Living in Liminal Space

What I'm learning from my PhD

I’m doing my PhD part-time while I work full-time in a management position at a University. As my PhD is about doing a PhD I’ve learned a lot about what people say about doing a PhD. But what am I learning about myself?

I’ve learned that I’m more precious about my writing than I thought I was. I’ve taught academic writing and I’ve worked as an editor; I understand about drafts and rough writing and using phrases like [XXXcheck this later – not sure] and [XXXget more refs] in drafts. But I’ve found I’m surprisingly vain about what I send to my supervisors. I keep polishing and polishing, not wanting to send them anything that isn’t as near perfect as I can get it. I really struggle sometimes to press the ‘send’ button on my drafts.

As I have eight years to do my PhD (I’m presently nearing the end of my sixth year), the time can seem to stretch to infinity; in the earlier years, months could go by and I wouldn’t have done anything much. So I’ve learned not to let that happen – I need to set goals. I’ve learned that I have to prioritise my PhD. I’m not an academic, so I get a very small amount of study leave – 10 days a year, which I take one day at a time, interspersed with SDOs. This means I can work on my PhD every Sunday and every second Monday. So the time that I have outside my paid work is precious; I need to use it well. If I have a few days off work (say, the Easter or Christmas break), I split the time roughly half and half between PhD and relaxation. I have even taken a week‘s annual leave to work on my PhD in a block from time to time. This is a hard thing to do, but the satisfaction of having a draft moved along or a chapter knocked into a better shape has made it well worthwhile. But I’ve also learned that I can pace myself (most of the time). If I have a weekend ‘off’ (usually after I’ve had a good block of time on PhD) I don’t have to chastise myself or feel guilty: I needed the break and the work will get done. In fact, when I return I am often excited and energised by my work rather than dispirited and depressed.

Finally, I’ve confirmed for myself how stubborn and determined I am, and how important those attributes are if you want to do a PhD part-time. You really have to be a bulldozer. Having a totally supportive partner is a bonus for me; she sometimes helps when I’m flagging by giving me treats to make it all go a little easier – she cooks on Sundays and does all the washing and ironing, for example – and of course she’s giving up Sunday picnics and some social events too, so her commitment to my PhD is crucial. But, in the end, I’m the only one who can do this, and I just have to get on and do it. I can’t blame or credit anyone else: it’s mine, all mine!

Development of an idea

 Inger and I were using Twitter to discuss a new book: Mapping Your Thesis: The comprehensive manual of theory and techniques for masters’ and doctoral research, which is being sold at $89.95, far out of the reach of most students. I suggested it could have been offered online for less.

 

Writing about PhD examination

It's a bit weird, writing about how the PhD is examined and how that is perceived by students, knowing that possibly the only people who will ever read what I'm writing (apart from supervisors) will be the examiners. In The Reflexive Thesis, Malcolm Ashmore begins his thesis by quoting from the Regulations of his University on the form of an Introduction to a thesis, then deconstructing that in the form of an address to his readers (ie the examiners):

The first task of my Introduction is to introduce my readers into my text: You're welcome. The text is now yours. The second task of your introduction is to consider whether what follows (preceding the first chapter of the thesis) is a contravention of the Regulation quoted above.

I don't think I'm that bold (or that confident!)

So I will start by looking at the academic literature on examination in Australia (surprisingly broad), then the Regulations at Sydney. Then there are my notes from the session Prof Jones gave us on thesis examination, and I also need to check the interviews to see what my key informants have said.

Page to search for all relevant links and get pdfs of the latest policy (search on Phd): http://fmweb01.ucc.usyd.edu.au/FMPro?-db=POL_Main.fp5&-format=/pol/pol_search.html&-lay=www&-view

Relevant links from the online calendar:

Rule 2004 (regarding the PhD)

For the thesis and examination process:

http://www.usyd.edu.au/calendar/06a_resolutions.shtml#phddeg

Have saved all pdfs that look relevant.

It feels a bit fraudulent, writing about examination first, because it's probably the easiest part of the thesis. It's dealing with probably the most measurable issues, and there's been lots written about it. But isn't that what I've been telling students for years: begin with what you know best.

Interesting website to follow up

From Lilia's honest and moving post on publishing a thesis. It is a series of 'conversations' held at Stanford called 'How I write'. Has audio, video, transcripts and commentary. It includes a group of grad students, too.

On interviewing

Now that I have done eight interviews and have the remaining interviewees in my sights, I am thinking about the ethics and the process of interviewing in a different way.

I've done my share of interviewing, for newsletters of various kinds, for eLearning exemplar sites, on journalism courses etc. With all of these interviews (usually unstructured or semi-structured), you are interviewing to get information for your story, and some colour with the odd quote. Once you've done the interview you need to identify your 'angle', and when you write you use that angle to focus what you have learned.

In an ethnographic study, you are interviewing your 'key informants' for, well, their key sources and pieces of information. But although you might want to pretend that you are reporting them in a naturalistic way, you are of course interpreting what they say even as you sit in front of them. Listening to my interviews again I am learning a lot about my own conceptions as I listen to what I say as well as to what my subjects say. I can hear myself interpreting as I listen, so now I have another layer to look at!

Jen Ross (bless her cotton socks!) has raised the issues of transcription as translation at exactly the right time for me. She makes the point that the transcription is a different document from the interview tape; that it reveals things that may not be evident on the tape; things like pauses and comments from the interviewer that the listener may 'erase' without realising. Her story of the tape that was inadvertantly transcribed by two different transcibers is fascinating. I haven't yet decided if I will transcribe my interviews; I am enjoying listening to them and thinking about them and making notes as I do so. But if I do transcribe them I will be much more alert to the issues that the textual reproduction raises than I would have been before.

Annual Review redux

For the first time my annual review meeting was a cordial and useful event. The first year I was criticised for not putting a Lit Review in my enrolment application (the whole thing was an integrated Lit Review). The second year the chair seemed to be terrified by my supervisor's presence and nothing useful was achieved. The third year the chair kept insisting that I would benefit greatly by attending her academic writing course (even after I'd explained that I used to teach academic writing and had worked as a writer andeditor for years). This year the chair expressed enthusiasm about my project and my thesis, helped to sort out an administrative glitch, and made me feel there was some point to the process for the first time.

I think that this is partly because the Faculty is developing a clearer understanding of what should be expected in a PhD and is seeing the interviews as more supportive than tickbox (I hope so!). It is also because the people involved treated me as an individual with a slightly unusual path (and byt hat I don't waant to imply that there is a usual path!), not as some dangerous outlyer - well, that's how it felt to me.

Annette Markham on the shifting ground of ethnography

Life online, pp79-83. This echoes what I wrote here.

I really like the structure of this book. With a lot more academic underpinnings added (as would be appropriate for a thesis as opposed to a book) it will be a useful one for me to keep in mind. I especially like the way she splits the text between 'conversationalised' transcripts and commentary (same font but a device on the page to separate them - I think a lot of fonts can be really messy and irritating to read - this was a problem I have been wrestling with). And her use of 'Interludes' between the chapters is a really good idea for me.

So she uses two fonts: Courier for the actual transcripts and a serifed font (Times or similar) for everything else. Apart from the device I mentioned (actually a centered asterisk) and italics for the reflections on the transcripts and events of the project that she's adding at the time of writing, there is no other 'play' with the fomatting, and I think that's a good way to go.

It's funny that I first read this book a couple of years ago, but it's only now I can really appreciate it. I sometimes think that my general stubbornness in life goes against me in academic work - it seems to take me a while to really internalise an idea and until I do I have trouble working with it. But once I've got it, it's there for good and it becomes an integral part of my thinking.

Added later: the textual separation will be useful for distinctions between what was going on at the time and my later reflection (which is essentially how Markham has done it). Gives depth and layering to the text.

Autoethnography resources

Sarah Wall (2006)

Nicholas Holt in IJQM 2,1

Margot Duncan in IJQM 3,4

Also...

	Davies, Charlotte Aull.
Title	Reflexive ethnography : a guide to researching selves and others / Charlotte Aull Davies.
Publisher	London ; New York : Routledge, 1999.
Subject	Ethnology -- Research.

 

LOCATION	CALL #	STATUS
Fisher Research	305.800723 8	AWAITS PICKUP

Purchased.

Conference blog 1

I've just given my presentation and had a really good talk with Annette Markham, which was a buzz for me.  It's always good to confirm that what you're doing is worthwhile, and she confirmed it. The doctoral colloquium yesterday was more about raising 'issues' and pointing out pitfalls; the mentor seemed to be telling me that what I was doing was terribly difficult - not that she thought I couldn't do it, but that I was taking on something more than usually challenging. So it was good to get positive feedback too.  We connected about other things as well - how it's possible to be creative with LMSs. She's now working for a US Dept of Corrections, creating online education, and seems to be enjoying the challenge. And then her project to write an ethnographic account of the actions of IRBs (Ethics Committees in the US environment). That's what I call taking the argument right to the enemy.

Nice phrase

Page 9 of Narrative Enquiry (Clandinin and Connelly), describing Bateson's ideas in Peripheral visions:

For Bateson, what is written, finally, is the inquiring agent's construction: It is an "I" document. It is "I" who writes the constructions because this authorial voice reduces what she calls the "timeless authority: this is so" (pp75-76) and [increases?] the resistance to a "temptation to be categorical" (pp75-76).    ...the "I" ... grows out of the ambiguous shifting participant observation relationships, the "I" ... learns by seeing and teling stories along the way, and ... writes stories of relationship.

Incidentally the page for the Bateson book at Amazon indicates that she cites Lave and Wenger's Situated Learning. This could be an important link for me.