Derrida, hate, and stupidity, in the practice of thesis writing.

My twin sister, Anitra Nottingham, is doing a masters by research in the Faculty of education at the University of Melbourne. Her thesis is about graphic design education. She’s been struggling with the prescribed coursework lately, but struggle can be a good thing – as she tells you in this post. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

As those of you who follow me on Twitter and do their homework late on a weeknight might already know, I have been in the throes of writing a paper on Derrida for my Critical Theories subject. If you had told me early last week this would be one of the most rewarding learning experiences I’ve ever engaged in, and that I would come to kind of love Derrida (in a kind of hating him kind of a way), I would have smacked you.

Really hard.

It’s been that difficult.

I hated Derrida with a red-hot flaming passion of a thousand suns for ooh, about 2 weeks. Then something happened while I was crossing the road on Friday and it all clicked for me. I got it. Talk about a clichéd threshold moment. I now describe Derrida to the Thesiswhisperer as my B**** in capital letters.

Yes, it’s not nice, but that’s the truth and don’t tell me you haven’t felt that way about a philosopher/scientist/designer/whatever when you figured out their trick (or one of them anyway). I might get his idea of “free play”, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it, or Derrida – or speak nicely about him.

This experience has taught me two things. First. You don’t have to love your subject in order to go through the pain of learning it. It’s OK to hate your subject, whatever it is. I mean really just want to reach-through-time-and-belt-the-old-french-guy-over-the-head-with-your-paper kind of hate. Hating your topic of study doesn’t mean you can’t, or won’t, learn from it.

Hate is actually kind of motivating.

The second thing I realised is this hate is a different kind of hate than the “I scorn your ideas because frankly they sound stupid” kind of hate. That kind of hate is the kind of thinking people like Tea Party activists engage in, i.e.

“I think your ideas fundamentally challenge my way of thinking. Therefore I will know them superficially enough to sound like I know what I am talking about – and then I shall dismiss them”.

The hate I was feeling about Derrida is motivating instead of dismissive. It is what you might call the: “maybe I am too stupid to figure this out” instead of “You are definitely stupid for me to bother really figuring out” hate.

The “Maybe I am stupid” hate is uncomfortable. It emerges when you have the sneaking suspicion that that the person’s idea is important, but you might not like what it has to tell you. This second kind of hate is what drove me nuts, because I felt stupid, and no one likes feeling stupid.

Understanding that I hated Derrida because potentially I was too stupid to figure him out, and maybe he would challenge my ideas, is very helpful. It makes me want to know, to not be stupid. It’s a feeling I now think I should pay attention to, because honestly, sometimes, there’s a danger here for me. It’s all too easy to indulge the first kind of hate, when it’s the second kind of hate, the hate which is difficult, that can make us dig deep enough to really understand.

Of these two kinds of hate (now I am setting up one of Derrida’s “binary opposites”, but never-mind!) one is productive and the other isn’t. The hating-enough-to-gain-a-superficial-understanding will only get you so far. The other kind, which drives you to challenge and battle an idea until the very end, is a more informed position. Using this hate the right way might change how you think profoundly.

That’s what makes it scary, and that’s what makes it worthwhile.

(The third thing I learned was how to think a bit like Derrida, and my goodness, who would have known how useful that could be?! But that’s a post for another time.)

So how about you, who’s (or what) ideas or work have you hated? Do you think you hated them enough to really understand them?

(Editor’s note: What Anitra is too modest to tell you is she aced the paper. So much so that she was briefly, falsely accused of plagiarism! But that’s another story for another post)

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Time – can you ever really ‘manage’ it?

This post is co-written with Pat Thomson, who is simultaneously publishing on her blog ‘Patter’. If you haven’t already, head on over there and check it out!

A little while back, we co-wrote a post on writing which we wanted to ‘simulcast’ on each of our blogs. Writing this first post was surprisingly easy given all the technology at our disposal. We chatted on Twitter, then switched to email for longer conversations, all the time writing into a shared Google doc. For two people who had only ever met in ‘text’ this process was remarkably smooth.

What wasn’t so easy was managing time.

Inger lives in Australia and Pat lives in the UK. One of us was generally asleep while the other was awake. Our messages travelled instantaneously, but the text lay dormant for slabs of time while we waited for the other person to wake up and answer an email. Trying to publish on our blogs at the same time was particularly challenging. We missed one window and then caught another while Pat was travelling to a different time zone.

In some ways our technologically mediated world  time and space have effectively collapsed, while in other ways the tyranny of distance is as present as ever. Here’s the meditation on time and writing we produced as a result.

Taking time

Academic work is temporally greedy. It eats up days and weeks of thinking and reading time and that’s without even taking into account the analysing and writing time that comes after. Various demands compete with one another for priority – which one deserves and needs more time.

Taking time is intimately related to feeling in control. If you feel you are able to take the time that something needs, then you also feel in control. This feeling can be in short supply when writing a thesis but it’s a mistake to think that things change a lot when you finish. There is Never Enough Time to do every project you are interested in.

Saving time

The best advice Pat got as  PhD student was that having good information systems was ultimately a really big timesaver. Yes, working out the filing systems and entering all the data on bibliographic software is a pain at the start, but it pays off in spades at the end. There is nothing quite like seeing the reference list for a 100,000 word text get done in a few seconds. Or being able to find something you read years ago really quickly, just by doing a word search on Endnote.

The best time saving advice Inger got was to write your own notes like they are for someone else. Don’t expect to remember everything you were thinking at the time you read the reference. You should be writing your thesis as you take notes. One trick which Inger thinks she learned from Pat was to use active verbs in your notes. Academic writers ‘claim, ‘argue’, ‘outline’ – they don’t just write. If you choose the right verbs while you take notes you can often cut and paste those notes straight into your manuscript.

Spending time

The best time is the time you don’t realise you’re spending. Csikszentmihalyi coined the term ‘flow’ to describe what happens when you re completely immersed in something. You start working and then look up a bit later and hours have passed.

Flow happens when the challenge is a bit beyond your skills and knowledge and the task is also engaging and meaningful. That’s the best kind of academic work – it’s a bit beyond you and you want to work on getting it sorted. If it’s easy to do it’s probably not intellectually where you need to be working… but if it’s hard, yet the time still flies then it’s likely to be a good, as well as fulfilling, piece of work.

Missing time

But, just as people who go out on drunken benders wake up the next morning and find they cannot remember whole chunks of the night before, it’s easy for time to go missing as you immerse yourself in the Flow. While much day to day life can be ‘fast forwarded’ without too much pain, some of this important missing time is precious and can never be restored.

For example, Inger doesn’t remember much of her son’s first couple of years at school as they were lost in the blur of PhD. It’s fair to say she has some regrets about this and has tried to be more ‘present’ in the years since.

Just in time

Pat finds that blogging has joined the other long list of things that are done just in time – doing reviews, writing conference papers, getting the marking done. She is usually a lone blogger so getting the blog written is a weekly task – it usually happens before the shopping on Saturdays. She blogs and then publishes. However she’s noticed that more people read the blog during the week so she is now is thinking that the just in time writing needs to change. She needs to write to suit reading time, not vice versa.

Inger hates doing ‘just in time’ – it makes her nervous. Instead she makes sure to under promise and over deliver in relation to her deadlines. Luckily she is helped by many blog collaborators, but makes sure she always has a few blog posts half written which can be tidied up Just in time to publish.

Well we are Out of time for  more. But we are wondering about your thoughts on time – do you suffer from Missing Time or Just in Time? Let us know in the comments!

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The Valley of Shit

I have a friend, let’s call him Dave, who is doing his PhD at the moment.

I admire Dave for several reasons. Although he is a full time academic with a young family, Dave talks about his PhD as just one job among many. Rather than moan about not having enough time, Dave looks for creative time management solutions. Despite the numerous demands on him, Dave is a generous colleague. He willingly listens to my work problems over coffee and always has an interesting suggestion or two. His resolute cheerfulness and ‘can do’ attitude is an antidote to the culture of complaint which seems, at times, to pervade academia.

I was therefore surprised when, for no apparent reason, Dave started talking negatively about his PhD and his ability to finish on time. All of a sudden he seemed to lose confidence in himself, his topic and the quality of the work he had done.

Dave is not the only person who seems to be experiencing these feelings lately. I have another friend, let’s call him Andrew.

Andrew is doing his PhD at a prestigious university and has been given an equally prestigious scholarship. Like Dave, Andrew approaches his PhD as another job, applying the many time management skills he had learned in his previous career. He has turned out an impressive number of papers, much to the delight of his supervisors.

Again I was shocked when Andrew emailed me to say he was going to quit. He claimed everything he did was no good and it took a number of intense phone calls to convince him to carry on.

Both these students were trapped in a phase PhD study I have started to call “The Valley of Shit”.

The Valley of Shit is that period of your PhD, however brief, when you lose perspective and therefore confidence and belief in yourself. There are a few signs you are entering into the Valley of Shit. You can start to think your whole project is misconceived or that you do not have the ability to do it justice. Or you might seriously question if what you have done is good enough and start feeling like everything you have discovered is obvious, boring and unimportant. As you walk deeper into the Valley of Shit it becomes more and more difficult to work and you start seriously entertaining thoughts of quitting.

I call this state of mind the Valley of Shit because you need to remember you are merely passing through it, not stuck there forever. Valleys lead to somewhere else - if you can but walk for long enough. Unfortunately the Valley of Shit can feel endless because you are surrounded by towering walls of brown stuff which block your view of the beautiful landscape beyond.

The Valley of Shit is a terrible place to be because, well, not to put too fine a point on it – it smells. No one else can (or really wants to) be down there, walking with you. You have the Valley of Shit all to yourself. This is why, no matter how many reassuring things people say, it can be hard to believe that the Valley of Shit actually does have an end. In fact, sometimes those reassuring words can only make the Valley of Shit more oppressive.

The problem with being a PhD student is you are likely to have been a star student all your life. Your family, friends and colleagues know this about you. Their confidence in you is real – and well founded. While rationally you know they are right, their optimism and soothing ‘you can do it’ mantras can start to feel like extra pressure rather than encouragement.

I feel like I have spent more than my fair share of time in the Valley of Shit. I was Thesis Whisperering while I was doing my PhD – so you can imagine the pressure I felt to succeed. An inability to deliver a good thesis, on time, would be a sign of my professional incompetence on so many levels. The Valley of Shit would start to rise up around me whenever I starting second guessing myself. The internal monologue went something like this:

“My supervisor, friends and family say I can do it – but how do they really KNOW? What if I disappoint all these people who have such faith in me? What will they think of me then?”

Happily, all my fears were groundless. My friends, teachers and family were right: I did have it in me. But boy – the smell of all those days walking in the Valley of Shit stay with you.

So I don’t want to offer you any empty words of comfort. The only advice I have is: just have to keep walking. By which I mean just keep writing, doing experiments, analysis or whatever – even if you don’t believe there is any point to it. Remember that you are probably not the right person to judge the value of your project or your competence right now.

Try not to get angry at people who try to cheer you on; they are only trying to help. Although you are alone in the Valley of Shit there is no need to be lonely – find a fellow traveller or two and have a good whinge if that helps. But beware of indulging in this kind of ‘troubles talk’ too much lest you start to feel like a victim.

Maybe try to laugh at it just a little.

You may be one of the lucky ones who only experience the Valley of Shit once in your PhD, or you might be unlucky and find yourself there repeatedly, as I did. I can completely understand those people who give up before they reach the end of the Valley of Shit – but I think it’s a pity. Eventually it has to end because the university wont let you do your PhD forever. Even if you never do walk out the other side, one day you will just hand the thing in and hope for the best.

Cold comfort perhaps? What do you think? Are you walking in the Valley of Shit right now? What helps you to cope? We’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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Doctoral Devotion – To Complete or Not Complete?

Why do some students complete a PhD and others drop out? It’s the kind of question that worries researchers like me. Evelyn Tsitas, who is completing her PhD in Creative Writing at RMIT University has some thoughts. Evelyn has the most interesting PhD topic I know – but she’ll tell you about that in a future post. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did

It’s a long distance journey doing one’s doctorate. Just ask actor James Franco, who has split from his actress girlfriend Ahna O’Reilly and blames his studies for the end of the 5 year relationship. It seems that doing a PhD in English at Yale University was the last straw – Ahna has already lived through one post graduate haul with Franco (UCLA, where he majored in English); “then I signed up for more school at Yale,” says Franco, 33.

Many of us doggedly slogging it out to the completion date can feel for Franco; even months after the split.  The eligible bachelor reveals he is still on the market, saying he just doesn’t have time for a relationship. Doctorate students everywhere know what he means. Maybe it isn’t romantic relationship failure that concerns us – it could be guilt at how little time we are spending with our children; or neglected housework, weight gain, lack of exercise or languished friendships.

Indeed, the problem of Australian students completing their PhDs – and doing it on time – is well reported. While there are no national retention rates available, universities are generally happy if half of their Arts students finish within four years.

Putting the PhD front and centre and avoiding temptation along the way is one thing, but actually staying the distance is another. Yes, completion. Completion can be disrupted not just by the stress of juggling “real life”(mundane things like having to make a living). More spectacular diversions can derail many, such as interesting career opportunities that tempt us to stray from the path.

A perverse pastime of mine is to Google the well known and creatively successful who have made it to a PhD – and dropped out, only to find fame elsewhere. Californication’s David Duchovny (the title of his uncompleted doctoral thesis – Magic and Technology in Contemporary Poetry and Prose); The Offspring’s Bryan “Dexter” Holland (Molecular Biology); Brian May from The Queen, who dropped out in middle of his doctorate studying how light reflects off of dust floating in space and the movement of that dust within the solar system. (He went back and completed in 2007); David Filo, billionaire co-founder of Yahoo, who dropped out of the Stanford University PhD program to create Yahoo.

Then there are the stayers – those who got their PhDs, and went on to have high profile careers outside academia. Punk rocker Greg Graffin, from Bad Religion, who received his PhD from Cornell University in Zoology (thesis – “Monism, Atheism and the Naturalist Worldview: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology.”). In a case of life imitating art, Mayim Bialik (Big Bang Theory) has a PhD in neuroscience. Peter Weller (RoboCop, Dexter) is completing his Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance history at UCLA. Robert Vaughn, (“Hustle”), has a PhD in communications. Rhodes Scholar and US TV host and political commentator Rachel Maddow, who can boast a PhD from Oxford.

I am interested in why people like James Franco, Greg Graffin and Mayim Bialik – who don’t actually need a PhD for their careers in the arts – would choose to be so focused on completing their doctorates. Franco has been spotted reading The Iliad on film set breaks, and quoted as saying “I go to school because I love being around people who are interested in what I’m interested in and I’m having a great experience… I’m studying things that I love so it’s not like it’s a chore.” So I am guessing it’s the intellectual buzz of being in an ideas environment that pushes Franco in his doctoral journey.

Perhaps the difference between actors James Franco and David Duchovny – both of whom don’t require a PhD to get a film role – might come down to “true grit”. Motivational psychologist Heidi Grant, PhD, says that studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime.

In her post Nine Things Successful People Do Differently, Grant says that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do. She writes: “Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty.”

While this may be true, what I find interesting that many actors and musicians have committed to the long-term goals of post graduate study when they do not intend to carve out careers as academics. Actors and musicians who have achieved both fame and a Masters Degree include: Sigourney Weaver, Fine Art; Dolph Lundgren, Chemical Engineering; Rowan Atkinson, Electrical Engineering; Leonard Nimoy, Education; Dexter Holland, Molecular Biology; Forest Whitaker, Comparative Literature.

It’s probably fair to say that the man behind Mr Bean doesn’t reference his electrical engineering study on a daily basis. Likewise, Brian May didn’t actually need a PhD for his working life after Queen’s spectacular success. So why do these people stay the distance, and complete? The reason could be financial. These people achieved financial success and fame and then went back to finish their studies. I would suggest they could also leverage their careers in film or music – along with a doctorate – towards a later career in academia. After all, glamour careers love young faces, and everyone grows old if they live long enough.

For those without decent industry experience to boost the resume, it can be disheartening to read about lack of positions within academia. In “Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time”, The Economist (16 Dec, 2010) reports, “As this year’s new crop of graduate students bounce into their research, few will be willing to accept that the system they are entering could be designed for the benefit of others, that even hard work and brilliance may well not be enough to succeed, and that they would be better off doing something else.”

I don’t have the answers, I only know this much for sure – come hell, high water or total exhaustion, or in spite of all of those, I will complete. Unlike frustrated doctoral students who have come through the university system without much outside work experience, I have had an extensive career in the “glamour” media industry. I can see what a doctorate can help me achieve, rather than fearing it is holding me back. Plus, I have two young children who have lived through this doctorate so far, and they need closure. If I quit, then what’s to stop them giving up on anything when it got bad, tedious, boring or too hard?

That’s why I have a large poster of James Franco up next to my computer; to remind me that no matter what enticing career paths may arise in the short term, its vital to keep on the path and complete the PhD.

No, seriously, that’s really why I have a poster of Franco next to my computer….

What do you think will provide you with the ‘grit’ necessary to finish? Will it come from inside you or from around you – or both? If you enjoyed Evelyn’s post you can read more of her writing at  RMIT Blog Central

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5 rookie researcher mistakes

One thing I have learned over the years I have been Whispering is, although the problems they face are similar, no two research students are alike. What works for one person may not work for another. For this reason I have developed a habit of ‘reverse advice’ lists, for example: “5 classic research presentation mistakes” “Are you getting in the way of your PhD?” , “5 ways to fail your PhD” and “5 ways to poster = fail”.

I like a reverse list because it highlights the problem more than the suggested solutions, leaving you free to choose your own.

This time of year I attend a lot of research student orientation sessions around RMIT, where I usually give my  ‘top five newbie mistakes’ talk. I tell students there’s no need to take notes because I have blogged it (yet another reason to keep up a blog by the way). However a student wrote to me this week saying they had read through the whole blog (!) and I hadn’t actually written out this rant yet. Oops. Thanks for that. I’m lucky to have such a diligent audience!

I developed these ‘top five mistakes’ from years of listening to research students talk, reading The Literature and doing the occasional bit of research myself. This list is my opinion; as always, I hope that those of you with some more experience of studying or supervising will chime in with your own.

 Don’t write (nearly) everyday:

My colleague Dr Judy Maxwell is fond of saying that a thesis is like eating an elephant. I think the only way to eat an elephant is to approach it with quiet confidence, preferably from the rear, and use your knife and fork to take a small bite at a time.

This means you need to be writing all the time, not leave it all to some future time you will ‘write up’. Of course, it’s easy to promise yourself that you will write early and often, but hard to stick with the resolution. Even people who love to write can find the enormity of a PhD thesis confronting – and many of us don’t love the writing.

I think the trick is to treat writing like piano practice: just do it for its own sake, everyday. The best kind of writing is the sort we do for others: a blog post, a grant application, a long email – anything like this will do. When you write with an audience in mind you improve your fluency and clarity. Even taking notes is a great opportunity to sharpen technique; pretend the notes are for a research assistant who doesn’t have the same background as you and needs to put a paper together in a hurry (your future self will thank you).

Some of the daily writing will end up in your thesis – but don’t worry too much if it doesn’t for the first year or so. For more severe cases of deadline-itis I refer you to the ever popular post: “How to write 1000 words a day (and not go bat shit crazy)”.

Don’t attend other people’s research presentations

When I was a PhD student I received a steady stream of emails advertising seminars given by other research students, visiting scholars, professors in the faculty and the like. Many of them offered a free lunch. The problem was the reminder email would inevitably arrive just when I was having a good writing moment and I would ignore it in favour of doing work. This felt good – virtuous even. I was denying myself social contact and having lunch with my Thesis instead.

Sometimes as little as 50% of the people who register for my workshops turn up, I suspect for the same reason. Even when I offer a free lunch. I am not the only Thesis Whisperer in world; there are many of my kind who work to support research students. Whenever I meet another Whisperer they tell me it’s hard to get students to turn up, so I don’t feel too bad. Over the years I have started to give my workshops ridiculously exaggerated names like “Heinous research mistakes and how to avoid them” just to get business. If I called it “Ethics, plagiarism and copyright” people would stay away in droves.

I was one of you. I get it. I could give you all the community minded reasons why you should go, but I am going instead to appeal to your selfish side. You learn a lot from watching how other people present their work and even more from watching them being criticized. Let’s face it, it’s much better to watch someone else be torn to shreds than experience it yourself. If you watch enough of these you will start to work out, amongst other things, the devious questions which academics like to ask to trip new students up.

(And if you say you want to come to a workshop, please turn up! Think of the poor Thesis Whisperer in your university with an empty room and too many sandwiches.)

Don’t visit the 807 section of the library

We all went to secondary school and got a basic education in how to write and research an essay. Some of you may have gone on to do an undergraduate course which asked you to do a lot of essays, while others – like myself- will have specialised in a profession which did not emphasize writing skills.

Even those who did a lot of writing as undergraduates will need to step it up while doing a research degree. Your work will be judged by scholars of international repute whose standards are very high. Make a visit to the books residing in the 800′s section of the library, particularly in 807. You will find heaps there on writing style, researching tips and the like (in fact, I like to think if this blog was in a library it would be in the 800 section, hanging with the other cool kids).

Fail to attend to paperwork

Any university is a massive bureaucracy. At RMIT we have a policy on policies (true fact); we even have  person whose WHOLE JOB is just to check every single form we produce.

Let’s take a moment to think about that …

… best not.

We might go mad.

Anyway, my point is that ‘paperwork’ is not some minor irritant. It’s central to your life as a student and academic. Paperwork takes time to process; ethics committees and scholarship applications can get held up if you don’t fill in the forms properly. Make sure the form you are using is the right one and up to date. I can’t count how many people hand in their ethics application on the form the supervisor sent them, which is 3 years old, then get pissed when they have to wait another month. Being angry at the need to do paperwork is like being angry about the weather – satisfying, but ultimately pointless. And while I’m at it: file them properly when you have finished. A well written ethics application can sometimes be feed right back into your thesis. Sometimes the writing you do on forms can be re-used on other forms, for example, grant and/or job applications.

Don’t use technology

Tools like Mendeley / Zotero / CiteUlike help you find out what other people are reading. Humans are, after all, the best search engines. I could bore for Australia on how you can leverage social media and cloud apps for productivity and your career advantage. Oh wait – I’m writing a book so you can read that instead. At least learn to use Endnote ok? It will help Aunty Thesis Whisperer sleep at night.

So that’s my list – what do you think are the top five mistakes research newbies make? Love to hear about them in the comments.

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A message from the student from up the back, on the left

We don’t often talk about undergraduate teaching on the Whisperer, but I am beginning to think we should since so many of us do it. Unlike primary and secondary school teachers, those of us teaching in universities do not always have the benefit of a specialist qualification (ironically the PhD itself is the defacto ‘qualification’ for becoming an academic… but that’s a debate for another time!)

My colleague, and ‘go to’ person on all things teaching related, Ruth Moeller was kind enough to write a guest post for those of you who are looking for some tips to improve your teaching. Ruth is the Senior Advisor on Learning and Teaching in the Design and Social context college at RMIT University and contributor to the Teaching Tom Tom blog. This post is written from the point of view of a student in your class who has some ideas for making your teaching better. Enjoy!

Dear Tutor,

Welcome back to a new semester. I hope you were able to take a time off over the summer! I know your research is pretty full-on when we are not about. I have been thinking about last semester’s tutes and would like to offer you some feedback and ideas. I want to make all our lives easier, so please take my ideas in the spirit in which they are offered.

Please start on time:

Waiting for “just a few more to turn up”, is punishing those of us who made the effort to get here on time. If you begin the ‘rule’ of starting on time and stick to it the others will soon learn. If you are concerned we will be missing important new stuff, start with a 10/15 minute review of the lecture/reading so we are using the time productively.

Names are important

I’d really like you to know my name – I know it’s hard when I am one of 300.  There are games and activities that can help with this, but an easy, no cost way to help is name plates. Yes, they may be slightly daggy, but it means that you can call us by name. It will also remind me of the name of the person sitting across from me whose name I’ve forgotten but who I’ve wanted to ask out for a coffee for a long time now…

3. Make the link

Your tute is a great opportunity for me to check I understood (or really didn’t) the key points from the lecture. Can I suggest you use the first 10/15 minutes of the tute to review, reinforce and reflect on the key points? (this may be the first time some of my fellow students have heard the material…).

I have some ideas on how to do this. You could ask us students to take a minute and write down 5 key points from the lecture. This is a chance for me to reflect on what was covered and then discuss with the group, or in smaller groups if the group is large. You might also ask “Are there any parts of the lecture that need clarification?” (Never “that you don’t understand” – I always feel like you are judging me when you say this). To address any points, you can either get other members to help explain their understanding, and /or do it yourself. This ensures that we understand before you add more.

4. Questions

“Does anyone have any questions?”

Silence!

I know it can be frustrating when you ask for questions and get none, or just from the same people all the time. Here are some ideas that may help:

• “Any questions?” is too broad and unfocussed. Try “What questions do you have about … “ this gives focus and is based on the assumption that there will be questions.
• “What comments or questions do you have?” Often I may not have an actual question, but I may have a point to make, or an example to offer.
• When you have asked a question – pause. Wait. Give me time to think. I need to formulate my question then respond (and never ask “any questions before we finish/go to lunch” – you have just signalled that we are out of here and I am thinking about that coffee date!)

We are all adults

Yes really, and one of the most important things that you can do to foster an adult relationship is to ensure that I am treated with respect and dignity. I should do the same to you.

There are many traps I have seen tutors fall into:

• If I give a wrong answer, try “what do others think?”, or “that’s a common mistake”, rather than “You are wrong, can someone tell me the right answer” – that puts everyone on edge.
• If I haven’t read or done the calculation sheet, don’t make a fuss. Yes, it’s annoying, but it is my loss not yours.
• If you need someone to read, ask for volunteers, not “I choose you!” – there may be may reasons why reading out loud isn’t for me.
• If I am late, again no need to make a fuss, just continue. Asking “why am I late, did I know what time the class starts?” etc doesn’t help anyone in the room.
• If I treat you or anyone in the group inappropriately – address the behaviour quickly. You have a responsibility to ensure that the tutes are ‘safe places’. An effective response is, “this is like a workplace and that behaviour is not appropriate for this environment”.

And one final thing, share your research with us, let us know what you are doing and how it relates to what you are teaching. This gives us a chance to see the discipline in a broader context and what opportunities there might be for us to contribute to it later on. When I think about all the tutors I have had, their research is rarely mentioned except perhaps as part of an introduction. It’s  certainly not used as illustration of what we are learning. We are interested! But just be careful of lapsing into ‘war stories’ about your thesis. What a buzz kill!

Thanks for listening and see you in class!

Kind Regards,
The Student from up the back on the left

Five life saving suggestions for international PhD students

Like many other academics, I have huge admiration for international students, especially those who are doing a thesis in another language. I find it difficult to write on this issue as I have never directly experienced it, so I was delighted when Dr Ehsan Gharaie, who wrote the extremely popular “What to say when someone asks you: should I do a PhD?”, offered to write some posts.

Ehsan has experienced the PhD process from start to finish in a new country and now works at RMIT as Lecturer in Construction Project Management. In this post he offers his life saving suggestions – I hope others with similar experiences might write in and offer their ideas in the comments.

Being a PhD student and managing life is difficult enough. Add to this living in another country, cultural differences, language barriers and financial difficulties and you will see how international PhD students feel when they complain about life. Here is some suggestions for those students:

1. Know the game that you are playing.

You probably have some idea about doing PhD from studying in your home country. But the Australian system might be different. Thus, spend some time understanding it. I have seen students that after two years of study and many conflicts with their supervisors and university realised that their approach has been wrong from the beginning.

If you are familiar with American PhD programs where coursework is part of the program, you need to know that there is no coursework in Australia. This does not make life easier. This, in fact, means you have to learn those courses by yourself and without guidance of a teacher. Keep in mind that the whole PhD process is designed to make you an independent researcher. Therefore, facing tough challenges, taking responsibility and making difficult decisions are parts of the training. Face them and you will be happy when you see the results at the end.

2. Understand the supervisory relationship.

This point is probably more important for the students coming from the eastern cultures where PhD supervisors culturally have superiority and students have to learn to listen to them. Further, the word “supervisor” is very deceptive and plays a big role in confusing students. “Supervisor” consists of two words of “super” and “visor” meaning someone who watches you with authority. In everyday life, it means manger or director.

In the Australian PhD system, there is no superiority for supervisors and they are not your managers. In fact, you have the upper hand in making decisions and they only help you in that regard. They are “advisers” more than “supervisors”. Thus, if in the first six months of your PhD, every time you have a meeting with them you talk about a different topic for your PhD, and every time they encourage you to follow those topics while they are very different, do not be confused and upset. This is their responsibility to encourage you to do whatever you like. They are not there to tell you what to do. They are there to help you in your journey and advice you. That is all you can expect from them. Therefore, stop whinging and take the responsibility.

3. Language barriers and writing style

The result of your PhD will be examined in writing format. Whatever you do, whatever you know, whatever your results are, they have to be communicated through writing. Writing is not an easy skill to learn. Sense making through writing make it more difficult. Think about writing an eighty to hundred thousand word thesis and you will get a sense of enormity of work that you have to go through.

There are many local students that struggle with their writing. You have an extra burden, that you have to overcome, which is writing in another language. Language is not only a medium for communication. It is a way of thinking. Thus, to be able to write in another language you better learn how to think in that language. I know it is not easy. But that seems the only way for writing quality pieces and making sense.

Another problem is to write in academic style. This is not only for you. This is for anyone who wants to be an academic or a researcher. You only need to compare an academic article with a newspaper article to feel the differences between their styles. But knowing the reasons for that difference and learning how to make that difference is a task that you have to undertake and a skill that you need to learn. Therefore, my advice is to spend some time studying about writing, sense making through writing, and academic writing and use any chance to practice. The book “helping doctoral students write” by Kamler and Thomson is a wonderful place to start with.

4. Family commitments

If you think you are the only PhD student who has to think about family, you are wrong. Family commitment is a normality during your PhD. The average age of research students at RMIT is 37. Many have children and elderly parents. Doing Phd is tough. Add to that the stresses of migration and having family concerns. Then you have got a recipe for a very stressful life.

Thus, cut these stresses as much as you can with planning ahead, and sorting things out before your PhD starts. Do not let them happen simultaneously. If you are coming to Australia with your own family. Think about your partner and children. It is not enough that your language proficiency is good. Your family need to know English as well. You cannot stay home for four years and entertain them. They need to go out, network and make friends. They need their own social life. If they have been working in your country and have had a busy life, coming here and experiencing the void would be shocking. They need to fill their time and probably find a job. Do not think you can do everything for them. Whatever stresses they experience will transfer to you and at the end will hurt your relationship. The last thing you want is to sacrifice your family for your PhD. Thus, think ahead and find a solution before the problem arises.

5. Networking and dealing with isolation

Isolation is part of your PhD. This is what every PhD student probably experience. However, local students have their networks around them to help them go through the process. You have to leave your networks in your country and start from scratch. There is no extended family, friends, former or present colleagues and you are here on your own.

Thus, think out of the box. Your life is not only your PhD. You need to have friends and people around you. Therefore, try to join a network and make friends with like-minded people. There are plenty opportunities for that. You just need to try them. The easiest way is to join your countrymates community. But it is not enough. You are here to experience a different life style. Thus, try new things. If you have a hobby, you will definitely find a group of people with the same interest. Do not wait for people to come to you. You have to be active or even super-active to overcome the cultural barriers, make friends, and establish your network. Do not take this lightly. Isolation in another country can affect you and your family. Try this website for start: meetup.com

Good luck with your experience. If you have been studying for awhile, what advice would you have for students who have just started in a new country?

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5 things to do in your first week

Last week Lucinda posted this question on my Facebook wall

“I’m planning on starting my PhD on 5th March. Do you have any tips on what I should be doing before starting and what do I expect when I start?”

It’s a good blog topic. In fact, I was a bit surprised to find I hadn’t written about it yet. That first couple of weeks of study can be confusing. Without the structure of an undergraduate course and other classmates to guide you, simple things like finding the closest bathroom to your office can be challenging. Or you may find you don’t actually have an office at all! Roaming the halls and haunting the library with your book bag and a laptop is hardly conducive to settling in well.

It does help if you start out with a checklist of sorts. In the interest of brevity I have stuck to my top five tips, but I’m hoping some of the helpful and experienced people who I know read the blog will add extra ones in the comments section.

1) Get thee to Facebook (even if you hate it)

In a recent study of research students we did at RMIT we found that students who were more socially connected to others were better at solving problems with their candidature, so there is a clear incentive to get to know people. Of course, people are your best guide to any new place, but the challenge for you in your first couple of weeks is to FIND the people with the knowledge.

The most obvious place to start the search is with your supervisor. Ask them how to find out about the department social functions; you will probably find that there are more than you have the time or wherewithal to attend. As the mother of a young child I was unable to participate in the regular Friday drinks in my department and consequently always felt a little sidelined. If you are a part time student or a parent you will know what I mean.

I found that Facebook came to my rescue here. A lot of people don’t like Facebook for various reasons, but I found following the minutia of  other student’s lives and doing some virtual whinging was enough to make me feel involved. It also helped me to get to know some of the other people well enough to do small talk when we did meet – and, now we have finished, it has been a way to keep touch as we move on with our lives post PhD.

2) Make friends with administrators

Find out the names of the people responsible for taking care of students in your department, in particular the administrators. These are non academic staff who are responsible for looking after the management and data entry for research and researchers. At RMIT we call them “HDR administrators”. These people know EVERYTHING there is to know about the endless paperwork that pervades academia; they can usually point you in the right direction if you encounter a road block or need extra resources.

It’s a thankless job and not that well paid. Like childcare, nursing or the other caring professions you have to really love it to do it well. This might explain why this people are, almost without exception, some of the nicest, most helpful people you will ever find in academia. Engage in a charm offensive – know them by name, buy them coffees and Christmas presents. This effort will be more than repaid believe me.

3) Do a library tour and make an appointment with your Liaison librarian

Librarians are multi-talented people. You may not have had much contact with them during your undergraduate years and therefore might not be aware of the range of things they can help you with. Although Google scholar is brilliant, it is not, by far, the only or best tool for finding references; librarians can introduce you to the full suite of resources.

At RMIT we have a group of people called ‘liaison librarians’ who are specialists in discipline areas; what they don’t know about database searching isn’t worth knowing. As a research student you can make an appointment with them and get some quality one-on-one database nerd time. Use this service to help you search more effectively and set up alerts so information is pushed at you with minimal effort.

4) Crank up that software.

The liaison librarian will be able to advise and train you to use standard bibliographic software. At a minimum you should get to know the software which the library supports (probably Endnote), but there is more that you can do to get yourself organised.

The internet is truly a treasure trove of handy software solutions to the problem of keeping track of your information and making sense of it – and the vast majority of it is entirely free (I am currently writing a book about this topic with Dr Sarah Quinnell of Networked Researcher fame, so I could bore for Australia on this topic). Last week I asked people on Twitter what free software they used and came up with a list of 42 applications and sites. By far the most popular were: Dropbox, Evernote, Google Docs, Mendeley and Slideshare. Set up an account with each one and have a play to see if they will work for you.

5) Don’t panic

This is more of a general comment: it’s easy to psyche yourself out and start thinking you can’t do this thing.  At BBQs and parties you will regularly hear things like “wow! You’re doing a PhD?! I could never do that” or, worse: “So and so started their PhD and never finished; I heard it broke up their marriage”. Don’t buy into the PhD Hype.

It’s likely that few, if any, of your family and friends have done a PhD and therefore think it’s a much bigger deal than it is. It is a big deal, but not impossible. I firmly believe that if you get into a PhD program you can finish – on time with your sanity intact  – if you are organised and persistent.

So that’s my top five – how about you? What advice would you give to all the PhD newbies who are starting this year?

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The piece of dissertation wisdom that made me want to scream

This piece was written by Ben from the Literature Review HQ. Ben describes his blog as a “Literature review how to – from beginning to end”. Ben has a straight to the point style that resonates with me – and many other readers. Ben kindly submitted this piece on the difference between ‘Marathon’ workers and ‘Sprinters’. As a Sprinter  myself, I appreciated some of the advice he has to offer. You can find a permanent link to the Lit Review HQ on the right side bar of the Whisperer under ‘Blogs like us’.

“It’s a marathon not a sprint…”

*Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrh*

I have been told this so many times, as I’m sure you have too. In fact I’ve even said it to other people. The fact is, as an analogy, it’s pretty accurate. Writing a dissertation is a lot like a marathon – and not a lot like a sprint. So what’s my problem you ask… well I’m no marathon runner, I’m a sprinter.

Sprinter? Marathon runner? Dissertation? What are you talking about?

So writing a dissertation is a lot like running a marathon. They are both endurance events, they last a long time and they require a consistent and carefully calculated amount of effort to complete them and not burn out.

Some people are naturally good at this. You know if you are and you recognise it in other people. They tend to be super-organised, and always concentrating. They also tend to be able to get all of their work done in a very rigid time frame. Most people however, myself included are not like that.

Does this sound familiar?

• The mere thought of completing a large writing task often makes you freeze into inaction.
• You can easily procrastinate if the deadline is far away, “I’ll do it tomorrow”.
• You occasionally panic and have a spurt of writing activity before needing a week off to recover.
• You are more than familiar with the concept of an all-nighter.
• You don’t work consistent hours. The hours you do productive work tend to revolve around feelings of guilt or panic and/or a looming deadline.
• You can actually write pretty fast when you want to / have to.

Are you a sprinter too?

Did you answer yes to any of those questions? Chance are you have sprinter tendencies. If you answered yes to most of them, there’s no doubt – you’re a sprinter.

So you see my problem with the advice “it’s a marathon not a sprint”. I was not built to “run a marathon” in the traditional sense, it’s just not the way I work. I used to think this meant I could never write a dissertation. The truth is, as a sprinter, it is a bit of a struggle. I always used to feel like I was having a much harder time of it than the natural marathon runners I knew. However, it is possible for a sprinter to run a marathon – in fact, I even think there are some advantages.

Marathon Running – the Sprinters Guide

Make a plan – NOW! One of your fist bouts of sprinting activity should be spent on making a good plan. Get the plan checked over with a supervisor. The most important thing is that there are clearly marked and SHORT sections. By short I mean a “sprintable” length. Something that you could complete in one sitting if you’re focused.

Make a timeline. This goes hand in hand with the plan. Make a timeline of when you want to achieve writing goals. It is important to be detailed and to make yourself aware of the deadlines. I always find that as a deadline passes, even if it’s self imposed I feel a bit guilty which strongly motivates me to work.

Make lots of self-imposed deadlines and make yourself accountable for them – in any way you can. Be creative on this one. Is your supervisor a bit of a slave driver? Tell them you plan to submit a section of work by the end of the week. Tell your friends, put it on facebook, blog about it – whatever. You need to feel that people are going to hold you to account if you don’t do what you said you would.

Sprint and then slow right down.

This is golden. Most sprinters have a burst of activity and then stop completely – this can be crippling. You don’t have to stop, and you shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter if you go at a snails pace. If you write one sentence a day for a few days. You need to keep the work ticking over, so that as each day passes, you get a little bit closer to your goal. This is a huge mental boost for when you have your next burst of activity as you’ve been working a little but resting at the same time.

Beat the “I’ll do it tomorrow” attitude. Well you don’t have to completely. You can still do it tomorrow – as long as you start it today. Whenever you feel yourself putting off the work, make a simple compromise. You can put it off until tomorrow, as long as you make a start on it today. The start might only be 30 minutes but it makes a difference. Firstly, you will often feel that you want to spend longer than 30 minutes on the work once you get started. Secondly, you will be able to hit the ground running when you do get round to doing the work “tomorrow”.

The sprinters advantage…

Multitasking. I think it is easier for a sprinter to do more than one project at once. However, you need to make sure you have made a thorough plan of all the different things you want to achieve. Changing writing projects can actually be quite stimulating and allow you to sustain high intensity periods of work for longer.

So there you have it. If you’re a natural marathon runner – congratulations and carry on. If you’re a sprinter, you can use your natural abilities to successfully sprint your way to dissertation success. Are you a sprinter or a marathon runner? What do you do to help you last the distance?

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Under-graduate baggage?

This guest post was written by Prof Denise Cuthbert, the Dean of the School of Graduate Research at RMIT University (and my manager).

In our office we make time to have extended chats about the difficulties students encounter in doing research and how we can help. After one such chat, Denise sent me an article she wrote with Amy Dobson and Kate Cregan for “Undergraduate Research News” last November based on some prior research she had done.

I asked her if I could republish a modified version of the article here as it asks an important question: how does undergraduate education affect the transition to research and researching? I hope you enjoy this post and the questions it raises.

For a couple of years I helped to run a course called “Contemporary Issues in Sociological Research” which was designed to provide an ‘authentic’ research experience for third-year undergraduate students in the social sciences. While we had no doubt the unit offered a valuable and even transformative experience for the majority of students who completed, there were some real challenges to teaching it. Some of the brightest students had difficulties in making the transition from one mode of learning (course work) to another (research).

The students who enrolled were inured to highly regimented coursework units, with prescribed readings and circumscribed tasks set for each week of the semester. By contrast our research curriculum was set only in skeleton terms; the ‘content’ was to be largely to be generated by the students and there was a slender reading list. Some students, unable to cope with being handed this responsibility for their own learning, withdrew almost immediately. Several of these students confessed to being attracted to the unit precisely because the prescribed readings were minimal. On discovering that readings needed to be generated by them related to the specific work they were to do in the unit, their response was to walk.

A high degree of self-selection in (and out) of a unit of this kind is to be expected. Those that remained in the course were the best and the brightest, but they still struggled in these uncharted research waters. Notwithstanding their enthusiasm and excitement at doing ‘real’ research (as distinct, in their words, from the sort of research they had done in other units, including a compulsory methods unit), the sense of uncertainty, even danger generated both positive and negative responses. Clearly this transition to another mode of learning was deeply unsettling for even very competent students, despite their clear abilities to think and write at a high level.

We wondered: was the discomfort and inability to cope well with uncertainty a result of the kind of student being produced in undergraduate programs, both in the social sciences and humanities and perhaps elsewhere in the contemporary University? Does the structure of undergraduate programs inhibit students from acquiring the skills they need to become a researcher later on?

Over the last couple of decades Australian higher education has been audited and evaluated by the government with increasing fevour, all in the name of improving quality and avoiding risk. The upshot of this is that undergraduate coursework is much more proscribed and certain than it used to be. Assignments are set with clear expectations and criteria for assessment; reading lists are often exhaustive, reducing the need for students to search for their own literature.

Research degree study is profoundly different from this safe, walled undergraduate garden. You are largely responsible for your own learning. You need to make decisions about what to read and how to spend your time. Your supervisor is there to help you, but they cannot always anticipate your problems; nor can they reliably shield you from them when they occur.

There may be very good quality assurance reasons for the high level of prescription required at undergraduate levels (which looks set to increase under the rigours of the Australian Qualifications Framework). However, when educating to produce research outcomes and future researchers, real questions need to be asked as to whether this approach to undergraduate education fosters the capacities for risk and uncertainty entailed in good research.

It is well documented that getting good marks in coursework programs is not in all cases a predictor of success in research programs. The resilience, creativity and inventiveness required in researchers is more likely to be developed through working in business, industry and the professions. These qualities are harder and harder to foster in the highly controlled world of undergraduate coursework programs.

Perhaps we need to stop trying to straight jacket undergraduate courses into predictable formats, with predictable outcomes and predictable learning objectives. It is possible that we actually underestimate what undergraduate students are capable of. As one of our interviewees commented, once she overcame her initial fears and anxieties about what was being asked of her, our course generated the kind of excitement that she came to university to experience, but found wanting in her other undergraduate studies: ’This is what university should have been like from the start.”

If you are reading this blog you are probably teaching now, or have taught undergraduates at some point in the past. When you graduate you may well become a full time teaching academic. So – what do you think? Do some people start a research career with undesirable ‘undergraduate baggage’? What can we do to help people make the transition to researching from coursework?

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