Thesis Panic, but it can help to talk to other people about it. While you might think the best people to talk to are those who are the calm types, I’m not so sure. They say the worst students make the best teachers because they really know what it is like to struggle. I found it far more comforting to talk to other sufferers – at least I felt less alone with the feeling.

Of course in my work I see lots of cases of Thesis Panic, but only in a professional setting. At the moment I’m lucky enough to have three people very close to me, including my sister, who are doing research degrees, which has given me the opportunity to observe the phenomenon close up and personal. I’ve murmured a lot of soothing words in phone calls, had many therapeutic cups of tea and proof read many paragraphs which the writer was too anxious to show their supervisor. Along the way I’ve been able to talk to each of them about what they are feeling and why. This has helped me to understand the phenomenon a bit better.

For instance, I was telling my sister how implementing my 1000 words strategy instantly calmed me, whereas when I was doing thesis, it didn’t have the same soothing effect. She pointed out some fundamental differences between work – which the book is – and doing a thesis.

Firstly the book wont be examined by my peers – although they may write reviews about it, they are only offering an opinion, not making a summary judgement about whether or not I get a PhD. Secondly the agreement between me and the publisher sets out the nature of the book I will write, how many chapters are in it and so on. In other words, the boundaries of a book are known and agreed on in advance.

Most thesis writers don’t have the luxury of certainty: experiments may fail, data may be useless, theories may not hold together and so on. It’s possible to find yourself staring down the barrel of the deadline with no thesis, multiple possible theses or a very tenuous thesis. The anxiety is not something you can necessarily get rid of because most of the reasons for it are external and, to some extent at least, out of your control.

Treating problem of doing a thesis as just a matter of ‘work’ explains why productivity techniques only go so far in helping people overcome Thesis Panic. Time management is a concept invented in the industrial age and designed to help people run factories, not intellectual work. Although I am a big fan of productivity literature and the tools it describes, such as the pomodoro technique, they don’t necessarily hold all the answers.

Time will tell if I can write my half of the book in within the next 5 weeks. I will be pleasantly surprised if I can, but if I learned anything while doing a PhD it is not to over estimate the impact of any one technique of time management. What do you think? Is it possible to treat a thesis as ‘just work’? Have you suffered from thesis panic? What did you do about it?

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