Author: Helen Kara

My Viva – Ten Years Ago Today

Posted by

1

OUMy viva was on 20 July 2006, in a massive heatwave. Railways were buckling, roads were melting – it was much like today. I like heat. As far as I could tell, my examiners didn’t. My main examiner mopped his bald and sweaty head while I made a joke about being the one in the hot seat. It was his colleague’s first viva as an examiner and I think she was more nervous than I was.

I was nervous, though. Nervous enough not to want to drive myself the 100 miles from my home to the Open University campus in Milton Keynes, even though it was a route I knew well, because I wasn’t confident that I could keep my mind on the road. My lovely partner kindly drove me there and tolerated my disjointed gibbering along the way. Although I am comfortable in hot weather, I was also glad of the air conditioning in our car, which meant I arrived looking cool rather than a bedraggled dripping mess.

I arrived two hours early, as planned. I had a half-hour chat with my supervisors and was then delivered into the care of a kind member of the department who was assigned to look after me until the appointed hour of 2 pm. She was astonished when I demanded lunch. ‘People can’t usually eat before their viva,’ she said. ‘I’m not likely to perform well if my blood sugar is low, am I?’ I replied, quite logically I thought, and proceeded to demolish a baked potato with tuna mayo (fish! brain food!) and salad. Then we sat on the grass under a tree and chatted until it was viva time.

My examiners greeted me warmly and my main examiner told me straight away that I would be awarded a PhD, but that they wanted to discuss my thesis and some possible amendments. I didn’t know that could happen and from my point of view it was a great opener. I’d had several mock vivas and was well prepared for most of the questions, but one threw me. ‘What surprised you in your data?’ he asked. I did soundless goldfish mouth. He leaned over and tapped my copy of my thesis. ‘Pages 225 and 231,’ he said kindly, and gave me time to review what I’d written before discussing it in more detail.

Both examiners really engaged with my thesis, which was a great experience for me. They made some helpful suggestions about things I could add. After a few of these, I could see they were getting a bit over-enthusiastic, and (although I didn’t mention this at the time) I didn’t want to do more extra work than was absolutely necessary. So I gently pointed out that I was up to the maximum word count already, and while I could see the point of all their suggestions, I would also need some guidance from them about what I could take out to make space for the extra work they were recommending. They were surprised by this and checked with my supervisors, who were sitting behind me and confirmed what I had said. We discussed some options for removing text but I hadn’t waffled or included extraneous material so they rejected all of those and backpedalled on the number of amendments they wanted me to make.

My examiners each asked some of the questions, and after every question the examiner who had asked it checked with the other examiner about whether there was anything they wanted to add. Each time the other examiner said a hot and weary ‘no, that’s fine’. I truly don’t think I’d have got off so lightly if the weather had been cooler.

After just 45 minutes we were done. I had to do the statutory wait in the corridor, but only for about 10 minutes, and then it was back in for congratulations, hand-shakes, and off to the department for champagne in plastic cups. Then my partner drove me home while I rang and texted everyone. Two of my friends had kindly made a party for me while I was out; they’d questioned the wisdom of this, given that the result was not a foregone conclusion, but I felt fairly confident, and reasoned that if my confidence was misplaced I’d need distraction, sympathy, and a chance to drown my sorrows, so a party would work either way. As things turned out, it was a celebration, and for the first and only time in my life I drank champagne all evening as people kept turning up with bottles of the stuff and insisting it was for me.

Then two days later I went to Canada for a three-week holiday. Guess what I’m doing the day after tomorrow, for the first time in ten years? Yep, holiday on the horizon! So this blog will be quiet for a while. In the meantime, if you want to know more about my viva experience – and the viva experiences of others – I recommend Nathan Ryder’s Viva Survivors podcasts. I hope you all have a wonderful few weeks, and I’ll see you, refreshed and rejuvenated, in mid-August.

Getting Creative With Your Thesis Or Dissertation

Posted by

13

draft thesis picMost doctoral theses and dissertations are produced as a block of printed paper, with the final version bound into a book. Those studying arts subjects may present a shorter written work that forms the theoretical framework for one or more artworks presented alongside the written work as part of the thesis or dissertation. These artworks could be, for example, a collection of poems, a piece of prose fiction, a short play or screenplay, a performance piece such as a dramatic monologue or interpretive dance, an art exhibition or installation, a musical arrangement or composition, or experimental work crossing artistic boundaries.

In recent years some doctoral students in non-arts disciplines have begun to take a creative approach to their theses or dissertations. For example, Anne Harris from Australia, an education researcher, was awarded her doctorate in 2010. She presented seven video films as part of her thesis on the educational experiences of Sudanese refugee women in Australia. Each film accompanies and complements one chapter of her written thesis.

Nick Sousanis, another education researcher, studied the importance of visual thinking in teaching and learning at Columbia University in New York. He was awarded his doctorate in 2014, and chose to present his doctoral dissertation as a 132-page graphic novel called Unflattening, which was published in 2015 by Harvard University Press. Benjamin Dix, a British visual ethnographer, also used the graphic novel format for presenting his thesis on complex human rights testimonies. He was awarded his PhD in 2016 and has received Arts Council funding to convert his thesis into a graphic novel.

From Canada, Patrick Stewart, a First Nation architect, wrote a doctoral dissertation called Indigenous Architecture through Indigenous Knowledge with almost no capital letters or punctuation, as a form of resistance to the unthinking acceptance of English language conventions. He received his doctorate in 2015.

Even some hard scientists are taking a creative approach to writing their dissertations or theses. For example, Piper Harron, a doctoral mathematician at Princeton University in the US, was awarded her PhD in 2016. She named her dissertation The Liberated Mathematician, and included in each chapter a section for ‘the layperson’, another for ‘the initiated’, and a third for ‘the mathematician’ – and a whole lot of jokes.

(I didn’t know all this till I asked on social media. From Facebook, thanks to Research Companion members Rebecca Ashley for information about the work of Benjamin Dix, and Melissa Terras for pointing me to Piper Harron’s dissertation. From Twitter, thanks to @librarykris for reminding me about Nick Sousanis, @ndarney for highlighting Patrick Stewart’s work, and @meganjmcpherson for directing me to the work of Anne Harris. Which just goes to show that social media is awesome.)

If you’re going to take some kind of creative approach to the presentation of your thesis or dissertation, it’s best to plan ahead if possible. However, some doctoral students may not realise until late in the process that they both want to, and can, do something a little different from the norm. If this applies to you, depending on what the difference is that you have in mind, it may still be possible. Producing a whole graphic novel at a late stage might be too big an ask – though if you are a talented artist and writer, maybe not. However, options such as weaving data excerpts in with your writing, or using a particular kind of format or structure for your dissertation or thesis, could be implemented in the last months of doctoral study.

Also, if you want to be just a little bit creative, it may be possible to take an experimental approach to a single chapter or section of your thesis or dissertation. I did this with my thesis: I wrote a chapter, on reflexivity, as a fictional story. That was an interesting challenge for me, and my examiners appreciated the change of pace. Alternatively, you could use a metaphor to draw your argument together. For example, Australian education researcher Deborah Netolicky, who was awarded her PhD in 2016, used themes and characters Alice in Wonderland as an extended metaphor to help structure her thesis. Or, again, you could do this in a smaller way, in a single chapter or section.

I would have liked to use a fictional style for my whole thesis, but my supervisors deemed it too risky. This was over 10 years ago, before I could ask social media – and even if I had been able to ask, I doubt many examples would have been available. Maybe not any. So I have drawn together the examples in this blog post in case any doctoral student feels creative but needs some evidence of precedent to comfort a nervous supervisor. If you know of other relevant examples, please share details in the comments.

Ten Top Tips For Becoming An Indie Researcher

Posted by

5

independence.jpgPeople often ask me how to become an independent researcher. Then they ask me how I became an independent researcher, which is a different question. The answer to the latter is no help to anyone as I became an independent researcher by accident. Here’s the short version of that story. In January 1999 I was asked to do a piece of research as a one-off. I agreed, did a reasonably good job, people got to hear about it and I was asked to do more. I realised I enjoyed the work, signed up for an MSc in Social Research Methods in September 1999, got my PhD in 2006, and never looked back.

For the first 10 years or so, almost all my clients were local and national governments, charities, and public sector partnerships. Then we had the change of government in 2010, swiftly followed by a recession, in which most of the people in my networks took early retirement or redundancy or were demoted back from management to direct service delivery roles. My company’s financial year runs from August to July, and 2011-12 was the worst; the company’s turnover was less than £11,000. I had to get a part-time job for two years from September 2011, but – with a huge amount of support from my partner – managed to keep my business afloat.

Over the last five years I have reinvented myself as someone who works with academia. I still work with clients from other sectors, but these days the bulk of my work comes from universities. This reinvention has involved a lot of writing – two books, several journal articles, a bunch of e-books, this blog, tens of thousands of tweets, more of all those in the pipeline – and a lot of networking. Luckily I’m good at, and enjoy, both networking and writing.

So that’s my story, but it’s mostly made up of accidents, and so is not a route anyone else can follow. However, I do have ten top tips for people who want to adopt the indie lifestyle.

  1. Be able and willing to live on less money than your employed contemporaries. The day rates can be high but you won’t get paid work for every day, and some weeks or months you will have no paid work at all. There are none of the benefits of employment such as holiday pay or sickness pay, so you need to earn enough to cover those. Some years you will make more money than others, but the surplus from any good years needs to be put away to cushion you in the bad years, or you risk needing to give up being independent altogether. So if you crave luxury – perhaps even if you want, or have, children – the indie lifestyle is not for you.
  1. Be highly motivated. Some days you’ll have meetings, but much of the time there’s nothing to make you get out of bed but your own free will. Some people think that’s all there is to independent work: highly paid jobs for clients and a lot of time off. Thw6 is far from the case. You have to run your own business, which means doing your accounts (or earning enough to pay an accountant to do them for you, which still requires you to prepare a considerable amount of paperwork), marketing your services to help you gain further work, sorting out your own continuing professional development, and so on.
  1. Be very well organised. Sometimes you will have several client projects running at the same time, and you’ll need to keep on top of each of those, plus the needs of your own business. Even when you’re really busy with paid work, you should spend at least 10% of your time working on your business, making sure you keep up with your administration and marketing as a minimum.
  1. Networking is essential. You won’t have colleagues down the corridor who you can wander along to see for a chat when there’s something on your mind. At times you’ll need help and without a network you may have nobody to ask. Also, networking should be part of your marketing strategy, as it will help to bring you work. Network online as well as offline. Twitter is currently a very useful networking tool for researchers. I’ve had work from several sources that has come directly through Twitter, from people who have never met me in person.
  1. Keep up to date with developments in your field. When you’re employed this happens almost imperceptibly: you hear about new initiatives and legislation in meetings, relevant newsletters arrive in your inbox, organisational briefings ensure that nothing vital is missed. As an indie, you have to sign up for as much relevant free information as you can, decide what of the rest is worth paying for, and make time to read it all.
  1. Use your time productively. When work is thin on the ground it’s easy to fritter away hours, even days, surfing the internet or doing housework. When you’re busy it’s tempting to spend long hours at your computer, but it makes more sense to ‘work smart, not hard’. I have learned from experience that I can get more done working six to eight focused hours in a day than putting in 10-12 hour days. The workload is lumpy, though, and there are times when there is nothing for it but to work long hours. Try to keep those times to a minimum, and when necessary, organise your tasks so that you can do the easier, more routine work when you’re tired.
  1. Look after your health. This is a huge priority for those of us with no sick pay. Eat sensibly, get enough rest, take exercise. Make yourself have regular short breaks away from your desk even when you’re really busy. And be prepared to drag yourself out to work in physical, and emotional, states that would have an employed person reaching for the self-certification form. I have gone out to work for clients with sweat running down my back from a fever, immediately after hearing news of a bereavement, with a badly injured foot.
  1. Take proper breaks. I have at least one holiday a year, though the nature of those holidays depends on my finances: in the lean years, I might simply stay in the house of a family member or friend, while they’re away on holiday themselves, for a change of scene.
  1. Think at least twice before accepting unpaid work. Sometimes there are good reasons for volunteering. It might be a way of gaining valuable experience, or something you can give in exchange for something you want such as a conference place, or it may offer excellent networking opportunities. But when you are an indie researcher, time is your most valuable asset. People will ask you to do all sorts of things for free – even governments will – and you need to be sure that whatever you do will also benefit you in some way, and won’t take up too much of your precious time.
  1. Write for publication, even if you don’t plan to work with academia. Published writing looks great on your CV and is a marketing asset. What you write, and for whom, and where you publish your work, is for you to decide. But make it professionally relevant and write it well. Once you’ve got a piece in a newspaper, or produced a zine, or had an academic journal article accepted, shout about it all over social media and anywhere else that might help to increase your audience and networks.

If you’ve read all that and the prospect of becoming an indie researcher still excites you, then go for it, and good luck!

Why Should We Be Collegial?

Posted by

4

loom_weaving3I was interested in this post from the Research Whisperer yesterday, written by Tseen Khoo and inspired by a researcher who chooses to do nothing unless it will benefit their career. I recently wrote a post about why it’s important to learn to say ‘no’. Yet I believe, very strongly, that it’s also important to be collegial, to look out for others, to offer support and help where it’s needed and where you can give it freely. Tseen’s post got me thinking about why I believe that. What is so important about being collegial? Would it be so awful if we all just looked out for ourselves – and, if so, why?

For me, the key point about learning to say ‘no’ is that it enables us to conserve enough resources to look after ourselves and other people. Yes, ourselves first, though I see that as at the level of health and happiness, rather than at the level of career management like the researcher mentioned in Tseen’s post. Each of us is best placed to know what we can and can’t cope with and how much energy we have; once we reach adulthood we cannot, and should not, expect others to manage this for us (though of course they sometimes help along the way). So when we’re asked to do something that will take us beyond our coping ability or use up too much of our energy, we need to be able to say ‘no’ – unless it’s an emergency, of course. Then it’s time to pull out all the stops and recoup later on.

Sometimes it’s worth saying ‘no’ to things we do have the ability and energy for, but which don’t bring us joy. I say ‘no’ to a lot of things by choosing to be an indie researcher. For example, I say a resounding ‘no’ to organisational bureaucracy, meetings about meetings, and ironing. I could manage all those things, and more of their ilk, and have done so at times. But I am much, much happier without them in my life.

Once we’ve done all the saying ‘no’ we want and need to do, we should have created the capacity to say some ‘yes’. We have choices there, too. We can act like the researcher in Tseen’s blog post and choose only to say ‘yes’ to things that will benefit our own career. Or we can use a different strategy for decision-making.

Tseen helps because she can. My own strategy is similar, along the lines of ‘if someone needs help, and I can help, I’ll help’. The ‘help’ in that sentence could be passing the butter or giving a troubled friend space to live in my house for a year while they sort themselves out. In professional terms, it could be downloading a pdf for someone who asks on Twitter, or providing years of support for a colleague doing a doctorate. But for me, that’s what I do, not why – and I think there’s more self-interest in why I help, though not the kind of self-interest shown by the researcher who so enraged Tseen. Helping others benefits me, not in the sense of stacking up brownie points to redeem in an afterlife, but because every time I help someone I learn something new. And desire to learn is the main reason why I do scholarly work in the first place.

That doesn’t mean I do some kind of cost-benefit analysis. I doubt it would be possible, even if I wanted to, because I couldn’t figure out in advance what I would learn from helping someone. Sometimes I learn a small thing from a big help, or vice versa. I don’t try to calculate return on investment, either. Offering help and support is part of the fabric of my life and it’s not about expecting some kind of payback. In fact, often I’m paying it forward, such as by helping people with postgraduate research. When I was doing my own MSc and PhD, I received an enormous amount of help from people who were further along in the process, and I never could pay that back – but I certainly can pay it forward, and encourage others to do the same.

The lovely thing, though, is that sometimes helping others has an unexpected payback, if someone you helped finds they are able to help you. A friend and colleague who I helped with her PhD, years ago, recently did me a big favour by hooking me up with the Head of her institution’s Graduate School who wants to commission the kind of courses I offer. My friend claims her main motivation was self-interest, because having identified someone who can help where it’s needed will reflect well on her. Perhaps it will, though I’d dispute the self-interest being her main motivation, because I know her to be a generous person with an eye to the ways she can help others. In fact, she’s thoroughly collegial.

I think I’ve worked out at least two of the reasons why it would be worse if we all just looked out for ourselves. We would deny ourselves regular opportunities to learn from helping others, and occasional opportunities for unexpected benefits further down the road. Those opportunities seem to me to be two good reasons for being collegial, and they constitute two shining threads in the fabric of our lives and work.

I’m sure there are other reasons too. If you have any in mind, please leave a comment; I’d be interested.

Why And How To Say No

Posted by

5

noPeople in our line of work, whether academic or altac, are often at serious risk of over-commitment. This can happen for a number of reasons, including disorganisation, pressure from other people, and the inability to say ‘no’.

Disorganisation is often made up of the best intentions, lack of foresight or planning, unrealistic expectations, and inability to understand how long different jobs actually take. It can be truly difficult to figure out how long it will take to do a given piece of work, but a useful strategy is to make your best guess then add fifty per cent. So if you think you could definitely get an article written in six weeks, tell anyone who needs to know that it will take you nine weeks. One way to keep your expectations realistic is to take care to factor in all your existing commitments – which, don’t forget, include your social life and holidays as well as work. Also, remember that the empty spaces in your calendar in the months to come will fill up as the dates come closer. People often say to me things like, ‘I’m really busy this month and next, but I’ll have lots more time after that.’ I think, ‘No you won’t, you poor deluded fool, because by the time you get there “the month after next” will be “this month” and you’ll be just as busy as ever.’

People often over-commit from the best intentions. They want to help, or they are being offered interesting projects, and they think they’ll find a way to get it done. Often they do find a way, but that can be at the expense of their happiness, their relationships, and their health. I know, personally, two senior academics who have been reduced to taking sizeable portions of sick leave due to over-commitment in the last year alone. Part of this is because of the structure of academia and the ever-increasing demands placed on its staff. The only real solution to that is collective action. Yet, without wanting to sound all neoliberal, there is also scope – and, I would argue, responsibility – for individual action in the interests of protecting our own well-being.

Some people seem completely unable to see what is around the corner. One fairly senior academic I know moved from a research job to a teaching job, and was then astonished to discover that time-consuming preparation and marking were required. Another, a parent of two young children, seems continually surprised by the need to provide care for them. Perhaps over-commitment breeds over-commitment because, when you’re currently over-committed, it’s hard to find the time to give proper thought to potential future commitments and their likely implications. But finding that time is the only way to escape the over-commitment trap. And the only way to find that time is to learn to say ‘no’.

Saying ‘no’ can be really difficult, particularly if the person asking is, for example, senior to you, or someone to whom you owe a favour. So, to begin with, try learning not to say ‘yes’ immediately. Say something like, ‘That’s a really interesting proposition. Can I think about it and get back to you? I need to check my other commitments before I can give you a firm answer.’ Then if you decide you don’t want to say ‘yes’, you can say, for example, ‘I’d love to help but right now I don’t have the time to do the work well, and I don’t want to do a bad job for you.’

When you owe a favour, even this can feel very difficult. It can help simply to acknowledge the fact that you owe a favour. ‘I know you did X for me, and I am still very grateful. I do want to return the favour but I’m afraid it’s a really difficult time for me right now, as I am already fully committed for the next few months. Is there some other way I can pay you back?’ Being up front like this can feel scary for some people, but it is a great way to diffuse the anxiety that unspoken worries can create, and therefore it is worth the effort.

The wider pressure to ‘be collegial’ is another difficulty faced by those working in academia, whether from inside or outside institutions. For example, I recognise that I can’t expect people to peer-review my articles without offering to peer-review the articles of others. However, I can decide how many articles I am able and willing to review, per month or semester or year. Given that there is a need to review articles which are not and never will be fit for publication, as well as those that are or could be publishable, I might decide to review two articles for every article I submit. Or I might decide I can manage one per month, or two per semester, regardless of how many I write myself. The number you can manage will, of course, depend on your other commitments, but the basic principle is the same. You need to think the whole thing through, make a decision, then stick to that decision – and explain it to people where necessary. The same could apply with other regular one-off tasks such as examining theses, reviewing book proposals or typescripts, writing forewords, and so on. You have the right to set a limit on any such task you’re being asked to do more often than you can comfortably manage – and to enforce that limit.

There is an ethical point to this, too. We forget to notice that if we don’t look after ourselves properly, we can’t do our jobs or look after other people. I love Deborah Netolicky’s memorable description of ethics as the ‘unsexy undergarments’ of academia. I think we should pay attention to ethics all the time, just as we remember, every day, to wear our undergarments. People who over-commit are a danger to themselves, risking their health and happiness, and that can damage their families and friends as well. They are also a danger to their colleagues: I know from experience, as someone who is quite good at managing time and workload, that a collaborator who misses deadlines can cause great stress in my life. So for our own benefit, and for the benefit of our colleagues, families, and friends, we have an obligation not to over-commit, and that means learning to say ‘no’.

Self-Publishing For Academics

Posted by

0

Self-Publishing For Academics - High Resolution.jpgToday Dr Nathan Ryder and I are launching our co-authored e-book Self-Publishing For Academics. Self-publishing offers a huge opportunity for many academics, and they’re beginning to take it up. Nathan and I have self-published several e-books between us, and have self-published in other forms too such as blogs and zines. We wrote the book we wished we’d had when we set out on our self-publishing journeys.

Working together turned out to be a dream collaboration and we’ve written about that this week on the Research Whisperer blog. For this blog, we thought we’d interview each other; this gave us a chance to ask some questions we hadn’t got around to before. Here are the results.

Helen: What surprised you about our work together?

Nathan: How easy it felt. Writing a book is hard, and I’ve always thought that collaboration is quite tricky too, despite how necessary it is. We started from a concept, expanded out, divided the areas up and got to work. I know we’re both busy, but we made this a priority, and I think because of that it’s got done in a far more timely manner than I thought.

Given your own experiences in publishing and self-publishing, why did you want to co-author this one?

Helen: There are so many different options for self-publishing and marketing that I suspected you and I had taken different routes, even though we have both self-published for the same audience, i.e. doctoral students (up to now, anyway!). When we began talking I found we did indeed have different, but complementary, experience and knowledge. I think the combination of our approaches has made for a much better, richer book than I could write by myself.

Where do you think self-publishing will be most useful for academics?

Nathan: A big problem for many people is that they wait a long time to be “picked”. Someone waits for someone to pick them for a job, or a project or to write a book, say. The need to be chosen is a really tough need to overcome, but it’s barrier that can be hurdled. Academics don’t have to wait for a publisher to say yes to their monograph: it’s perfectly possible to do it yourself. A consequence of this could be that they could do the work that they think matters and will connect rather than what someone else thinks they can sell. There can often be shortened turnaround times for publication too.

What have you learned about self-publishing by doing this project?

Helen: I learned a lot about covers. I guess I vaguely knew it was possible to design your own but, not being a very visual person, I didn’t think it was something I would be able to do. Now, though, I might just have a go! It’s also useful to know where good bespoke covers can be obtained more cheaply than by commissioning a professional designer. Also, I learned a lot about self-publishing for free. I haven’t spent a huge amount on my e-books, but I certainly haven’t done them for free, and it’s really useful to know about the options there.

Which makes me wonder, what have you learned about self-publishing from our project?

Nathan: The value of beta-readers and an editor. For both of my previous books I had relied on myself and asked my wife to look through the drafts, but we don’t have the experience to know everything to look for when it comes to editing. And for this book, the beta-readers really helped us to spot gaps in our writing or logic – and even corrected us on some of the terms we used!

Do you have a routine or process when it comes to writing?

Helen: For the first draft of a book, I calculate how many words I need to write per day or (more often) week to get the draft done by the deadline. Then I add that to my weekly to-do list, and ensure I get those words written – even if that does, on occasion, mean spending Sunday at my computer. Also, I am quite focused about using my writing time for writing, so I’ll produce several hundred words in an hour rather than spending my ‘writing time’ fossicking about on social media or surfing the internet. I don’t need a particular place to write, I just need my laptop – I write on trains, in airports, on friends’ sofas, and in bed. However, unlike many writers, I’m not keen on writing in cafes because I find the people-watching and eavesdropping opportunities too distracting!

What do you plan to self-publish next?

Nathan: I’m going to finish a project I started some time ago, and get my first book available for print-on-demand. Fail Your Viva came out in January 2013, and within weeks I was exploring how to get it in print. At the time and for a long time since I’ve convinced myself that I can’t manage a print run, but as we were working on our book – and through doing a little hobby self-publishing – I’ve gained the confidence to finally make it happen. That, and digging some older writing out and seeing if I like it again.

I know you’ve got your series that you’re past the halfway mark on. Have you got any plans beyond them?

Helen: Lots and lots of plans! I want to narrate the audio-books for all the e-books I’ve self-published for doctoral students. I also want to start making videos for YouTube. That’s something I’ve tried several ways but haven’t yet got the hang of, but I feel as if I’ve learned quite a bit in the process and if I keep trying I’ll get there eventually. Also, I’m doing preparatory reading, thinking, and interviewing for my next full-length trad-published book, on research ethics, and I expect to start writing that in earnest in the autumn.

So if you could sum up in a sentence the main piece of advice you’d give someone who was thinking of self-publishing… well obviously that would be ‘read our book’! But apart from that, what would you say?

Nathan: Start now! There are a hundred-and-one things that can get in the way of finishing any writing project, but the only thing that’s really in the way of starting is the writer. Start today. (then read our book)

Last question from me: what are you going to do to celebrate Self-Publishing for Academics being finished and out there?

Helen: Have a cuppa with you on Skype! After that: take your advice, and start writing the next e-book. That’ll be the last in my series for doctoral students, and the last one I write for a while, so when I get that one finished I’m really going to celebrate.

Things Are Really Happening!

Posted by

0

juggling.pngDuring this academic year I’ve been involved in various enterprises on top of my commissioned research work, teaching, and writing commitments: solo self-publishing, collaborative self-publishing, and course development. And they’re all starting to come to fruition!

The course I’ve been involved in developing with Dr Janet Salmons is Path To Publishing, aimed at people who have a completed doctoral thesis or dissertation and want to publish from it to support their career goals, whether academic or otherwise. We opened for registration a few days ago and, even though the course doesn’t begin until October, people are already signing up! Universities are recognising that the course we are offering is excellent value for money and will benefit their early career researchers, and individuals are welcoming the opportunity to receive expert help with a complex process. The course is limited to just 20 participants, to ensure that we can give everyone good quality personalised feedback.

The collaborative self-publishing is a short e-book, co-written with Dr Nathan Ryder, called Self-Publishing For Academics. And it’s available for pre-order! The link is for Kindle books but it is also available via iBooks, Kobo and Nook, with Oyster and Scribd to come. Nathan and I have combined our experience of self-publishing various texts in a range of formats, and written the e-book we wish we’d had when we started out. The formal launch is next Wednesday 18 May, so prepare for whooping and hollering.

The solo self-publishing is my series of short e-books for doctoral students. The first, Starting Your PhD: What You Need To Know, is now permanently free to download. The fifth, Research Ethics for your PhD: An Introduction, is with my editor and should be out next month. I just have the sixth and last one to write, on Finishing Your PhD: What You Need To Know, and I’ll be done!

It’s an exciting time towards the end of a really busy year. I’m still kidding myself next year will be easier, but actually I think it’ll just be different. I’ll be working on my next full-length book, on research ethics (I’m in the middle of preparing for that right now), running Path To Publishing with Janet, and managing my commissioned research work and teaching too. It’s just as well I like my work!

 

 

Research Ethics – Can You Help?

Posted by

0

telephoneDear Internet

I wonder whether you can help me. I need people, from outside the UK, to talk to about research ethics. They can be academics or practitioners, from any discipline or field, and they need to have some interest in research ethics. If they fit that specification, and they’re based outside the UK, I’d like to talk to them.

This is for my next book which will be on research ethics. I’ve done a bunch of interviews with people from the UK, but I want to take a more global look at the topic. I’ve asked everyone in my networks but I’m getting nowhere, so I’m throwing this out to you in the hope that you may know one or more people who might be willing to talk.

Interviews are taking about an hour and can be done by phone or Skype. The interviews will be kept confidential, and I’m happy to email over my questions for someone to look at before they decide whether or not they want to take part. I won’t use anyone’s name in connection with the book. I am compiling a list of the roles and countries of origin of the people I’ve spoken to, to give my readers some idea of the breadth of contributions, with interviewees choosing their own designation e.g. ‘senior lecturer in social work, British university’ or ‘independent researcher, UK’, but if someone doesn’t even want to go that far, that’s OK with me. Some of the people I’ve spoken to have held several roles in connection with research ethics but have chosen to speak to me from just one of their roles, which is fine. Some have chosen not to answer all my questions, or to answer several in one; that’s fine too.

I would be particularly interested in talking to people doing, or who have done, research in countries with authoritarian rather than democratic governments – though I’d also love to talk to Australians, Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders and so on. In fact I’d like to talk to people from pretty much anywhere outside the UK, though I only speak English.There’s no big rush; I’m hoping to get the interviews done some time in the next 3-4 months.

Obviously I wouldn’t expect you to give me someone’s contact details, but if you know people you think might be willing and able to help, perhaps you could draw their attention to this post and then, if they want to get in touch, they could email me through the contact form.

Here’s hoping…

A New Venture: Path To Publishing

Posted by

3

pathlogo-purplegreen.jpgTaran-taran-taraaaaa! Drum roll! I have an announcement to make!

I have been plotting with my co-conspirator Dr Janet Salmons of Boulder, Colorado (who I met, like many of my collaborators, on Twitter). We have designed a new online course, Path To Publishing, for people who have been awarded their PhD or equivalent (EdD, DBA etc) and who want to publish from their thesis or dissertation. And not just publish whatever they can, but publish effectively, in a way that will support their career aspirations. (NB: edit as a result of a query from Oxford Dphile in the comments below: if you’ve completed your thesis or dissertation, but haven’t yet had it examined, that’s fine too.)

Path to Publishing will run for six weeks in the first semester of the next academic year, from October 10 to November 18. It is limited to 20 participants to ensure that we can give everyone good quality individual feedback. We are offering a discounted rate for the first course in recognition of the possibility of teething troubles (though we are working hard to try to ensure there won’t be any). The fees will be US$400/£280 payable through PayPal – after this first course, the fees will rise to approx US$500/£375 (exact amounts may change slightly due to currency fluctuations). We will be asking for detailed feedback in exchange for the discount, to help us perfect the course for future participants. Another reason we’re offering a discount to the first cohort is that, along with the course, we will be setting up an online support group for course members and alumni – but the first time around there won’t be any alumni to give advice and support to new members. Nevertheless, there is value in peer support, and we expect the online support group to be well used.

The course will include two live webinars at times as convenient as possible for the class, bearing in mind everyone’s different time zones (and these webinars will be recorded for those who, for whatever reason, can’t attend). Janet and I will provide good quality course materials, weekly lessons, and exercises in planning and writing for publication, plus individual feedback on each exercise. We plan to show you how to assess the publication potential of your thesis or dissertation in the light of your career goals. We will cover all kinds of publishing, including traditional academic publishing (journal articles, book chapters, books), self-publishing, social and mainstream media. By the end of the course, you will have a personal publication strategy for the next 1-2 years which aligns with your own career goals. All you need is a completed thesis or dissertation and a good standard of written English.

Janet and I have extensive experience of academic writing, publishing, and teaching. We have both written full-length books, book chapters, and academic journal articles, and have taught on several continents. Janet has co-edited books, and I have self-published books. Both of us are experienced users of social media and also have some experience of mainstream media. We have enjoyed the process of combining our expertise to create Path To Publishing.

We’ll be starting to publicise the course in earnest soon, but I wanted my blog readers to hear about it at an early stage. As the number of students is limited, if you are interested, put your name on the preliminary class list here for first access to registration. Janet and I are excited about this course and we very much look forward to working with our students.

When A Contract Ends

Posted by

0

finish lineI’m putting the finishing touches to the report of a research project that’s been running for the last 18 months. And then it’ll be over. Which is a bit sad, for a number of reasons.

First, the work is for a national organisation, but unusually that organisation is based close to where I live in the Midlands of England. So, unlike most, this job hasn’t involved a lot of travelling: much of the work has been done within half an hour’s drive of my office.

Second, I’ve been working with another researcher, a colleague I met for the first time on the day we went to be interviewed for this job. I liked him then and my respect and appreciation for him has grown throughout the project. He’s responsive, thoughtful, caring, creative, and generally a terrific collaborator. I will miss working with him.

Third, it’s been an interesting, complex project, evaluating a community-based advocacy service for older people with cancer. The work is multi-faceted and that makes it a real challenge to investigate it fully and come up with suitable recommendations for taking the work forward.

Fourth, it’s paid some of the bills. These kinds of longer-term contracts, that provide a basic level of income for a period of time, don’t come along so often but are invaluable for indie researchers.

Letting go of a project can be hard for anyone, but there are some specific areas of difficulty for indie researchers. Commissioners don’t think to get back in touch to tell us how our work is being used, and seem surprised if we email or phone to ask. We have very little say in how our work is disseminated, and sometimes it’s not disseminated at all, which can be really frustrating. And unlike our academic colleagues, we don’t have the requirement to publish that can keep the relationships formed during a project alive for months and years after completion.

So in many ways I’m sorry to see this contract end, but the pill is very thoroughly sugared by the new contract I landed earlier this month. Without that I think I’d be in deep mourning. But this time it really does feel as though, as one door is closing, another opens.