What to say when someone asks you: “Should I do a PhD?”

“Do you think I should do a PhD?”

It seems like I can’t go to a party without at least one person asking me this question – does this happen to you too? I probably shouldn’t be surprised; according to a recent government report the number of people undertaking a research degree in Australia has increased by 41%  over the last 10 or so years.

There’s no doubt that some students start without realistic expectations of the amount of work that is involved and how it may affect their life, which is why I was pleased when Dr Ehsan Gharaie, a lecturer in the school of property Construction and project management at RMIT, sent me this guest post.

As a recent PhD graduate in a field which is relatively new to this form of education, Ehsan tells me that he is often approached by people who ask him how to get into a PhD program. Ehsan tells me he replies: “tell me why and then, I will tell you how” – this seems like a good answer because PhD study is not for everyone.  I hope you will send you Ehsan’s list of diagnostic questions to the next person who asks you: “should I do a PhD?” (American readers please note – this post refers to the dissertation writing part of the PhD Program only)

Can you work without anyone telling you what to do?

A PhD is way different from Bachelor and Master Programs. There is no lecturer telling you what to do and you are not asked to do an assignment or sit for an exam. If you have been working in industry or government, you have probably got used to having a boss who tells you what to do and having staff who help you do your work. Here there is no boss, and no one helps you out. You have a supervisor who, if you are lucky, advises you and guides you through the process and that is all. Thus, think about yourself and see if you can work without anyone telling you what to do. There are many decisions that you have to make in the process and you should be ready to take on that responsibility.

Are you ready to work by yourself for four years?

Many PhD students work in isolation most of the time. There is no official classmate or peers. Your first and best friend is your computer and you have to spend years with it. The second person in your list of acquaintances is your supervisor which you interact with probably dozen times a year. Are you looking for the third person? The answer is none. Thus, be ready to work alone for four years.

Have you thought of your family commitments?

When you are an undergraduate student, your main concern is your study and the rest is just fun. But PhD usually happens when you have more important commitments. If you are not married, you are probably thinking of it. If you are married and have not had children yet, that is probably the next thing you are thinking of. Do you have children? Then you certainly think about them way more than your studies. There are even PhD students who have to take care of their parents. Further, you probably have a good job and thus, income and financial comfort and you should think the effect of your studies on your financial situation. You see, there are always life commitments, and the issue of study-life balance should be extremely important in your decision in doing PhD. You have to get your head around them before you start doing your PhD.

What is your career plan?

People usually study at universities to become trained and get a degree which has a clear set of professions or jobs attached to them. A PhD, like other university programs, is a training process; you will be trained to be a researcher or an academic. You learn how to do literature review, how to find a research problem, how to figure out a research methodology and method, how to follow and implement that method, how to present your result and at the end how to write a thesis that covers all your arguments and demonstrates all your efforts during past four years of your life. Thus, if you are interested in these “how tos” and if you want to become a researcher or an academic in the future, that would be the path to go through. But if you are thinking of some other things, you better think it twice.

And finally, why do you want to do it?

Getting PhD is not easy. It needs passion and patience. The only driver in the whole journey is your self-motivation. So what is your motivation? Is it the title of being a “Doctor”? Do you have a brother or sister with PhD and you feel you have to have it? Are you pushed by your family? If you are not convinced yet that you really need to do a PhD or you have doubts about it, wait for a while and do not rush to it. After all this is going to be at least four years of your life and you need to make sure that you will not run out of steam at the middle of way.

I hope this post will be read by a lot of people thinking about doing a PhD, so do you have advice you would like to offer? Pop it in the comments!

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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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Is the University a bad boyfriend?

A couple of weeks ago I visited Sydney University to give a keynote address during research week. During morning tea I got chatting to the director of the Graduate Studies Office, Simon French, who invited me over to his office to continue the conversation before I left for Melbourne. Simon told me to find my way to the Quad on the main campus and then call him, as his office was hard to find.

The University of Sydney Quad is arguably the most magnificent of the ‘Oxbridge’ style pieces of architecture in Australia, as you can see in this photo. Simon is lucky enough to have an office tucked away in the corner of this immense structure. It must be like going to work with Harry Potter (as you have probably guess, I was quite jealous).

It was a pleasure to nerd out with Simon for an hour or so. He is one of the few people I’ve met who is as fascinated by the complexity of the issues in research education as I am. Most of our conversation was about the dissatisfaction research students feel with the research culture at their institutions. It seems research students are happy with the quality of the education they are getting, and most like their supervisors, but many are unhappy about universities as places to be.

On the face of it, RMIT University seems to be in a completely different league to the University of Sydney. Our campus looks more like a collection of funky office blocks than an outpost of Mother England. And – if the buildings are anything to judge by – we have a lot less research money to play with. I thought University of Sydney students would be a pretty happy lot, given their obvious material advantages, but Simon told me otherwise. As it turns out, University of Sydney are just as dissatisfied with the research culture of their university as their RMIT counterparts.

Universities are always working on the ‘research culture’ problem, but all the strategies seem to fail. If students complain about not having space on campus we give them desks, which they rarely use. If students complain about needing more intellectual engagement, we provide them with workshops – which are poorly attended. No matter what we do, we just can’t make them happy.

‘Culture’ is a difficult concept to define of course; it is more than the physical spaces which we inhabit or the people who surround us. I wondered aloud if the problem of research student unhappiness is that university life just fails to live up to our expectations. Simon agreed and then said something both wise and funny:

“I tell people that the University is like a bad boyfriend. Sooner or later it is going to break your heart”

I laughed because it was true – at least of myself. For years I carried around a Brideshead Revisited inspired fantasy where professors sat around drinking port with their students in book lined rooms talking about the meaning of life. My undergraduate experience, although grueling, did nothing to dispel this image. My lecturers  were all so clever and interesting; I wanted to BE them and live the life of the mind. I assumed The University was a charmed place to work; a happy community of scholars living in an intellectual meritocracy.

I was in love with The University, but it broke my heart when I first applied for a lecturer’s job, some four years after I started working as a casual tutor. I was shocked when I was passed over in favour of the research assistant of an influential professor. To my mind I was the better teacher, which made this decision deeply unfair. I said as much to another staff member, who gave me a little talk about the difference between nepotism and patronage and the importance of cultivating Contacts.

It took me awhile to appreciate the value of this cold blooded advice. I went on to be rejected four more times before I had to face up to the sad truth. Just like a bad boyfriend, the university was happy to go on dates with me, but was not willing to commit to a long term relationship. I was just not sexy or interesting enough – I didn’t have a PhD or a list of publications the length of my arm. It’s an unhappy truth that a research heavy CV is the tight leather trousers of the university employment dance. Teaching ability is like a good personality – you are grateful for it after you have known the person for awhile, but it wont make you take them home from the disco.

Simon claimed that some people lead a charmed life and don’t get their heart broken until they fail to get promoted into the professoriate, or get retrenched out of existence because someone decides the university isn’t teaching medieval history anymore. Some unhappy students get their hearts broken in undergraduate courses and never complete; other students are broken by a research supervisor who makes their life a living hell. Simon went on to talk about bouncing back after The University has become your bad boyfriend. It’s true that people do react in different ways to being unlucky in love. Some will swear off having a relationship forever and go out to get paid more in the private sector; some stay, but are permanently bitter.

Others, like myself, realise they were being unrealistic and decide to continue to love The University while being aware of its faults. The happy conclusion to my story is that I decided to put on the tight leather trousers and get  PhD, while continuing to make the most of any opportunity that came my way. Now I have a wonderful job that, amongst other things, pays me to write this blog and think about stuff for a living. The best revenge, as they say, is to have a good life.

As I left Simon’s office that night, and walked with him through the soft purple twilight of the Quad, the bell tower started chiming the hour. It was the perfect moment – a picturesque stroll after a happy hour of talking about meaning of life stuff. For just a moment I thought I had got a glimpse of The University Life I have always longed for. I suspect that, in the contemporary academy, a glimpse now and then is all you are likely to get. For me just a glimpse is enough to keep the love alive – what about you?

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It’s winter here in Melbourne; the kind of weather that calls for soup. My favourite soup is the sort which simmers all day on the stove. You know, where you fill a pot with a pile of vegetables and cook the crap out of it over a long, cold afternoon.  I’ve got a pot like this on at the moment and the smells are permeating the house. You never know how good this kind of soup is going to be until you taste it of course, but you know that slow cooking intensifies flavour and transforms humble ingredients into something special.

For some time now the ‘slow food’ movement has questioned the value of ‘fast food’ and called for a return to more authentic modes of cooking and eating. Like any catchy name will, the concept of Slow has been applied to other activities: Slow travel, Slow gardening, Slow fashion, Slow parenting. What these manifestations of the Slow Movement  share in common is an appreciation for the value of taking more time and care to make something – a dish, a dress, a garden on the assumption that it will be better than something put together in a hurry.

As regular readers will know, I am almost obsessed with Fast. I’m constantly after the next technique or process which will increase my output. This is because, much of the time, Fast is Good. One of the traps which thesis writers fall into is over thinking everything, which can be solved by Fast. But recently I’ve started to think about Slow and how it might apply to academic work, because there are aspects of it which just can’t be rushed.

If you think about it, a thesis or dissertation is the epitome of Slow. Even if you finish in speedy fashion you are unlikely to turn one out in less than three years. Over those years you have to do a lot of different things: talk to people, collect data, record observations or make stuff. At the same time you must absorb information and engage with other people’s ideas. In a way, doing a thesis is like a long, slow conversation with these ideas and things, during which you try to tease out what ‘knowledge claims’ you can make. The outcome of this ‘conversation’ is recorded in writing – a thesis or dissertation text, which is examined by others who decide if the quality of the conversation is good enough for you to take on the title of Doctor.

You are but one ‘speaker’ in this Slow Conversation which means, as Liz Thackray points out in her recent blog post, your control over it can be, well – tenuous. After making changes to her thesis outline, Liz tells us how she reread an early abstract, which had served to focus her thinking at the time. Now she realised that it didn’t ‘match’ her thesis anymore:

“… ideas which were central to the abstract a few months ago, are no longer there, but other ideas which either were not present, or were peripheral are taking centre stage. I am seriously beginning to wonder if rather than me owning my thesis, whether it actually has somehow acquired a life of its own.”

There’s an interesting similarity between this statement by Liz and those made by fiction authors who begin to ‘inhabit’ their characters. These writers report a similar sense of separation and otherness, along with a profound kind of connection. As Ann Marie Priest writes:

“I began to feel my character’s feelings. I began to feel myself responding to what the others were saying as though I actually was the person I was pretending to be … I knew, without even thinking about it, what my character was going to do next … when I came to write a monologue for her, it was virtually effortless. She wrote it herself.”

I don’t know about you, but I often feel like my fingers are moving across the keyboard while I take dictation from someone else inside my head. When I read my papers back I they seem to be written by this strange other self and not ‘me’. At least I feel like this other self is a much better writer than I am. Perhaps this ‘multiplicity’ – of selves and of things, is why so many people make the analogy between finishing a thesis or novel and giving birth. A thesis is of you, but it has many other parents: scholars, research participants, archives test tubes to name a few. Consciously thinking about this sense of writing ‘taking control’ of you can be helpful. Consider this quote from Bruno Latour:

“A paper that does not have references is like a child without an escort walking in the night in a big city it does not know: isolated, lost, anything may happen to it”

Latour alerts us to the fact that our thesis has to have relationships with other literature, past and present. If your thesis is a ‘paper child’ you are responsible for its welfare. To return to my theme of Slow, would you let your child wander around the city with any old person you met on the street? No – you would want to take time to get to know this escort before you trusted them.

Likewise, developing your relationship with the literatures who accompany your thesis takes time. While I can and do encourage you to ‘read like a mongrel’ (fast and furious), Fast reading is really a way of finding out which pieces and authors are worth investing time in. Deep understanding of literature needs repeated reading and thinking. as well as writing. In other words, a Slow conversation with the ideas. This process can be frustrating because, just like soup, you can never be completely sure the thesis you make from these Slow conversations will turn out as good as it can be. However, if applied correctly, a bit of Slow will ensure that your thesis has more flavour than most.

Speaking of soup, mine is just about ready, so I might leave you with this thought: What if losing control is an essential part of writing a thesis? Realising you have lost control forces you to slow down. When you stop talking so much, you can listen better. Maybe then your thesis will tell you what it needs. What do you think?

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The top 5 #phdemotions

Last week I read a Thought Catalogue blog post entitled Five emotions invented by the internet and laughed so hard I snorted the coffee right out of my nose and onto my computer screen.

I have certainly experienced “a vague and gnawing pang of anxiety centered around an IM window that has lulled”, but this one was my favourite:

The state of being ‘installed’ at a computer or laptop for an extended period of time without purpose, characterized by a blurry, formless anxiety undercut with something hard like desperation

Who hasn’t felt this way when working to deadline but unable to overcome the urge to check email/twitterfeed/facebook/google scholar or whatever? There’s something wonderful about discovering others share your own nameless fears and anxieties.

I started to wonder: what new emotions does a PhD make possible? I explored this idea by writing some new PhD emotions and testing them on my PhD student twitter followers  like so:

Irrational feelings of love for academics you have never met because their work helps you in unexpected ways #phdemotions

For those of you not into twitter, the hashtag (#) enables users to make a ‘conversation’. Anyone who included the #tag allows their tweets to be read as part of the same ’thread’. As I hoped, other people followed my lead and started to post their own #phdemotions and a minor meme developed.

Later I nerded out and did a content analysis of sorts to see if I could develop a PhD ‘mood-o-meter’ from all this twitter action (aren’t you lucky my employer pays me to do this sort of stuff?).

According to www.hashtag.org there were 130 tweets containing either #phdemotion or #phdemotions from last Friday to this Tuesday. After massaging similar emotions together I counted a total of 71 distinct emotions.

Now to work out which ones seemed to resonate the most with the audience. If a person really liked the#Phdemotion someone else came up with they could retweet it (add it to their ‘stream’ for others to read) or @mention it (have a conversation with someone else about it). I counted these and added a multiplier if the emotion was both retweeted and mentioned.

Using these scientific (*ahem*) measures for popularity, here are the top 5 emotions made possible by doing a PhD (at least, as determined by PhD students who happened to be on Twitter between the 14th and 18th of January):

1) Elation when you realise you know more than your supervisor about your topic and you feel brave enough to argue about it

This was an amalgam of tweets by @scientistmags, @soilduck @choloe_kitten. It’s not that surprising that this is the most recognised emotion since ‘scholarly independence’ is meant to be the goal of PhD study. I was happy that a positive emotion came out on top

2) Fear of being ‘found out’ as fraud, not really knowing enough/being smart enough to be Phd student (@orientalhotel)

Otherwise known as ‘the imposter syndrome’ (thanks @boredpostdoc) this is apparently common in PhD students. As well as possibly being related to self esteem and perfectionism, this emotion could be the by product of the nature of PhD study itself. As the old cliche goes: “The more you know, the more you know what you don’t know”.

3) Unexpected admiration of your own writing

This feeling happens to me sometimes while editing my own work. Apparently it resonates with others too. As @orientalhotel remarked:  ”That was me yesterday reading my own chapter and thinking, ‘yeah good point self’”. Usually it applies to text you wrote a year or so ago when you weren’t as confused.

4) the “I’m a genius! Why hasn’t anybody thought to do that before?” moment before people point out the obscure paper you’ve not read (@boredpostdoc)

This emotion surely captures the essence of the PhD emotion rollercoaster. Closely related to the emotions described by @wolowic who commented: “xperiencing the manic tidal waves of success and complete failure. good & bad stuff happens unbelievably close together!”

5) Misplaced smugness after photocopying/downloading loads of stuff but not actually reading it (@orientalhotel)

Or as I call it ‘Obsessive Article Collecting’ (OAC). This one got a fair bit of discussion, mostly of the ‘me too!’ variety. I definitely suffered from this one during my PhD, which is why I wrote the post “Are you addicted to your PhD” – which also talks about a possible cure.

There were many, many other great #phdemotions it was a pity to stick to the top five. Happy to do a second top five next week if people are interested.  Do you recognise any of these or have a #phdemotion you would like to share? Let us know!

Why you might be ‘stuck’

In high school I had a history teacher who would talk about the second world war like he was a German soldier. At first his performance was funny. In his hands every victory by the allies became a loss; every weakness of the allies was celebrated and German losses were lamented.

But as the year went on and we learned about the extermination of the Jews, I became increasingly outraged and confused. My teacher seemed to regard these atrocities lightly and have perverse admiration for the German war machine. Was he some kind of escaped Nazi war criminal, or merely deluded?  I began to dread history classes, but I didn’t say anything because – well – it was not my place to question the teacher.

Photo by David Niblack

One day however I couldn’t take it any more and finally put my hand up. I asked him why he thought the Germans were so great. Surely the Allies weren’t all that hopeless. They had won the war hadn’t they? By way of an answer he started telling us his story of fleeing from Europe with his parents at the start of the war. Then he told us he was a Jew.

I realised I was being treated to a fiendishly clever teaching strategy. He was showing us that all history is a story told by someone for a particular purpose. He finished his lecture by asking us: “After this how do you know anything said by a teacher is true?”

This question hit me right in the stomach. I was 16, but (sadly) this is the first time I realised a teacher could consciously choose – or even be forced -  to lie. Simultaneously I realised how conditioned I was to believing teachers unquestioningly. I can honestly say this moment changed my life. I felt liberated. I didn’t have to believe my teachers anymore!

But, for the rest of high school I found learning exhausting and sometimes deeply unsettling. Reluctantly (I was 16 after all and wanted to be thinking about boys at that point) I started to question everything  anyone told me – including my parents. Did they know what they were saying was true, or only believe it? Were they trying to trick me?

Prof Jan Meyer, professor of education, would say that when I realised that teachers could lie I encountered, and crossed over, a ‘threshold concept’: this insight once grasped was unforgettable. It made me see the world in a new and transformed way.

As is common with this kind of learning, before I crossed the threshold concept I had been ‘stuck’, unable even to give voice to my questions. After I crossed the threshold the insight I gained was integrative. It caused other knowledge I had been exposed to fall into place; knowledge about history, the school system, my place in it and even the nature of truth and belief, good and evil. But this changed knowledge led to a changed self and was therefore troublesome. Learning was  no longer routine, but question filled and uncertain.

Being ‘stuck’ is a common experience in doing a PhD, which often manifests as a difficulty in writing. Sometimes it is hard to know why you are stuck, or how to get over it. It could be that you are facing a  threshold concept without realising it.

Researchers Margaret Kiley and Gina Wisker have studied ‘threshold concepts’ in PhD study and came to the remarkable conclusion that certain PhD threshold concepts are consistent across all disciplines. These manifest as a common set of struggles:

• Struggle to understand that a thesis is a claim or defense – not just a collection of work you have done or a way of proving existing beliefs.
• Struggle to be able to articulate a position on ‘the literature’ or locate  the work you are doing within it
• Struggle to develop a theory or a model which allows the findings to be used, or applied to other cases

But I think threshold concepts can be more modest, mundane affairs.You may become stuck because you need to unlearn certain ways of doing things.

For instance, a research student wrote to me after my post on Scrivener thanking me for a sudden insight. He used to be a computer programmer. He realised that he had become ‘stuck’ because he had unconsciously approached research writing in the same way.

He had been trying to plan out all his chapters before writing them as he would a program. As a result he was becoming disheartened at the size and difficulty of the task. My description of myself as a messy writer suddenly provoked a simple, but powerful, realization: he could write ‘chunks’ of his thesis, without necessarily knowing what was coming next.

In grasping this he has realised something important about the whole process of research. Sometimes you don’t have to know what the outcome of a process will be – you just have to do it and see what happens.

It is hard for a supervisor to help a student through such a block because they are not always visible in the student’s behaviour. As the psychologist R.D Laing put it:

He does not think there is anything the matter with him
because
one of the things that is the matter with him
is that he does not think there is anything the matter with him

A lot of the advice on doing a PhD does not recognise these conceptual blocks. Many treat doing a thesis like a project which has to be ‘managed’, not a difficult and troublesome learning process.

Research degree learning involves encountering and changing some deeply habitual ways of operating and thinking. The project management approach doesn’t always work. Unfortunately, when it doesn’t, it’s all too easy to blame yourself for not working ‘efficiently’ – when this isn’t the problem you need to solve.

Even if you recognise the problem, crossing a threshold means you will probably encounter ‘troublesome’ knowledge. For our computer programmer the realisation that a thesis must be written ‘messily’ will not be easy to live with. Writing messily means you produce a lot of excess which has to be pared back.

I think the idea of ‘threshold concepts’ helps us think more positively about  ‘being stuck’ . Being stuck can be a sign you are becoming aware that you are, as Jack Mezirow put it, ‘caught in your own history’. A good way to move forward is to ask yourself: “Is there anything I need to unlearn?”

5 books to help you with your PhD

There’s so many, many books on the market that claim to help you with your PhD – which ones are worth buying? I have been thinking about it this topic for some time, but it’s still hard to decide. So here’s a provisional top 5, based on books I use again and again in my PhD workshops:

1. The craft of Research by Wayne Booth, Greg Colomb and Joseph Williams.

I wish I owned the copyright to this one because I am sure they sell a shed load every year. Although it seems to be written for undergraduates, PhD students like it for its straight forward, unfussy style. Just about every aspect of research is covered: from considering your audience to planning and writing a paper (or thesis). The section on asking research questions is an excellent walk through of epistemology: an area many people find conceptually difficult. I find it speaks to both science and non science people, but, like all books I have encountered in the ‘self help’ PhD genre, The Craft of Research does have a bias towards ‘traditional’ forms of research practice. You creative researcher types might like to buy it anyway, if only to help you know what you are departing from.

2. How to write a better thesis by Paul Gruba and David Evans

This was the first book I ever bought on the subject, which probably accounts for my fondness for it. I have recommended it to countless students over the 6 or so years I have been Thesis Whispering, many of whom write to thank me. The appealing thing about this book is that it doesn’t try to do too much. It sticks to the mechanics of writing a basic introduction> literature review> methods> results> conclusion style thesis, but I used it to write a project based creative research thesis when I did my masters and found the advice was still valid. Oh – and the price point is not bad either. If you can only afford one book on the list I would get this one.

3. Helping Doctoral Students to write by Barbara Kamler and Pat Thomson

I won an award for my thesis and this book is why. In Helping doctoral students to write Kamler and Thomson explain the concept of  ‘scholarly grammar’, providing plenty of before and after examples which even the grammar disabled like myself can understand. I constantly recommend this book to students, but I find that one has to be at a certain stage in the PhD process to really hear what it has to say. I’m not sure why this is, but if you have been getting frustratingly vague feedback from your supervisors – who are unhappy but can’t quite tell you why – you probably need to read this book. It is written for social science students, so scientists might be put off by the style – but please don’t let that stop you from giving it a go. Physicists and engineers have told me they loved the book too. If you want a bit more of the conceptual basis behind the book, read this earlier post on why a thesis is a bit like an avatar.

4. The unwritten rules of PhD research by Marian Petre and Gordon Rugg

I love this book because it recognises the social complexities of doing a PhD, without ever becoming maudlin. Indeed it’s genuinely funny in parts, which makes it a pleasure to read. The authors are at their best when explaining how academia works, such as the concept of ‘sharks in the water’ (the feeding frenzy sometimes witnessed in presentations when students make a mistake and are jumped on by senior academics) and the typology of supervisors. It’s also one of the better references I have found on writing conference papers.

5. 265 trouble shooting strategies for writing non fiction Barbara Fine Clouse

This book is great because it doesn’t try to teach you how to write – you already know how to do that. What you need more is something to help you tweak your writing and improve it. This book is basically a big list of strategies you might like to try when you are stuck, or bored with the way you are writing. This book is so useful I have literally loved it to death – the spine is hopelessly broken and pages are held in by sticky tape. There are many wonderful tips in here from ‘free writing’ and ‘write it backwards’ ideas, to diagramming methods and analytical tools. Opening it at almost any page will give you an idea of something new to try.

What books would be on your top 5 list and why?

5 ways to declutter your writing

Last week I was in Readings bookstore, with a $100 book voucher burning a hole in my pocket, when I spied a book called ‘On writing well: the classic guide to writing non fiction’ by William Zinsser. According to the cover ‘On writing well’ has sold more than a million copies, which piqued my curiosity (just as the publisher had intended). Since book vouchers are like academic candy – impossible not to spend instantly – I bought it straight away.

If you have been reading this blog for awhile you will know that I am a sucker for any book on writing. I thought I already owned everything worthy in the genre, but clearly not. The difference between Zinsser’s book and many others is that it deals with technicalities at the same time as being an inspiring call to action. Zinsser is all about the audience and how to make their reading experience more enjoyable without dumbing down your text – something all thesis writers must be interested in. I encourage you to go right out and buy this book if you don’t own it already. To convince you further here’s 5 ways to declutter your text based on some of Zinsser’s ideas:

1) Use brackets to diagnose ‘fuzz’ in your text

All writers (will have to) edit their prose, but (the) great writers edit (it) viciously, always trying to eliminate (words which are) ‘fuzz’ – (excess) words (which are not adding anything of value). Zinsser compares (the process of editing out) ‘fuzz’ to fighting weeds – you will always be slightly behind (because they creep in when you aren’t looking for them). One of my (pet hates) is (the word) ‘also’. (If you search and replace all instances (of this word) you will find you can live without it and your writing will improve (instantly). (Likewise the word)’very’.)

Let’s try that again:

All writers edit their prose, but great writers edit viciously. The point of editing is to eliminate ‘fuzz’, or excess words which don’t add value. Zinsser compares removing ‘fuzz’ to fighting weeds – you will always be slightly behind. Two examples of fuzz are ‘also’ and ‘very’. Work at keeping them out of your text and your writing will improve.

2) Pay attention to your adverbs and such

I’m a child of the 70′s, when, it seems, they gave up teaching grammar. I can’t explain what an adverb is, but I know one when I see it. Zinsser points out that “smile happily” doesn’t say much more than “smile” and that the tall in “tall skyscraper” is redundant. If you start to mentally put brackets around these words as you read you will start to see adverb abuse everywhere – which unfortunately makes reading trashy novels (very) irritating.

3) Get rid of qualifiers

Zinsser claims that qualifiers “weaken any sentence they inhabit”. Phrases like “in a sense”, “a bit”, “sort of” have no place in a thesis. Worse – they imply that you are apologetic or unsure of your ideas. This is not a  message you want to send to your examiners.

4) Strive for nuance

Grammar hurts my brain. It’s like trying to understand how I am walking as I walk and makes me dizzy. So I will make this next point without resorting to technical explanations. This advice comes out of Chapter 7 of Kamler and Thomson’s excellent book “Helping doctoral students to write”, but I think Zinsser would have approved. Consider the following sentences:

Inger argues that the words you use to describe the work of others is important
Inger asserts that the words you use to describe the work of others is important
Inger states that the words you use to describe the work of others is important
Inger outlines that the words you use to describe the work of others is important

There’s quite a difference between ‘argues’ and ‘asserts’. The first implies that Inger is making a case, the second implies that Inger is defending a position without necessarily providing any evidence for it. ‘Asserts’ adds a whiff of arrogance, but without over playing it (remember that academia is in a state of polite warfare). Likewise ‘stating’ something is different from ‘outlining’ it – the latter implies that some explanation is supplied which will help the reader understand what is being discussed.

Paying attention to the words you use to describe the work of others saves you the trouble of adding another sentence to explain to the reader what you think of the work. It’s the thesis writer’s equivalent of a nod and a wink to the reader. It’s hard work to remember all that nuance, so I keep a handy list of verbs on my wall.

5) Get comfortable with pruning the excess

It’s hard to write well on a subject if you don’t understand it clearly. Sometimes the only way to get to the idea is to write it out. It’s likely that you will generate far more text than you can, or should, use. It can be tempting to ‘dress up’ your writing to appear more intelligent. Resist the urge. The ideas and findings in a thesis are important; style is secondary. A simple and precise style is like painting your walls white – a backdrop against which your ideas can pop. It can be hard to do the necessary pruning, but remember that examiners are likely to view a thinner thesis as a sign that you are confident and in charge of your material.

Happy gardening thesis writers!

The stegosaurus strategy

The other day a student came to see me after his mid point presentation. He was upset because the panel chair had questioned the scope of the work and his ability get the rest of it done. The student felt the questioning was out of line. Who was this academic who hadn’t worked in a ‘proper job’ with real deadline for years and years to judge him and his capacities? He was no newbie – he’d had 25 years of professional experience for heaven’s sake! Wasn’t he best placed to judge his ability to complete the work?

The student was so angry he wanted this person could be kept off his review panel. He was somewhat taken aback when I suggested that such a person was actually ideal in that role. While I agreed that it was uncool for the person to be nasty in the way he gave the criticism, I saw no lasting harm if criticism was all it was. Yes, it would be difficult to have such a prickly, critical person as your primary supervisor, but having such people around does keep you on your toes and can be good for you.

The problem was that this student was used to collaborative, supportive workplaces where people worked towards common goals. He failed to understand that just about all of academia is in a state of endless, polite warfare. Arguing is the academic’s raison d’etre and spending time fighting this tendency is wasted energy. I suggested that the student adjust his attitude and start to treat this particular academic like an expert goal keeper in a football match. The idea of playing football is to work at landing the ball in the net, to take offense at the goal keeper’s existence.

Now of course many academics are moderate and helpful in the way they approach criticism. I’m pleased to say that a great many that I meet on review panels seek to have a dialogue with the student, rather than an argument, but there are plenty of exceptions. There’s a reason why a wise person once said that academia is like a group of warring principalities united by a common parking problem. Some of the arguing is the result of genuine differences of opinion; in other instances it is mere jockeying for power – either way, sooner or later, you’re bound to find yourself on the sharp end of it.

Although I am handing out this advice, believe me when I say I’m conflicted about comparing academia to a football game. I’m well aware there’s a downside to this culture of criticism.

I spent my first 8 years in academia in an architecture department where it was a perverse mark of pride to be ripped to shreds by a guest review panel. The guest reviewers were professional architects who had suffered through this system themselves and knew all the tricks. Some of them would become so angered by poor student work they would rip drawings from the wall and throw models on the ground. This kind of behaviour seemed, for the most part, to be viewed as theatre rather than abuse – which is a sad commentary on the state of teaching in the profession at the time.

The first time I stood up to defend my design work, some 20 years ago now, I had no idea what was coming and ended up crying in the bathroom, wondering, a mere 4 days in, whether was too early to quit my degree. A kindly third year student followed me in, handed me a tissue and gave me a pep talk. She told me that criticism can be helpful, but it is always hard to hear. She suggested that I learn to take it – or choose a new career, because what she had just witnessed me go through was mild compared to what I would face later.

I took her advice to heart, I learned to take it, but I never did get used to it. Something worse happened – I started to avoid it. I slowly learned what critics wanted to see and started giving it to them. In fact I became expert at  internalising the culture of the school I became a chameleon. I managed to graduate that degree with honours, but somewhere along the way I lost sight of me. It is hardly surprising that I didn’t last long as a practising architect: I was working from a place of fear, not love.

Other students reacted differently to this deluge of criticism – becoming increasingly combative, argumentative and reactionary. These students took up what I like to call the Stegosaurus strategy. When faced with a T-rex determined to eat you, grow armour and  learn to swing your huge spikey tail. During the review sessions the students would argue back, sometimes stalking off in righteous indignation. In my opinion being a stegosaurus is almost as bad as being a chameleon. One of two things seemed to happen to these people: either they become an outcast or they became one of the bullies. The problem is, if you get really good at arguing back, you are not spending time listening. Eventually no one dares criticise you at all and you miss out on the valuable correctives you need to make your work better.

Many new PhD students are not used to this aspect of academic culture and I have little of comfort to provide. Learning to exist and thrive in this culture can take some time and it pays to remember Machiavelli’s aphorism: “Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer”. Learn from these people, but try not to become a chameleon – or a stegosaurus.

Parenting through a PhD (or 5 ways not to go completely insane)

PhD students are an interesting cohort. At our university the average age of a PhD student is 36, which means you can safely bet that most students have some family responsibilities – either to a spouse, elderly parents, animals or children.

Parenting is challenging for PhD students because, in addition to the caring work that you have to do, there is huge potential for WORRY and GUILT. Children get sick, they fall over at school, get stung by bees, have problems with their playmates, stick coins so far up their nose that they have to have their stomachs pumped (true – and don’t ask).

Added to this, parents must constantly have one eye on the future consequences of the actions they take today. In fact, you name an activity – usually a fun one – and there will be some expert out there who can tell you how bad it will be for your child and how much it will screw them up as an adult. You can’t win – but you can try, so here’s my top five tips for parenting through a PhD:

1) See the positives of daycare

My son was 8 months old when I started my Masters degree and 7 years old when I finished my PhD. The poor little guy is probably the only kid at his school who knows that doctors don’t just look after sick people. I was able to do this because of Day Care, which some people will tell you is evil. Well – not in my experience I have to say.

As Hilary Clinton said: it takes a village to raise a child. I’m no child raising expert – but daycare people who bought up my son with me were. They patiently taught my son to eat with a spoon, drink from a cup, go to the toilet and dress himself, amongst many other things. They also helped him learn to manage his feelings, talk about them and make friends with others. As a result I think in many ways my son is more emotionally mature at 8 than I was at 18.

Daycare professionals helped me be a better parent.  They gave me advice about toilet training, sleep issues and any number of funny rashes. When I was feeling like I was doing a crap job, they reassured me that everything was ok and that my son wouldn’t turn into a serial killer. Oh – and they didn’t have a television there, which leads me to point two

2) Get yourself a Tivo / PVR or IQ

Someone very wise and funny once called the TV an off switch for children. Certainly large amounts of my Masters and PhD were written using the electronic baby sitter. I’m not proud, but that’s the way it was, no point in denying it.

I did assuage my guilt about TV time by forcing the poor child to watch mainly educational programs. Rather than spend a fortune on DVDs, we bought a TiVo so we could control what he watched. Before he could read this worked well because he couldn’t even turn it on without me. Now of course he can delete all my ‘Grand Designs’ and replace them with ‘Scooby Doo’…

3) Reach out to other PhD parents

It’s great to make friends with other PhD students who have kids if it’s possible. If you are lucky and your kids like each other there is potential for play dates and sleepovers. It’s probably good for your kid to see that other kids have to put up with a PhD in their lives. Even if you only strike up workplace friendships, the benefits of a therapeutic moan with someone who knows what you are going through cannot be over estimated!

4) Be proud of what you do

I tried not to be apologetic about the time that the PhD took away from my family. I felt like this would send all kinds of bad messages to both partner and child. Whenever I would have to say ‘no’ to doing something on PhD related grounds I would explain to my son that the PhD was important to the whole family, not just me. I was studying to make a difference to our future; a PhD meant a better job, a roof over his head, food in his mouth and other fun stuff.

I made sure to show him how much I liked PhD study. Some weekends I would take him into my office and work for an hour or two; setting him up on his own desk with some ‘work’ for my PhD so he felt like he was helping. Then we would go out for cake and explore the campus while talking about what uni is like and why it is a great place to be. He still remembers these fun times and wants to do his own PhD  – which will be about volcanos

5) Sometimes it’s better just to give up

My son was 3 when the chicken pox vaccine came out. I trotted off to the doctors as soon as possible, only to be told that they were out of stock for two weeks. That very day the creche posted a sign saying that a child had been diagnosed with it.

Too late.

Brendan came out in lots and lots of spots. Naturally this happened right before a major milestone presentation, so I was stressed out. But Brendan felt terrible – all he wanted to do was sit on my lap and watch ‘Toy Story’ repeatedly for three days. I tried to read, but after the first day I went into some kind of stupor. It’s hard to read Heidegger and listen to Buzz Lightyear argue with Woody, so I just gave up. I sat there and cuddled him for 3 days and you know what – it was kind of beautiful. When I went back to study I was quite refreshed.

I only have one child as you can probably tell, so other people probably have many more coping strategies than I do – I would love to hear them.