On becoming a PhD: just who is being domesticated in the writing

The PhD as a space for creative writing is sometimes considered risky, however if the coherence is able to be argued then creative writing can be included. This is a page from the thesis, it was written in bradley hand script over an image of a cell phone. The intent being the sense of closeness, the companion species that a mobile phone might be seen as. Studying materiality made the materiality of how work was presented important.

On becoming a hybrid
I got it as a gift, but I had to get it a sim card & establish a contract with a service provider, take it home, plug it in, charge it… Wait…wait…hours of waiting… Read the manual. Personalise it; choose my language (English & predictive test) enter ph. no.s (I’ve outsourced my memory). Send a message to family & friends so they know my no., set the calendar, clock, choose a background, select preferred ring-tone & volume. Try them all out. Reply to half the friends & relations. Set the alarm clock. Put in appointments. Phew. Look at the manual to work the camera, learn how to save & send photos, & bluetooth them to my computer. What is Bluetooth anyway? Read the manual online… Check with service provider about overseas roaming to send or call from Aus to NZ on a NZ ph., (0011649… need 2 check for service provider coverage, remember to keep ph. with me or risk my relationship, check for missed calls, oh & for unread txts. I hate the demands of why didn’t you answer your phone….
I become conscious of costs & having to feed it by prepay, & ensure its power supply is maintained. Learn to clear messages, sent & received otherwise it tells me “memory is full, clear messages from any box”. I continue to transfuse it with money, negotiate the credit card with the service provider, keep clearing messages, plug it in when its flat…
I still don’t know how to use it for email or internet, play games, or as a radio, I could download music to it, pay for parking, check movies … I discovered it can also be a torch by manipulating the camera flash, and it’s a calculator, plus a notepad… I’m loving it. It’s old technology already & I only use it for a fraction of what it makes possible!
Now I wouldn’t be without it; got my keys, my cash my mobile… oh and my charger if going away a few days. I’d be bereft without it, how would I get in touch with people? How would I know their no.s? What if I’m running l8? Or the car breaks down?
I’ve bought it a cute cover; to stop her getting knocked about. Oh, and you noticed the charm? she's just cuter with it on…. Well yes, I’ve had pets that are less demanding. Well at least the Tamagotchi & goldfish were, mmm the cats, well yes, this is about as financially demanding as the cat I suppose… but hey now me and my cell go everywhere together. I even chose my handbag with the outside pocket so she's always at hand while also having her own space…

I’m the one domesticated!

(And as for being domesticated, the computer word doc and pdf doc required so many more accommodations on my part, having to choose a font that would stay stable across both PC and mac was problematic- thanks to Andrew LAvery of Academic consultancy, that particular issue got sorted somewhat.)

Thanks extended to Donna Haraway who described stories of materialised refiguration; stories where metaphor and materiality implode. She provided the provocation to think of how technologies are not so much separated from our existence. In addition she provoked consideration for the realtionships we might have/I might have with companion species.
Thanks as well to Bruno Latour for writing in ways that demonstrate that freedom and creativity need not be excluded from academic writing, a genre he refers to as scientification. He prompts consideration for symmetry in the analysis of our relationships with beings human or otherwise, that they might be interrogated on an equal footing (so to speak).
Thanks also to Karen Barad for her writing of identity and agency reflecting ongoing reconfigurations,

and the sure knowledge that boundaries do not sit still.

Refs of specific interest:
Barad, K. (2003). Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 28(3), 801-831. doi:10.1086/345321
Haraway, D. (2008). When species meet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Latour, B. (1996). Aramis: Or the love of technology (C. Porter, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

are we there yet? Almost!

In terms of my PhD, it is just around the corner, it is as if the signposts point to it, and i can see it just a little way off.
After 130 days that became increasingly anxiety provoking; despite the reassurance of my supervisor and my friends, I was becoming teary at the thought that
a. the examiners might not have found it an easy or compelling read
b. that the possible reasons for a slow result were less associated with timing, travel or illness, and might signify a poor quality of thesis.

I began to construct origami cranes out of earlier drafts drawing on hope that when i had a thousand what i wished for (a pass) would come true. And at least they looked good. And if worst came to worse letting them fall from some high place might befit a saying goodbye to such hope.

But I am almost there, I do now have results, i have basked in most of what was written, and identified the contradictions between different examiners. I have some 50 typos that i am embarrassed by, i had only noted 10 or so. I placate myself in thinking that is one error for just under every 2000 words written; 1 for every 6 pages or there abouts.

The fears I had were unfounded. Where i had pushed the envelope a bit, noted by one department reader as not being the usual genre for a phd, ("a cross between Yoda and a Turner-Hospital novel") did me no harm, but it was where my anxiety lay. In writing atypically, particularly in my data discussion area, i had written in a style that depicted juxtapositioning, the written policies as pdfs, alongside tiffs of painting and composite photographs, images of data and of quotes. One examiner didn't get it. Not all readers 'get' Aramis by Latour, or Aircraft stories by John Law, or the body multiple by Mol. Nonetheless I am glad i did it. I had not aspired to mediocracy. And yet i had constrained myself to what i saw as a 'typical' structural layout for fear that to do otherwise might lose the thesis marker entirely.

I need to make minor amendments, the typos, and i agree with the advice on early writing still being present where my later writing would have picked up on weaker definitions drawn on. There are then some really good pointers in my comments where integrating some more useful literature alongside a couple of definitions would make for a stronger end product. I also got pulled up on an area i glossed; the exact number of young people in the study. I deserved to be pulled up on this, there had been deliberate obfuscation on my part. An astute examination indeed. There is also a recommendation on structure, again an astute examiner noted the morphing of one section into another. I know why it happened; it had previously sat in the other chapter, my rewrite had always found the shift a little messy. It had been sectioning that i had never really been happy with.
I am very appreciative of the advice given.
And overall, I am very happy with the rigor of reading provided. 8 years of work deserves the very serious attention my writing received.
So now to make the changes.
Just waiting on the post marking tiredness to settle; i had not really allowed myself to relax until i had heard, and my writing voice had become more and more constrained in the anxiety of waiting.
i think i am now ready; i have 4 weeks (now) to resubmit.

Writing a phd in plain english.

At up-goer-five there is a challenging little piece of software that challenges a writer to explain things using only the commonest english words.
Actor-network theory has been described as having a propensity for obscure terms if not deliberate obfuscation. So I thought I would try and see if I could explain my actor-network theory study simply. While I think there are some oddities in the language of this methodology, I thought I had a pretty good handle on it and that the language I had used in my thesis was simple enough. So I attempted it.

I tried it for explaining my thesis in simple, commonly used words. The site limits you to writing in the 10,000 words most commonly used in english,
I failed on the first two words I attempted to use!

I can now breathe a sigh of relief that thesis writing for supervisors is easier than writing only in the commonest 10,000 words of english language! Thank goodness i didnt have to write in the format of both common words and rhyme that Dr Seuss accomplished for discerning 4 and 5 year olds. Thank goodness PhD examiners are easier to please!!!

Here's what I managed for my actor-network informed study into telephone counselling when it gets shifted from an oral medium to a text messaging based one.

What happens when we start to use different things in what we do? As much as we think we are in control of what we do and what we use, how much do those things in turn also change us?

I studied how our changing use of phones changed the work of a young people's help-line. The phones at this help-line now ring less and less often; young people still have problems, and still need help, but this happens in silence. This study looks into what happens when talking through problems is done in silence; what happens when young people write about their problems instead of talking; and what happens when that writing is made to fit the very small space of a cell phone window.

Finding out what happens is told as a story of many parts. I tell a story of the people, and things, that grow this new type of work.

What is also shown is a story of power and control; a story of what is weak or strong and it talks of who gets to decide what is good, bad, right or wrong. The story I tell does does not suggest what people should do, it is a story that makes for a way of seeing things which makes it possible to see that things could also be done in other ways.

Meantime for those in the know of actor-network theory and its convolutions, Dr Seuss already has it covered with it being turtles all the way down. Scale of big and little not being as relevant as place and space and connections. Apparently though turtles also falls out of the commonest 10,000 words in the english language, along with 'ant'.

I have written at least the abstract of the thesis in multiple versions on this blog: http://amusingspace.blogspot.co.nz/2011/04/thesis-in-almost-plain-language.html, a 3MT or three minute thesis, and a thesis by Haiku, a description of the processes of thesis writing in lolcat memes, a youtube clip that enigmatically folds the world... as a form of origami thesis and a Flikr gallery of the phd writing process in pictures.
My procrastination knows few boundaries. I draw the line at a thesis by dance.

The life of Pi: a metaphor of Phd survival?

Is it madness to undertake a PhD?

“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

And so embarking on a PhD is not madness, the madness is already within.

Being all at sea; drowning past relationships and not knowing if the current trip will be survived seems an apt metaphor for the phd journey:
There's an alter ego to be managed: trained if not tamed.
One's tiger needs feeding if it is not to consume the self.
All rules for being lost at sea with a tiger need to be followed...and then abandoned. There are no rules for this scenario.
From the research proposal through to the ethics application and to data collecting...

“Things didn't turn out the way they're supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Be ready to let go.
Madness, or at least anxiety and depression seem, from my observation, to be what occurs when one tries so hard to hold it tight.

On writing of what is studied, there is no one way, no 'one correct way', to do this. There is no objective reality that can be replicated in one's writing; what is written of is the story, what is drawn is the map; do not mistake the story thereof, or the map, for reality.

“The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?
Doesn't that make life a story?”
...
“So you want another story?"
Uhh... no. We would like to know what really happened."
Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?"
Uhh... perhaps in English. In Japanese a story would have an element of invention in it. We don't want any invention. We want the 'straight facts,' as you say in English."
Isn't telling about something--using words, English or Japanese--already something of an invention? Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

There's the danger of losing oneself in the journey; of not leaving an apparent safe haven that masks potentially fatal entrapment.

“Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Make friends; play nicely; get support- virtual (#phdchat) or otherwise (other students, your supervisor)

“You can get used to anything - haven't I already said that? Isn't that what all survivors say?”
...
“I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary.
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

The work gets progressed. it gets enacted not by hope or by wanting, but in action.

“I had to stop hoping so much that a ship would rescue me. I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and to do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

And having completed this phase of my journey:

“Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.
I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.”
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Flying too close to the sun; the PhD as an Icarus adventure.

I have flown too close to the sun.
For 8 years I've been working flat out on creating a phd that has anti-climaxed and now inhabit a space where i am no longer flying, but i havent hit the ground yet either.

Along the way, I have spent part of my time exhausting myself trying to predict, and then control, what markers as well as imagined other readers would think about my work.
Will they get it?
What does it mean to have a thesis that's not in the usual genre of a thesis?
Is it too avant garde: too "Yoda', too Turner-Hospital? Too ANTish? The partial story line suggest not knowing where its going...
These are criticisms i have already experienced.
Is there only one way to write a book?
I can cripple myself thinking what I have written might not work.

At some level, I also know such thinking can make the colourful beige, the vibrant a still pond. At its worst it can lead to a non submission.

I wanted to go as far as I could, but with fears of being burnt, I hold back, playing it safe, just stretching the comfort zone, mine own and that of markers.

Writing a PhD is to write to be judged. Overtly. This writing is not an act of art for art's sake. It's scary. There is lots of potential for being failed. And of failing oneself. All very self-referential in a thesis of change, of risk and failure as much as it is about innovation and new ways of being. An Icarus adventure then;
of flying closer to the sun.

Seth Godin reports, "trying to control what other people think is a trap".
But that's the trappings of academia: of writing and not being found wanting.
How then to avoid writing with a voice that is stifled by what others might think? Is it possible, or even desirable, to avoid being both audience and writer? As noted by Seth Godin, to attempt both is exhausting and counterproductive. I cannot be second guessing all the time what unknown others might think.


"This might not work" is a curse but reframing allows for flight. I've been reminded I never wanted a perfunctory thesis; I did not aspire to writing it in someone else's voice; I did not want beige or mediocre. A PhD is then also a chance to fly.

Writing at 4.00 AM in the morning, unable to sleep, and with habits of writing in every spare moment, I listen to Seth Godin write of his Icarus adventures, of his newest book and see so many parallels. In his writing (and he is a celebrated successful author) he talks of listening to himself, and of forgetting what he had written, not recognizing his own 'voice'. Of listening to himself and crying. I am very humbled to have this person being so open and honest about his own risks, he writes:

"Hearing myself, months later, reading something I didn't remember writing or reading, I shed a few tears. Yes, this is work worth doing."

And I am reminded also of Patti Lather's an ache of wings in troubling how to write.

And am reminded that Flying close to the sun is exactly where i want to be.

What haiku and ANT have in common

What haiku and ANT have in common:
They both aim to tell a story that engages
They aim to tell of threads that cross, of networks made
Both run the risk of a fringe audience
They both fold associated but not yet recognized materiality...there is a sense of disrupting arbitrary notions such as small and big - both being part of a whole
They both allude to how things might be arranged differently

Characteristics of haiku (from http://www.creative-writing-now.com/how-to-write-a-haiku.html)

The following are typical of haiku:

A focus on nature.
A "season word" such as "snow" which tells the reader what time of year it is.
A division somewhere in the poem, which focuses first on one thing, than on another. The relationship between these two parts is sometimes surprising.
Instead of saying how a scene makes him or her feel, the poet shows the details that caused that emotion. If the sight of an empty winter sky made the poet feel lonely, describing that sky can give the same feeling to the reader.

This blogpost was brought about by some writers block advice = work on two projects at once, when one gets too hard the other holds more appeal.
So here i am avoiding the thesis task.
Reading and writing about the writing instead.
Here's an excellent site for some writing hacks for the blocked writer by Scott Berkun
His snowflake approach to writing is worth a look too.
I find it oddly settling since Ive had it pointed out on my penultimate draft of my phd that it doesnt seem to follow the genre of a phd...
Apparently these have a trajectory, they find a hole and fill it; they have a trajectory; they provide answers...
Mine instead is described thus (my first book review? vs peer review?)

"You take a very gentle approach - developing your arguments around the literature- although, areas of research/theory are treated one after another, your arguments are not presented linearly as is common in a thesis; instead, they are more iterative and cumulative as the points you make wash over the reader in layers."

and that it sits

"somewhere between a Janette Turner-Hospital novel and a conversation with Yoda ☺"
I'm going to have to read some Janette Turner Hospital, I hope to find she writes wellor at least that I find her readable.

i have no doubt my thesis might be arranged differently.
it is after all its own performance

If only I could write like this:

Void in form

When, just as they are,
White dewdrops gather,
On scarlet maple leaves,
Regard the scarlet beads!

by Ikkyu

And because i am avoiding the opening of another page of feedback that i need to negotiate, I try

A voiding

but all i get to is the first line before
as Berkun suggests...i am driven back to my other hard task while i avoid the hardness of this one...

Reflections on progressing doctoral work as a work in progress

This blog post was precipitated by responses i made over on silence and voice on Jeffrey Keefers blog.
The void in form is a beautiful haiku on how we are shaped in association, this blog expand on this further in considering how the phd thesis is extended through associations, particularly via presenting.
(Acknowledging Lennie, I. (2003). Managing metaphorically. In S. Linstead (Ed.), Text/work : representing organization and organizing representation (pp. 41-56). London, England: Routledge.
whose article introduced me to the haiku above)

My first writings to my supervisor came back with an email subject line saying "all good", made me want to open the email :)
This was an unbelievable experience: to have a supervisor with a positive orientation toward the formation of ideas. My previous experience as a student was a supervisor who saw his role as critical and shredding; in the line of what doesnt kill you makes you stronger (this by the way is a patently rubbish approach, even though at the time i thought it was good for me *sigh* ). Has taught me so much about supervision and encouragement.

My first two conferences, really got me nothing beyond my own clarity in writing better, thinking better. feedback zilch.
But still extremely useful as my own clarity was invaluable.

Most conferences treat my subject as a voyeuristic oddity. Slightly annoying but at least tells me my subject is still new knowledge.

My fourth conference provided someone with an opportunity just to pass judgement on young people/peer counselling as suspect. Yes there are some people as just want to make themselves look grand. Didnt work. Looking back it just feeds one of my current conclusions regarding violence against young people and their living in a world lacking in trust and where weaknesses rather than strengths are made larger than life. At the time i thought nothing of it. I presented with a broken foot, all other pain paled into insignificance. I really didnt care much about it at the time, but the niggle is still there. Learning to share: Please do not grandstage at conference presentations.

My third conference, a tiny little one, a seminar would be more accurate, this was more informal and positive, but the methodology (narrative) was sideways to my own, but their interest and encouragement was great, particularly a willingness to entertain that a thesis could contain imagery. I was really unwell at this one, probably undiagnosed swine flu in the days preceding.

An online presentation in a MOOC was grand, shared space with an excellent researcher and thinker Frances Bell. Again what i learned of my own thinking and of shared presentation was probably more important than feedback gained, but this felt like a learning curve on a new area of thinking that i think i will be mulling post doc as well.

My presentation to workplace seminar: I think they wondered on what planet this could be called research. Nothing constructive here except i felt pressured to put actor-network theory into modes of thinking they might recognize as valid such as discourse analysis or psychoanalytical thinking. Retrospectively this taught me of how pressured we are to make sociological excuses for doing sociology. Taught me to stay true to form.

A three minute thesis competition precipitated me into thinking conclusions, useful as I changed gear in my thinking, even though those conclusions are less important than the ones i have now.

Presentation back to my site of study. Really good opportunity to share findings, had learned from previous presentations, these people didnt get side tracked with the voyeurism. They precipitated their own "so what" ways of thinking on what was shared. the heart and purpose of an ANT analysis though i dont think i recognized this at the time. I was surprizingly nervous on this one. I knew they knew if i would be talking sense or not.

Presentations on work in progress to own phd group always invaluable= Feel the support. These people experience the journey and speak with heart. This also helped with reframing of what felt like wicked problems that got me past periods of crisis.

I am looking forward to my next conference; again topic a bit sideways, more of a teaching learning focus; but at least method might be understood. Am looking forward to what others do using the method also as this is a rarity for me.
I have also never been to a conference with a doctoral consortium before or with people i have 'met online' but not in real life.

Other challenges to my thinking included some chapter writing and text book and journal editing. Again useful in clarifying the thinking. Occassionally distracting, a sideways movement to my thesis writing but linked. Problem has been when i know i have written it but word searching the thesis doesnt find it...because it was elsewhere. Some of this i still wonder about shifting across but word counts make this difficult. Other option is to cite myself :)

Ive also playfully presented what i am studying using other media just to see how it shifts the thoughts; haiku, the twitter 140 word challenge, plain language statements...
My biggest challenge has been a research question that writhes. which part of this monster do i elect to stay with., how to tame it into a jar of 1000,000 words.
During phases of my writing i have blogged for feedback, but actually this is more often a repository of thoughts as they coagulate. However, its also been a space where others have sometimes engaged with me. There are authors who respond when mentioned, who are happy to expand their own thinking as well as that of others in this joyous thinking exercise... an Ive had moments of stained glass and sunshine in blogging where I engaged with Prof Tom Baker, replicating the classic Rollo May/ Carl Rogers argument on goodness/badness.
His response of Fur Elise brought tears to my eyes. Writing this thesis has been breathtaking at times. truly honouring. now to finish it. honouring all those that have helped it on its way.

What have been your experiences of what progressed your Phd in presenting your work to others?

Me and my significant other (PhD)

Spicing up my relationship with my thesis
OK you dont want to do the research i did to get here, googling this is seedy. But here's the list i managed:

Make a date
Do it somewhere else (cafe writing)
Focus on what brought you together, reminisce on the highlights
Dont focus on the big O... make the journey pleasurable
Get a book about new positions... (read as new ways to approach that chapter)
Have time alone and time together (will i ever come back if i spend time alone)
Dont come to it tired
Experiment: clothe it differently - talk/write in a different voice, role play...
Fantasize the future; practice introducing yourself as Dr....plan a honeymoon .... the graduation party... play dressups Find out what your regalia will be, imagine self appropriately attired.

Ok, none of those quite did it for me (today)
So its PhD tough love time:
set the parameters
check in every day
make a compulsory 20 mins together with no distraction commitment

Please, keep it seemly, but if you have further suggestions, please add them here, i need them.

analysis paralysis or lost on the dark side of the moon

Its not totally incapacitating, i can analyze my results, my problem is what to spend time analyzing, what to put in, what to take out.
The data i collected reminds me of a prism that defracts white light into pretty much infinite layers of colour. One path in into this but many multitude of paths out...which i attend to? Which are pretty, shortest route, best journey, best companions... distracting, lead nowhere, are already well travelled?

I wasnt expecting this.
The research process says formulate the question, do the data capture, immerse in the data and the answers fall out.
Yeah, right.

And then i went a bit postmodern, whose answers matter? Whose answers matter most?
I tell myself in my sternest voice: Take a punt, its certification you want, and not in the sense of a being certified.
But I'm still stuck, I've written several concluding segments, and there could be many more, but a word count doesn't allow for all of these, so just choose!

But which one! i am behaving like a recalcitrant child, too many lollies in th elolly shop...but thats not it either. If i choose a 'wrong' lolly it doesnt matter, theres not several years hanging on it.

And i tell myself, just answer the question ...but i'm back on a mobius strip, the question turns.

So im lost in space, somewhere on the dark side of the moon, best i can come up with is make the choices, justify them, and leave the other data to my post doc life...

Taking further advice from astrobites


I now know how i got here.
I started a phd with what felt like unlimited words and close to unlimited potential.
I had a question, i folded it in half and in half and in half again, each time i narrowed it down, and i wrote to each aspect narrowing it further, coming closer to a point of completion, but this method is never ending, and apparently it has a name:

“Zeno’s Paper,” that twist on the well-known Greek paradox that states that first you write half of the paper, then you write half of what’s left, then half of that, and so on. You are spoiled for choice as to where to end your paper, and without a clear place to stop or an external pressure such as an obvious threat of being scooped, your brain can’t pick where to put it down and call it done.
Analysis paralysis is a serious threat, and one that can ensnare anyone. Any situation that presents a large number of options with no clearly superior choice can cause it, and it can lead to getting scooped, not publishing anything, or, in the worst case, inability to complete a thesis.

So what to do:
write the possibilities,
make a list,
delete at least half the list,
remind oneself that one only has to overwhelm the small space, a phd is not about everything on a topic
Then slash the list:
Write your question, possibly write a smaller question, or even a new question and justify the shift,
Colour code the options for importance, for relevance,
Allocate the ones on the list that are important but not to be addressed here,
allocate the proportion of words allowed
allocate the mumber of days left
work to the plan

And here's where i got another insight, i never work to the plan, i work to the contingent relationships...
whats topical, whats addressing the question (the new question) those involved...and inside of a time frame and a word limit...

It will never address everything, nor everything perfectly, it is but one enactment out of many possibilities.

So i understand my predicament a bit better, i'm not spinning anymore, but i notice im still here, not there...

Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it's only round and round.

"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."
Not a pessimist really: just over being postmodern.

And so i tell myself yet again, the question doesnt get answered, i write this in my thesis, might as well give the ammunition to the other side...or enter the dark side of thesis writing...
I write the question wasnt bad.
I writie this research surprises me. I set out to investigate how technology was shaping counselling, and shaping us. I end with how we should treat our young better.

This is not because I have a bad question. It is not because I am unable to maintain a focus. Instead, in staying close to how we relate with our technologies I have learned more of how people relate not only with their technologies, but with each other.

In investigating the relationship between what people think about change and what they do to enact it, I have studied how practice changes by talking with, working with, and followed actors involved in their working lives at Youthline. A short answer to this question would be that the relationship is complex. Individuals both do and don’t effect change, and they do this both deliberately and incidentally, and that change happens whether or not there is awareness of what is occurring.

Such an answer is not useful as practical guidance for implementing change in any organization. No advice is given as to how others might implement text counselling in another situation. No list of recommendations forthcoming. The question was ambitious, but it was not too big. There is no answer because the question does not end. Instead a challenge evolves. For there is an answer of sorts: change is shown as being constituted in relationships. What we think and do are deeply embedded in relationships, constituted as well as constitutive.

Accepting that change is constituted in relating, how we might then care to relate is the ongoing matter of concern.

If my thesis was ... a writing retreat exercise

The writing retreat I am on had a small exercise i thought i would share because it prompted some unusual thinking for me about my thesis.
Here's the exercise as shared by Gilly Bolton to Barbara Grant,
(And it starts a lot like a Youthline feedback exercise i use in personal development groups so dont know why i had never applied it to my work in progress, but there you go- it takes intersections with others sometimes to see things can be done differently)

If your thesis was a colour what colour would it be?

If your thesis was a piece of fruit what fruit would it be?

If your thesis was a piece of music what music would it be?

Share it with a friend, you might also say why.

Then write a 15 minute letter to a novice, or a researcher switching to your field as to what your piece of writing is about and why it is hugely important.

Then 10 minutes, imagine and write what you think that novice would say back to you.


What i got out of this:
I thought my thesis was blue and changed my mind: it was more vibrant than that. So its purple. Not in the sense that chaos is purple, and regalness never crossed my mind. Just that it is not cool, its vibrant, but its also easy going so there is no red yellow or orange there.

Fruit, was a strawberry because of the tang, but then i dropped this for a passionfruit, multiple bits going onn inside.

The music i had always thought would be a symphony. But its not.
Its Mike Oldfields Tubular Bells , 1981 ish so feels a little dated, (not my thesis, just the music) But what Tubular bells does is a controlled demonstration of multiple instruments, these instruments do not come into the network but can be discerned as they enter and their interactions are formed in association. Its not totally like an actor-network as the instruments themselves exit again unaltered, but what i want to convey is the music of two instruments or more is different to any of these individually. In terms of the thesis, it is about not being able to replicate the whole symphony, but to have a controlled entry through the writer that discerns just what is being shaped, identifying the traces.

http://youtu.be/xPEt5OTR6Vc


The other exercise was a surprise- i received back a succinct understanding on how come ANT doesnt do perspectives but is about multiple realities....a bit coloured by the previous exercise but in tubular bells the instruments and their activities are all positioned, the bell doesnt have a perspective on me, it doesnt know i exist, the triangles, or whatever do nor have a perspective on the bells.... what they hold is position and they act from this in their own reality, and our realities differ, our hinterlands differ, our possibilities differ, what we enact differs. Our relaities sometimes interact, sometimes align and sometimes collide, but this is not usually noticed untill we discover contradictions and contestations.

The one hour PhD, and other variations

Having spent 5 years on this so far, and a yet to be edited down to 100,000 word thesis, I feel more than well enough qualified to consider, and to write on, the one hour PhD.
My credentials include:
PhD in txt speak (160 characters)
A PhD in a tweet (140 characters)
A PhD haiku (roughly three lines and 17 syllables)
The three minute thesis
A PhD in plain English (for the intelligent "aunty")
The lolcat thesis
And an origami exercise in thesis writing relating to worldmaking


And now I have a new diversion: the one hour PhD.
This one's based on how to read a book in an hour, a useful consideration given I'm entering into my final year of my study (I hope) and have suddenly found books I wish I had read at least 4 years ago...
This however is not about the reading of a book in an hour, nor for those hopeful is it about the writing of a thesis in an hour.
I write of how to present the thesis such that it could be absorbed, if not "read", in an hour. A useful consideration for editing the product of several years of study. It's also a way of putting a smile on the face of a reader, its about a sell job- they are getting nothing less than what was promised and hopefully a whole lot more.

So a rubric to edit to:
1. The title, 10 words. If a word search was going to pick this up in a data base would it have done so?
2. The introduction, 10-15 pages saying what you-and-the-reader are getting into, and what you-and-the-reader will get out of it.
3. Outline the book. Is it evident in the table of contents? Do the chapter titles as well as headings and the first level of subheadings (if any) provide a map to the thesis argument? Alternately it can be a perfunctory outline of what a reader can anticipate of the order.
4. Check opening and closing sections of every chapter. Do these provide enough info to understand the main points. Would a cut and paste of these *and nothing else* make sense in progressing the argument?
5. Does the conclusion progress from the introduction? If the intro and conclusions were bookends, are they balanced; do they match? If it takes the reader somewhere else, has this been explained? What of the argument or journey is highlighted? How does this contribute to new knowledge? What does it contribute to practitioners, to the theory underpinning the study, to future researchers?

And then there's the bits in between...but that's the subject of the other 5-6 years of study time...and for that you actually have to write the book :)
...and read it.

All seems so clear when i put it like this...makes me wonder what i have spent so many more hours on...but then there's the thinking time...and the writing that makes it enticing, a pleasure to write and to read...

on being textually tangled

I didnt have a language for it...
tongue tied
I ponder being textually tangled.

Reading around I knew i wasnt alone...
many feminist writers...
many other ways of approaching it...
and then there's a matter of deciding how much is enough vs how deep such oceans of exploration and thinking might be.

This late in my canditure i do not have the time to drown anew
As if one ever does.
(Reminds me of a powerful thesis i once read ...
power defined as the capacity to still unsettle 4 yrs later, it quoted a poem of not waving, drowning)

A prompt from Jane Davis http://bit.ly/eAfo9Z on twitters #Phdchat had me rereading
The thesis whiperer, and Inger's post names it for me, it's what happens with threshold concepts.
here's mine;
Voice.
Cant give it- disempowering.
Cant hear it and assume the story is captured...stories change.
Cant write it, it stabilizes something that is constantly in motion

So feeling like Im on a bear hunt: cant go over it, cant go under it, glossing it didnt work, ignoring it didnt either... the way is through it:
and for want of a better phrase i borrow from Patti Lather on both do-ing it and troubling it

So today was only a few words day instead of my goal of 333
And quite a few hundred or so words got binned...
but at least todays new words made sense of several thousand more that came before and after
:)

ref
Lather, P.(2001).Postbook: Working the Ruins of Feminist Ethnography.Signs p.199-227
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3175873

and commentary on
Troubling the Angels, working with women living with HIV/AIDS

The approach she talks of is similar to the discontinuous writing style i had already decided on via ANT and authors Latour, Mol, and Law.

Phd writing, while im lost in the funhouse will the markers see moonwalking bears?

I set myself a goal of two chapters in two months.
333 words a day would have done it.
And all i had to do was describe the research method, and say what i have done.
Should have been a walk in the park.

But life gets in the way.
There was christmas, new year, taxi driving....
i had allowed 10 days of down time acrosss Dec/Jan. But its now the 11th of Jan and while one chapters done, the next is barely begun.
Finishing a chapter required some time for mulling it over, for reshaping a little, and for polishing...
And the new chapter, needed restarting a few times while i worked out a way of entering into it. And then there is an iterative process of too'ing and thro'ing with previous chapters to make its niche, and to ensure what is said is said but once, and well.
Actually this is a bit of a problem, feels repetitive to me.
And I am forever curious about what markers will think...I fear they may miss what's important while stuck in there own grooves of what they want to see.
They just might miss the bear moonwalking...


So I'm back to being in Barthes 'funhouse' and being my own funhouse architect, I really should have an idea where the door is.
But it has a life of its own, its taken mine :(

Nonetheless, i have found a way in to this chapter.
Im in it, Ive drawn a path for the reader to accompany me on tracing through everything i did up to this point.
I have scared myself when realizing my data is getting a bit old, being collected in 2007-2008...

And am beginning to think it might be time to turn off the internet, tweetdeck, facebook, emails...and bring on
'freedom'

Or alternately, writeordie for fixed time periods.

How to finish the phd in 10 easy steps; Levelling up one chapter at a time

If this is the answer what was the question, post number 2.

Getting a phd is mighty time consuming and i want my life back.
And compared to facing a line up like the one above, my getting educated should be a walk in the park.

So I have:
1. Done the maths, counted up whats written, yay80,000 already (some thesis are this short!!!) but im still some chapters, bother. I need, Im guessing, but i have aword limit... 20,000 words: two and a half chapters in two months, 60 days if i keep 10 up my sleeve for having a life...before the next semester starts and work gets in the way...if i only write 182 words a day, current average, then the 20000 words i still need are going to take too damn long.
Time to get serious about levelling up. It is only 333 words a day...
2. Redownloaded the phd toolkit- includes chart for unscheduling time so i can 'fit it in' - the phd. And read all the affirmations and anti-procrastination info the toolkit provides
3. Look at #phd and #phdchat on twitter so i dont feel alone; checked today's 'group' time on GMT and participated :) heh is this getting in the way of writing...being connected, find myself smiling lots in the chat...no not procrastination, i feel happier about the phd...
4. Looked at the photos of UK student protests fighting to be educated and realise i have nothing to complain about. Trebled student fees makes a PHD cost how much, jaw dropping open...9000 pound a yr... Blood on the faces of students for Gods sake... More procrastination? Strong motivator. Education is wasted on me? NOOOO!
5. Set up the working space, feet up, laptop, books in arms reach, cats on their own chair. Put nurofen gel on the wrist and kept it within arms reach, put the hand splint similarly within arms reach.
6. Googled writing methodology chapters to check I'm not going astray, as well as rechecking the book i have on helping Doctoral students write by Kamler and Thomson (not that useful on this bit, but sstill always good for the way they write) And reread articles by Lankshear and Knobel on the ambiguity of methodology, plus another on ethnography by Agar
Checklist time:
Is the methodology chapter a logical progression from question? YES.
From lit review? YES
Is the chapter a synopsis of what research method has been chosen or a critique as well???MMM Not sure. Think I'll do the synopsis then in next chapter look at how i talk it down to earth. OK tim eto move on.
7. Set achievable goals. Chunk it down. Made the decision to 'level up' by months end; to finish the methodology chapter...just a few subsections to go...thats 10 days...with 5 days for socialising (heh its christmas) and for editing it....or if i fall behind...and i figure this chapter has so far addressed= 4/5 ANT uncertainties...the 5th has some accrued notes, ...then need to ensure performativity, reflexivity and multiplicity are covered if not done seriously enough in 5th section...and maybe arts based research or allegory...if not in the aforementioned bits..
8. Check in to write or die, if/when i get really desperate, and if i ever stop blogging...there's a free online writing box ...so set the word limit, set the timer...
Time to seriously get down to the business of being an educated person
9. I still have the writers diet up my sleeve. Is your writing flabby, useful for editing, given i think i might write too much...good site for writing in a more direct way, how to take out those extraneous words.

and 10...am too busy writing to try to think up extra steps just for rounding up the list feel free to add your own :)
...see you when write or die has finished with me :)

Education's reigning error

Why do students fail?
And closer to home for me personally as a student:Why do phd students fail?
I have a friend, heh more than one, and I see that their phds have failed them.
What happened?
The ducks didn't get in line; was it a lack of duck flocking skills, or their duck herding skills? Os a combination of the two? Perhaps a weakness in superglue...
Somehow getting the ducks in a line, and keeping them aligned and recording the process of said alignment, all in a way that would make meaning for others, gathering in the supervisor, the marker, the reader, all didn't come to pass.

At this point I recommend reading Machiavelli's The Prince.
Should be compulsory reading for any Phd student intent on completion.
(And it's freely available from the Gutenberg press, and it's a very short little read for a book that is timeless. Machiavelli certainly got a lot of bad press for a book that is basically about winning friends and influencing people. The moral compass is in the hands of the reader.)

I've just been reading some Actor-networking by John Law (2010) on research methods, and there is an overlap point well worth making in regard to seeing what you expect to see in education. He cites Robert k Merton on "the reign of error".
And there is scope for addressing this in regard to education.

Robert K. Merton elevated the principle into what he called the ‘‘reign of error’’.
Banks fail,he said, because people first wrongly think that they will, but then this definition of the situation become true. STS writers Donald MacKenzie and Barry Barnes have shown how this may happen, for instance in finance. But I also think the point needs to be reworked. Methods, it seems to me are potentially more profoundly self fulfilling than Merton’s talk of the "reign of error" might suggest.

And here's what happens in education, the self fulfilling prophecies become embedded in consciousness, girls cant do hard sciences etc etc...
I knew physics was going to be hard...and it was.
And here's a link demonstrating it http://www.slate.com/id/2276066/
When a teacher told me "everyone in this class can pass maths" ...I did
When my phd supervisor tells me i write well, my confidence is boosted, i write more...and i write well :)
Or so I'm told.
And so I continue.

When I see a colleague hit with a brick because performance isn't great, I see something much less pretty occur. Being hit with a brick does not make things prettier or more effective...
It's not rocket science. It's much more important than that.

Refs:
Law, J. (2010, 31 August- 3 September). The double social life of method. Paper presented at the meeting of the Sixth Annual CRESC conference on the Social Life of Method, St Hugh's College, Oxford, England. Retrieved from http://www.heterogeneities.net/papers.htm

Machiavelli, N., &. (1998). The Prince: Retrieved August 19, 2010, from Project Gutenberg, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1232/1232.txt (Original work published 1532).

The plot thickens: Conversational moves in phd writing

Kamler and Thomson suggest developing the thesis as argument might be progressed through conversational means, so here goes:

So here's the problem
Change is bloody hard to make happen. (Ch.1 contextualising)
Even when its seen somewhere else and looks like its the best thing since sliced bread, making it happen, getting others to align, how then to win friends and influence people...how to get all the ducks in a row...And as much as i think i might be making a change happen, whats it doing back?
So I'm going to look at change.

I take the example of emergent technologies in a youth counselling centre.
How do things get off the ground, where's it come from...everyone's implicated, and so are things...
Something that's not been done before evolves, there were a few things up in the air, one of them really takes off. Whats involved?
How does it reshape those involve; people, practices, and the things.

So there's a multitude of ways change gets looked at, and they only ever get part of the picture.
How would we know whats needed and whats possible if we only get part of the picture?
And how could we intervene to make such a change more positive, and on what grounds, because things might be otherwise.
And this brings up alternate realities, for which groups or individuals do we talk of when we consider the positive?
Ah there's a controversy in this: What to do with concurrent positives and negatives? And what of multiple realities that sometimes converge, clash or are distributed so that they not clash.

This change that happens crosses disciplines and has never been explored before, so there's a need to check out education, health, psychology- inter and intra-personal, and there's organizational change, top down and bottom up.
And there's consideration for the technology, and consideration for counselling.
So i make a space inside of which I can portray the multiplicity involved. I make a space I can talk from. (Ch2 networking the theory space being clarifications and ch 3 illogics and logics of change lit review)

And in looking at approaches to change, I can say why they are flawed, or at least fractional, and partial in both senses of the word. Can it be otherwise: no.
They give a part of the picture, they simplify too far. I use the literature on change as an example of how realities do this; they're partial always.
I introduce ANT, an approach that seems more robust, while at the same time is very humble; it doesnt prescribe, and it doesnt do causation, and it works with partial- in both meanings. Considerable justification is given to my choosing a method that openly acknowledges no claim to understanding everything nor provides answers.

(ch 4 ANT sensibilities) how to do an ant informed study, what further knowledge of ant is needed

(ch 5 methodological praxis)I negotiate work with a not-for-profit organisation i have been associated with who are expanding the repertoire on approaches they have taken to counselling.
Its important to understand whats going on in as much as we can because:
1. the agency wants to understand how change may then be shaped for good. Shaping services for good matters, it matters for young people; they have a need to be heard and to be taken seriously with regard to services that purports to meet their needs.
2. this research shares practice that has not previously been written of (text counselling).
3. to contribute to discussions of social material relationality particularly in regard for how digital spaces might be interfered with for good; to better meet human purposes

(Ch 6 Slices of practice) So what i did was a three dimensional capture of the network involved in the semisolid practices of text counselling particularly.
I present the findings, some of the findings, sufficient of the findings...to portray the knowledge of whats shaping the service. These are presented as slices of practice.(ch 6, data analysis)
This involves giving voice to artefacts, to data- 6000 text counselling messages, to CCT's, interviewing clients and providers of the service, and staff who make the serive possible.

(ch 7 discussion) And it allowed me to see

1. how things might be otherwise, considerations for the organization, including opening up areas of discussion, opening up questions of what if...what of scale, what of 'stickiness of the medium, what of smartphones, broadband access being more available, costs shifting...
2. considerations for practice: writing up a practice shift; identifying the significant aspects of this new practice
3. consideration for ANT in regard to issues of identity and agency; of multiple realities; of making digital spaces more amenable to human needs

(Chapter 8, conclusion)Realities are multiple; diversity required, conclusions are multivocal:
Whats learned in doing this?
That things can be/are now otherwise:
for the agency
for ant
for counselling
for me: that change takes work; that research involves researcher repsonsibilty.

Some further plot thickening: how to turn the genre of a storyline into the argument of a thesis... I think there's a tautology involved: Seems to my mind that a networked approach just isnt going to do nice straight trajectories.

Ref
Kamler, B. and Thomson, P.(2006). Helping doctoral students write. New York, NY.: Routledge

beautifully entwined

Dont show them, tell them,
a beautiful example of this writing technique:
http://tinyurl.com/2ak6582
And I dont even like tennis, nor does Andre Agassi it seems.
He's beautifully entwined, mind, body, family, the tennis opens...
The opening pages just pull.
What tennis means to his children- failure would mean a new puppy...
Realities are multiple.
His children 1, and 3 know not to run into him, his body is known by so many others in so many ways. For himself in these opening pages he knows his body as pain, his children, such young children, know his body as fragile.

There's seamless movement from one aspect of the network to another, Ramon his racket stringer, the art of tension held physically in his Agassis' own body and also within the focused work of the craftsman tennis rackett stringer and within the physical entity of the rackets.

This is a beautifully written illustration of actor-network theory, beautifully descriptive, the network just gets shown.

not getting very far, fast

I have been around a lot of students lately, the one that lives here is promising a month of pmt, and Im thinking it must be that time of the year.
The ones training to be counsellors on a young people's helpline for two weeks have been practicing skills on each other; number one issue is not getting the work in, they describe it as a fear of procrastination. They seem hard on themselves. I think they are tired.
And its how i feel too; I found i had spent an hour reediting a chapter having forgotten what was in it, after putting it down for two weeks, and then discovering it was an old copy...
I'm concerned that I am losing the plot for a lack of thinking time.
And worried if i dont do it all the time, i'm back to forgetting what i had done...

So, having been practiced on by a novice counsellor, I went searching for the a time management tool to block time, so i would at least have tracked a path of work in another way. ..
instead distracted, not procrastinating, i found this. Its worth repeating. It's by Julian le Grand and he talks of PhD supervision, but also of academic papers.
He describes - where 90% is done but it doesnt get finished
Ive felt 80% finished all this year...
he suggests a misplaced perfectionism
I have re-edited and re edited and then removed patches...

All the loose ends have to be tied up, every argument must be polished, every counter-argument effectively rebutted.

oooh i havent yet rebutted...

Once the thesis is submitted, the article sent to a journal, or the book manuscript dispatched to the publisher, they are open to judgment. No longer can they, or their author, remain in the realm of glittering potential; now they, and their author, are out there in the open, for peer assessment - and for peer criticism.

No i dont think thats quite it
Nonehteless he does say , both positions are needing to be faced. And then he says
Nothing can ever be perfect, nothing immune from potential critique. There will never be a finishing point where it is all done. To misquote someone else – Iris Murdoch, I think, but irritatingly I’ve never been able to find the source - you never finish a piece of academic work; you only abandon it.

I know it will never be perfect...i just want it strong enough to survive.
And I know it just needs a bit more time in the womb.

Today's writing was slow, but it was an uphill part of the journey.
Having meandered my way a path, i could mark the distance covered, the journey taken, map the scenic route and fix it. Ive got a route mapped retrospectively, cleaned it up. looks like i knew where i was going before i got there. Nice tidy research. Retrospectively.
I have alot more respect now for Deleuze, G., & Guattari(1987) A thousand plateaus... daring to write in a stream of consciousness. Dont think the thesis committee of markers would like it though. Maybe a postscript will suffice. or i save it for here :) where grammar and trajectories don't matter.

Studying what isnt there; a PhD by another name

PhD writing is very much about finding what's not there, and hoping it will stay empty while one studies it.

Studying the blank space is a really peculiar past time for entrance to the academy

Lewis Carrol or Stephen Fry could have written about the absurdity of it.
I recall seeing a poster in London by Stephen Fry saying something similar:

An original idea. That can't be too hard. The library must be full of them.

I have enjoyed an entertaining diversion watching Fry's interviews on everything from what is learning to what is web 2.0and he may not have written of the Phd (note the caution with which i say this) but at least it was 30 mins of life i would happily spend this way again.

My problem is, and i think most PhD students would agree, is having confidence to say, yes, the spot is blank. I've invested 6 years in it, and i know there's nothing there.
It's an absurdity really.
Nonetheless (and i do love this word- less than none is worthy of my study... )
there's always a worry that one just didnt look hard enough.

There are so many ways to waste time, if not a life, angst being one of them.
(Housework's another)
But at least looking for Stephen Fry quotes put smiles into this day. Bless him.
Now i really must get back to the writing, and like Fry:

I get an urge, like a pregnant elephant, to go away and give birth to a book.

(BTW this post was inspired by some very light musing on
1. what i wish i had known before i began the thesis, and
2. what i wish i knew when i finished the thesis.
Topics the thesiswhisperer will be working on.)

Infinite regression; its turtles all the way down

I'm feeling a little lacking in science today having presented a very descriptive account of an actor network as my PhD study in a work based seminar today. Nonetheless as Latour has it: If those textual accounts in notebooks don't look scientific enough, then what heavier equipment would do? They are all the science needed for grasping a recalcitrant object through some artificial device of representation.

"What is so wrong with mere descriptions? A good text is never an unmediated portrait of what it describes-nor for that matter is a portrait....
No scholar should find humiliating the task of sticking to description. This is on the contrary, the highest and rarest achievement." (p. 136)

I had found myself wanting to provide explanations for text message counselling being a preferred practice. Explanations that the audience might credit as having depth and meaning; fiscal forces from economics, ego protection from psychology, even a little bit of conspiracy theory in why I dont have an answer to questions asked twice...
Some nice grounding then from Czarniawska(2003). She calls it plainly, "behind the fiction there is always another fiction, it's turtles all the way down".
Representation is always representation.
And some Latour realism; "Much like safe sex, sticking to description protects against the transmission of explanations."

The lurch in my research question, from a process one (what is happening here) to an evaluative one (is the change good) suggests the work net has enrolled me in stabilizing the change i have been observing...or that i have enrolled the net...an infinite regression. And I really do not know which is true...and it may not matter.

Some more Latour to make my day feel better: A good text should trigger in a reader (or audience) this reaction" 'Please more details, I want more details.' God is in the details, and so is everything else- including the devil."
Today felt like this, questions a plenty, and answers that expanded rather than collapsed down. And knowledge too that it might always be otherwise.

And a snippet from Gell-Mann (discoverer of the Quark, a subatomic particle);
Chapter one draws me in:

I have never really seen a jaguar in the wild...
For most of my career as a theoretical physicist, my research has dealt with elementary particles, the basic building blocks of all matter in the universe. Unlike the experimental particle physicist, I dont have to stay close to a giant accelerator...in order to conduct my work....at most all I require is a pencil, some paper, a wastepaper basket. Often even those are not essential. Give me a good nights sleep, freedom from distractions, and time unburdened by worries and obligations, and I can work. Whether I'm standing in the shower, hovering between wakefulness and sleep on a late night flight, or walking on a wilderness trail, my work can accompany me wherever i go.

Refs
Czarniawska, B. (2003). Management she wrote: organization studies and detective stories. In S. Linstead (Ed.), Text/work: Representing organization and organizing representation (pp. 15-40). London: Routledge.
Gell-Man, M. (1994). The quark and the jaguar. Adventures in the simple and the complex. New York; Henry Holt and Company.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (p135)