Juggling Multiple Writing Projects: Three Top Tips

Posted by Helen Kara

juggling This is a crazy year of writing. A co-written book is about to be published and I’m working on three others (one solo, two co-written) and preparing a fifth, also co-written, for self-publication next spring. I have two co-written journal articles in production, one on submission, two more under construction (one co-written, one solo) and I’ve just agreed to collaborate on another next year. Then there are research reports and, for one client, a book chapter. Not to mention writing a post for this blog most weeks.

I didn’t plan it this way. Of the three books I’m working on, one came as a dream paid project that I couldn’t turn down, and another took two years to come to fruition which it did, from my point of view, at exactly the wrong time. But there are four of us working on it so at least I only have to write three chapters for that one.

So I’m doing a lot of juggling. Part of the key to this is careful timetabling. Here’s my book writing timetable for the next few months:

Dec: work on book 2 manuscript (MS) and book 3 MS

Jan: work on book 2 MS and book 3 MS; book 2 MS to publishers by end Jan; reviews of book 1 MS back to me by end Jan

Feb: work on book 1 final draft (FD) and book 3 MS

Mar: work on book 1 FD and book 3 MS; book 1 FD to publishers by mid-March; book 3 MS to publishers by end March; reviews of book 2 MS back to me by end March

Apr: work on book 2 FD

May: work on book 2 FD; end May reviews of book 3 MS back to me

Jun: work on book 2 FD and book 3 FD; book 2 FD to publishers by end June

Jul: work on book 3 FD; book 3 FD to publishers by end July

Then there are the journal articles, other outputs for clients, teaching and speaking commitments, self-publishing, promotion for existing books and articles, research and evaluation project work for clients… oh and the holidays. I’ve set some time aside for breaks, and some time when I will be working from my home office and not travelling. Otherwise I end up travelling ALL the time – in the first three months of next year I’m already due to work in Brussels (twice), Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Glasgow, Southampton, Sheffield, Birmingham and Manchester.

Careful timetabling is only part of the key: the other part is meeting self-imposed deadlines. At the moment I need to write 1,000 words six days a week on book 3. Each 1,000 words takes 2-4 hours, and is often done in the evening and at weekends. If I don’t stick to that schedule I’ll fall behind – if not with book 3 then with one of the others.

On the plus side, there are advantages to working on several books at once. Recently I got some feedback on parts of book 2 from my co-author. Most of it was useful constructive criticism, with occasional suggested deletions where he really didn’t like something. On the whole I accept his amendments – he’s a good writer and I value his input – but there was one paragraph that he’d suggested deleting which I rather liked. I was considering whether to argue for keeping it in, when I realised it would work rather well in book 3. So, ta-da! Co-author happy, me pleased, all well.

I enjoy writing collaboratively. I always learn from co-authors, and the resulting work is usually better than anything I could produce alone. I’m not sure, though, that it takes less time than solo writing. Yes, I don’t have to create as much raw material, but there’s a lot more discussion and negotiation required.

What I do find galling is academics with permanent posts who complain that they don’t get enough sabbaticals or study leave, i.e. paid time off, to write. I don’t begrudge academics these opportunities, but I do think that some awareness of the conditions under which other people do scholarly work – including precariously employed academics as well as independent researchers and others – can go a long way.

I hope I can make it through the next few months unscathed. My aim from then on is to work on one book at a time. I wonder how that will pan out…!!

So my three top tips for juggling multiple writing projects are:

Timetable carefully
Meet your intended deadlines
Practise self-care

If you have any others to suggest, please put them in the comments.

This blog, and the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, is funded by my beloved patrons. It takes me at least one working day per month to post here each week and run the Twitterchat. At the time of writing I’m receiving funding from Patrons of $44 per month. If you think a day of my time is worth more than $44 – you can help! Ongoing support would be fantastic but you can also make a one-time donation through the PayPal button on this blog if that works better for you. Support from Patrons and donors also enables me to keep this blog ad-free. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!

To Ask Or Not To Ask

Posted by Helen Kara

help I am all in favour of people asking for what they want and need. It’s useful for each of us to figure out what we really want, what we need, how much of that we can sort out for ourselves, and what we need to ask from others. However, as my work has become more widely known, I have begun to receive more and more requests for help from people I have never met offline or interacted with online. I want to help where help is needed, but some of the requests I get are quite unreasonable. For example, I got an email from a stranger asking me to write their doctoral thesis for them, because they were unwell, and because God would reward me in heaven for my good deed. There is so much wrong with this request. To begin with, I would never write someone else’s doctoral thesis for them, or even part of one, because that would be highly unethical. I do take writing assignments on a professional basis – which means I get paid in actual money (or I don’t take the work). Also, assuming someone shares the same beliefs as you is not sensible and, I would argue, not ethical.

Other requests are differently unreasonable. Direct messages on Twitter or Instagram asking things like, ‘I’ve heard of thematic analysis, what other kinds of data analysis are there?’ which could easily be answered through an online search. Or ‘What’s the best way to ask people for consent to participate in research?’ which is a big question with no context and so impossible to answer. Then there are the emails saying, for example, ‘I love your blog, can you tell me how to get a good deal from a publisher?’ which signals to me that the writer hasn’t bothered to actually read or search my blog where I have written about this subject.

Then, of course, there are all the reasonable requests. Can you review this article? That manuscript? Keynote this conference? Deliver that seminar? And so on.

Recently I spent a whole morning responding to requests, only one of which was asking me to work for money. I realised, then, that I needed to write this blog post.

I would like to suggest four key pointers for contacting busy professionals with whom you have no existing relationship (and, FYI, a couple of tweets exchanged does not constitute a ‘relationship’). I have been using this system myself for many years, but it’s only just occurred to me to put it in writing.

Do all you can to find the answer you need for yourself. Use internet search engines and search functions on website and blogs, libraries, and your own networks. Apart from anything else, this will strengthen your research skills.
If you can’t find the answer and decide to ask someone you don’t know, wherever possible, ask in public. If you ask in a public tweet or blog comment or suchlike, others can also provide answers which can help the person you’re asking, and any answer may help other people. Asking questions in private – through direct messages, emails and so on – puts more pressure on the respondent and doesn’t benefit anyone but the questioner.
There will be times when asking in private is appropriate, such as if you want to ask about something sensitive, confidential, or contentious. But if you do need to ask in private, try to keep it to a single or – at the most – a double exchange. Don’t assume that because you received a helpful reply, the person you have contacted is your new best friend.
If you get help from someone you’ve not otherwise dealt with, think about how you could repay them. Are you in a position to contribute to that person’s Patreon, Kofi, or suchlike? If not, can you review one of their books (or equivalent) on a website or blog? I would not recommend posting on social media about how helpful they are, because I can assure you the last thing they want is for you to encourage more people to ask them for help. If nothing else, vow to ‘pay it forward’ – i.e. help someone else when you’re in a position to do so – and make that happen.

I think one of the problems with private messaging or emailing is that each person may feel they are the only one making such requests because there is no opportunity for them to see all the others. But I am absolutely sure that if you have enough respect for someone’s work to want to ask them a question, so will many other people. So now I’m going to ask of you: please, please be aware that you’re not the only one, and that the person from whom you’re seeking help has very many other demands on their time.

This is not to say “don’t ask”. It is to say please ask only as a last resort, and in public whenever possible. Thank you.

Bake Your PhD

Posted by Helen Kara

cake I’ve written on this blog before about the wonderful Dance Your PhD contest which has been running annually since 2008 for STEM and social scientists. I love that there’s now a spin-off at some universities called Bake Your PhD, Bake Your Thesis or Bake Your Research. This is presumably influenced by the success of television baking contests.

I can’t figure out where this started but it hasn’t been around for long and it’s not yet happening in many places. Bake Your PhD is embedded as an annual competition at the Australian National University and at the University of Southampton in England. Bake Your Thesis takes place at Memorial University in Canada and at Otago University in New Zealand. Bake Your Research is happening at Dublin City University in Ireland, and at Warwick University in England. The Twitter hashtags #BakeYourPhD, #BakeYourThesis and #BakeYourResearch show evidence of lots of other universities joining in, with some scrumptious-looking pictures.

So now we have Dance Your PhD and Bake Your PhD (or Thesis, or Research). What next? Sculpt Your Inbox? Weave Your Ethics Approval Application? Climb Your Admin Mountain?

It’s easy to take the mickey but there is a serious point to all of this creativity: to make academic work more accessible. Holly Neill, from Ulster University in Northern Ireland, expressed this beautifully in a tweet:

One benefit of entering the ‘Bake Your PhD’ competition was that my dad now seems to have a *slightly* better understanding of what my PhD is all about! 🧁

Well done to all at @UlsterUniPhD especially the organisers who did such a fab job! A really impressive day! 👏🏼 pic.twitter.com/1zEgqmVLUH

— Holly Neill (@HollyRNeill) April 9, 2019

I’m sure there will be many offshoots of, or alternatives to, dancing and baking. Yet I think baking will be hard to beat, as cake is both attractive and edible – what more could anyone ask?!

Reviewing Work by Indigenous Scholars

Posted by Helen Kara

Indigenous methods books A year ago I launched my book on research ethics which draws on the work of Indigenous researchers from around the world, setting the Indigenous research paradigm and literature side-by-side with the Euro-Western research paradigm and literature. I state in the book that I am not an expert on Indigenous research or ethics. And I never will be – I am a student of the literature, aiming to decolonise my own thought and practice. When I was writing the book I realised that after it came out, Euro-Western institutions would try to position me as an expert by offering invitations to speak about and review the work of Indigenous scholars. And indeed they have.

I have turned down all invitations to speak that would constitute me speaking for Indigenous scholars, and I will continue to do so. I tell whoever has invited me that Indigenous researchers and scholars need to take these assignments, and give them pointers on how to contact suitable people. I can, and do, speak about Indigenous research and ethics in the keynotes and workshops I give. For example, when I was asked to focus on the history of creative research methods in my keynote for the recent Manchester Methods Fair, I included what I know of the history of Indigenous research. I know some Indigenous scholars think I shouldn’t speak on this topic at all, while others call for inclusion of their work in Euro-Western scholarly spaces. I am working to respond to these calls because my own view, currently, is that dialogue is more important than segregation.

Reviewing written work is a different matter. I have been asked, by prominent Euro-Western academic journals, to review articles by Indigenous scholars. Here is an example of actual email correspondence I have had with such a journal (which I will not name as that seems unfair):

Me: Hi. I can review this if you can confirm that at least one of the other reviews will be done by an Indigenous scholar/researcher. I’m not sure COPE has caught up with the ethical aspects of Indigenous scholarship, research, and publishing. Essentially, it’s not ethical for non-Indigenous people to make pronouncements about anything to do with Indigenous issues without Indigenous input. I’m hoping you’re already aware of this and have one or more Indigenous reviewers lined up – in which case, I’m in.

Journal editor: We understand the importance of this and I have forwarded your concerns on to the internal editorial team to ask them for further information. However, please be aware that we do operate our external peer reviews on a largely blind basis in terms of names, background etc. For example, when the authors receive the reviewer’s comments they do not see the names of the reviewers. I only receive the names of the reviewers from the editorial team who are the ones with the in depth knowledge concerning the reviewer’s research specialties etc. Thus, at this point I’m unsure as to the backgrounds of the reviewers we have invited as I only communicate with them through the manuscript and e-mail system we use.

Me: I take your point about blind peer reviews. This of course is in direct opposition to the Indigenous ethical principle of accountability which I expect your author has addressed in their article. My own engagement with the Indigenous methods literature, plus a small amount of work directly with Indigenous researchers and scholars, has brought me to my current position. This is that I won’t act as any kind of authority on Indigenous issues unless I know for sure that Indigenous people are involved at the same level. And ‘authority’ includes peer reviewing.

Having solely non-Indigenous people act as authorities on Indigenous issues is analogous to having solely men act as authorities on women’s issues. I’ve fought against the latter all my life. It would be hypocritical of me then to take an equivalent stance in another arena.

Internal editorial team rep: Thank you for this, and for the important point you raise. Supporting and finding a space for indigenous scholarship and methodological discussion is something that, as a new editorial team, we take seriously and are currently discussing. We will endeavour to recruit an indigenous reviewer (with the recognition with all that is bound up with this category and how often it is a little too broad for each context) and will be reviewing policy on this matter at our next meeting.

This did nothing to reassure me so I declined to review.

From dr.whomever on Instagram, aka Em Rabelais from the University of Illinois in the US, I have recently learned that the preoccupation of Euro-Westerners with the ‘evidence base’ is colonialist and gets in the way of a lot of anti-oppressive work. Many Indigenous peoples have a different view of evidence: for example, if someone has lived through a phenomenon, event, or relationship, they know about it and so can provide evidence. In Euro-Western cultures, we accept this kind of evidence to convict people of crimes and call it a ‘witness statement’, but we will not accept it in research where we dismiss it as ‘anecdote’. This seems to me an anomaly, and one I have never understood.

Imposing this approach to research on people from other cultures who take a different view, as dr.whomever says, is epistemic violence. Last week I spotted this tweet by Grieve Chelwa from the University of Cape Town in South Africa:

One of the most frustrating things about being a southern scholar submitting work to northern journals is having to deal with reviewers who ask you to provide evidence for things that are common knowledge in your society.

So common that even children know.

— Grieve Chelwa (@gchelwa) November 7, 2019

I’m now wondering whether I should accept invitations to review because at least I understand this and have some knowledge of Indigenous ethical principles. But I’m also aware that the little knowledge I have can be a dangerous thing. And I don’t want to end up being seen as “an expert” on Indigenous scholarship, or even “a go-to person”.

In an ideal world, I would like Euro-Western and Indigenous scholars to review each other’s work with a good understanding of each other’s perspectives. I was very grateful to receive a review of the draft manuscript of my book on research ethics from Indigenous scholar Deborah McGregor from York University in Canada, who waived anonymity to enable dialogue, and was helpfully constructive with her criticism and generous with her praise. However, in our far-from-ideal world, I recognise that Indigenous scholars have higher priorities than reviewing the work of a privileged Euro-Western scholar.

I think waiving anonymity would help a lot in these situations. I would be happier to review the work of Indigenous scholars if I knew they were happy for me to review their work, and that we could have a dialogue to ensure mutual understanding.

Having said all that, I definitely want to support Indigenous researchers (and other marginalised researchers) whenever I can do so ethically. But figuring out when and how to do that is not straightforward. If you have any ideas or suggestions to contribute I’d love to read them in the comments.

Mind The Gap In The Literature

Posted by Helen Kara

cat in literature In the course of my work I read a lot of academic articles, chapters, and books. This means I sometimes make surprising discoveries. For example, last weekend I was reading an article by, I’ll call the author McGonagall, who, in the course of developing her argument, claimed that topic X had not been identified as relevant to the development of field Y. I had another article already open on screen by, let’s say Trelawney, published four years before McGonagall’s article, which explicitly identified topic X as relevant to the development of field Y.

McGonagall’s article was published in a top-ranked journal. This means that not only the author, but the editor and some expert reviewers, were unaware of Trelawney’s article. Trelawney’s article was in a less highly ranked journal, but one from a reputable academic publisher and which focuses entirely on field Y.

So McGonagall claimed to have found a gap in the literature, but in fact that gap had been filled four years previously. I wonder how often this happens?

Both Trelawney and McGonagall had written articles that, for me at least, were worth reading and helpful for my work. I ended up citing them both. If McGonagall had found, and cited, Trelawney’s article, that would not have invalidated her own contribution. This made me wonder whether it’s time to rethink the way we mark our territories in scholarly work. For a while now I have been quite careful with these kinds of claims about what exists in the literature. I explicitly take responsibility, and so use formulations such as ‘To the best of my knowledge there is no previous work on…’ or ‘I have been unable to find any discussion of…’ rather than asserting that such work or discussion doesn’t exist. After all, there is far too much literature out there these days for anyone to be confident about what has or hasn’t been covered. And saying something doesn’t exist – at least, saying it in English about literature in English (which is the only language I read) – has imperialist overtones in its refusal to acknowledge the possibility of scholarly work in other languages.

Also, a gap in the literature is not the only thing scholars need to address. Perhaps you want to write on a topic where there is already a sizeable body of literature. If so, then make a rationale for writing from a particular time, or place, or standpoint, or theoretical perspective. And keep it simple. Probably nobody has written a Queer-Framed Bourdieusian Gaze On The Post-Feminist Praxis Of Shed Construction In Huddersfield Using An Extended Baking Metaphor and there’s a good reason for that. Several good reasons, in fact.

Rather than filling a gap, what can we add that has value? Figuring out the contribution your work makes is likely to help motivate you to get the words down. Also, it should help you to convince editors and reviewers that your work is worth publishing. People often don’t like to think of it this way, but it’s a sales pitch. Even when no money changes hands directly, publishing is a commercial exercise; publishers, even non-profit publishers, have to make a surplus to stay in business. And if you’re self-publishing, you want people to read your work, right? So you have to sell it – even if you’re giving it away. I suspect the old ‘gap in the literature’ claim is losing force in today’s market. It’s time to think up other claims, preferably ones we can legitimately make. Have you come up with any good ones? If so, please share them in the comments.

Publishing From Your Doctoral Research

Posted by Helen Kara

PFYDR cover New book klaxon! Publishing From Your Doctoral Research: Create And Use A Publication Strategy is now available for pre-order.

This book is exciting for a number of reasons. First, I wrote it with US colleague Janet Salmons which was a great collaboration. We based it on an online course we developed a few years ago. Janet and I did loads of market research before developing the course; established that there was definitely a demand; did loads of promo when we launched the course; and had hardly any take-up. The students who did work with us were very complimentary about the course and have gone on to publish successfully in a variety of formats. We were sad that the course didn’t really take off, then happy to find we could revise the material we’d prepared into a book for Routledge. It was fun to collaborate with Janet and we have worked hard to make the book accessible and practical.

Second, this is the first in the series Insider Guides to Success in Academia which I am co-editing with the incomparable Pat Thomson. They are short, pocket-sized books, about half the length of a standard book. And they cover topics which are not already covered in the literature; the kinds of things people seem required to learn by osmosis. Two more titles are almost ready to go into production: Making It As A Contract Researcher and Being Well In Academia. Other books following along are on topics such as collaboration, the viva around the world, bidding for grant funding, PhD by publication. This is the first time I’ve worked as a series editor and it’s really interesting to do, as well as highly enjoyable to collaborate with Pat.

Now, as always, it’s the anxious wait for reader feedback. Though I have been considerably more anxious about other books, because the material in this one has been thoroughly tested by our students. Still… we’ll see!

The Power Of A New Idea

Posted by Helen Kara

new idea I have written three full-length sole-authored books, each of which was my very own idea. I had the idea for the first book in 2011, for the second in 2013 and for the third in 2015. Two weeks ago I had an idea for a fourth full-length sole-authored book. I think it’s a good idea, as do some people I’ve tested it on, though whether it will get written or not remains to be seen. I won’t have time to do anything about it until the middle of 2020 because I’m much too busy.

Trouble is, the new idea won’t shut up. It keeps badgering my brain, resulting in an internal dialogue which goes something like this:

New Idea: I’m much more interesting than that client work you’re doing.

Sensible Me: Be quiet, I need to earn a living.

New Idea: I could make you megabucks.

Sensible Me: I’ve written enough books to know how incredibly unlikely that is.

New Idea: You really want to write me, though, don’t you?

Sensible Me: I do… but all in good time.

New Idea: You dooo, you real-lyyy doooo, trusssssst in meeeeee

Sensible Me: Stop trying to hypnotise me, it’s not going to work.

New Idea [singing]: I’m fun and I’m exciting, attractive and inviting…

Sensible Me: Seduction won’t work either, you need a body for that.

New Idea: Nonsense, most seduction happens in the brain.

Sensible Me: Will you please shut up so I can get some work done?

New Idea: You’ll be sorry if you forget me. Why not jot down a few thoughts at least?

Sensible Me: Maybe that’s not a completely stupid suggestion.

New Idea: Go on! Go on! You know you want to!

Sensible Me: But I haven’t got time right now, I’m chasing a deadline.

New Idea: [singing again] You’ll regret it, you’ll regre-et i-it –

Sensible Me: la la la la, I’m not listening.

And so on. It’s really annoying! Yes I’d love to drop everything and dive into a shiny new project. But I’m already working on three books (and yes, that is two too many) and two journal articles, and I need to get those done, or a lot closer to done, before I start on any new writing projects.

Some of my friends are novelists and I know they have a similar problem. I see their posts on Facebook: ‘I had a new idea for a story this morning, and it won’t leave me alone, but I’ve got another 50,000 words to write on the current book and my deadline is in three months.’ One of the things I’ve been writing about is how similar non-fiction and fiction writing can be. I’ve written a fair amount of fiction myself, even been paid for some of it, so I feel reasonably well qualified to make this argument, especially as there’s supporting literature. But none of the literature that I have read – and I’ve read a lot of it – points out this particular similarity. So there you are, an informative and amusing blog post which also, I believe, fills a gap in the literature.

This blog, and the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, is funded by my beloved patrons. It takes me at least one working day per month to post here each week and run the Twitterchat. At the time of writing I’m receiving funding from Patrons of $43 per month. If you think a day of my time is worth more than $43 – you can help! Ongoing support would be fantastic but you can also make a one-time donation through the PayPal button on this blog if that works better for you. Support from Patrons and donors also enables me to keep this blog ad-free. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!

Five Years Of Blogging – Help Me Celebrate!

Posted by Helen Kara

celebrate This blog has been in existence for five years. Since October 2014 I have published a weekly post, on average, in 43 weeks of each year. Some posts, like the first one, have been posts of the moment, or places for me to put things I wanted to find again, or topical posts that are now out of date. Others have wider appeal and more longevity, and are regularly shared on social media and, no doubt, elsewhere too.

My blog has 530 followers and, if you’re one of them, thank you, you intelligent, discerning, marvellous person. However, that figure is not entirely representative. Over the last five years my blog has had 27,900 visitors. The majority have come from the UK and the US (around 11,000 from each); significant numbers have come from Australia, Canada and India (1,000-3,000 from each). In all, people from over 100 countries have visited my blog. And the numbers have increased steadily over time: I had over 1,000 visitors last week alone.

My most popular post of all time is Why and How to Negotiate with Academic Publishers, with over 3,000 views to date. My most popular download is my short comic on qualitative interviewing, Conversation With A Purpose drawn by Sophie Jackson, with over 800 downloads. I don’t keep an eye on my stats (too busy!) so these figures were a pleasant surprise.

It’s good to know that people appreciate and use my work. However, it would be great if this translated into more followers, donors, and patrons. I currently have 13 patrons contributing $25 per month, which I hugely appreciate. The PayPal donate button on my blog has been used once. Again, I really appreciated that, but with more I could do more. So, in celebration of my five-year anniversary of blogging, how about doing one of these five things: either

Click the button on the right to follow my blog (one post a week, at most, in your inbox); or
Become a patron for as little as $1 per month; or
Make a one-off or monthly donation – amount of your choice – via the PayPal button on the right; or
Write a short review of any of my books that you’ve read and publish it online; or
Share one of my posts on social media.

Thank you for helping me celebrate!

To Cite Or Not To Cite Your Friends

Posted by Helen Kara

One of the things I love about my scholarly activity is reading the work of people I know and like. I tweeted about this a while ago:

Feeling unusually Monday morning-ish today… probably due to working all weekend #acwri though on the plus side I cited @dawnmannay @ThomsonPat @megjohnbarker @PhillipsSpace so it felt a bit like hanging out with me mates

— Helen Kara 🇺🇦 #FreeUkraine (@DrHelenKara) August 19, 2019

And that was indeed how I felt. The people I tagged in that tweet are all people I have shared social as well as professional space with, and I would count them, more or less, as friends. But I’ve been thinking about this recently, and wondering… is it a good thing to cite your friends’ work? Or is it a form of cronyism?

Cronyism is a dirty word, hurled at politicians and others who are seen to be giving jobs to friends or relatives. Yet in the small businesses I see around me, it seems absolutely natural to give jobs to people you know and have faith in, and those are friends or family. Why would you trust a stranger with your livelihood? In normal human terms it doesn’t make sense.

Yet we’re supposed to treat people and their work equally and on merit. Even the law says so, here in the UK at least, and in many other countries too. But I’m sure plenty of my readers, like me, have tales from inside and outside academia of times when this hasn’t happened. For example, I know an IT expert, I’ll call her Jade, who was asked by a local charity to help them recruit an IT professional. The charity had about 60 staff and really needed in-house IT support. Jade worked with them to prepare a job description, person specification, and advertisement, then she helped with shortlisting and interviewing. I saw her soon after the interviews and she was fuming. ‘I don’t know why they even asked me,’ she said. ‘They took no notice of what I said, they just appointed the person they already knew. Who was not the best person for the job.’

In theory scholars should treat academic literature equally and on merit, though there are debates about what ‘equal’ means here. I regularly see – and support – calls for positive discrimination, to ensure that women, people of colour, and others who struggle to get their voices heard are cited by those with more privilege. And I try to do this. But when I am writing myself, I feel a real pull to cite work by my friends. I like spending time in their company, whether across a café table or as a reader of their work. I want to share their ideas which are often kin to my own. I feel encouraged by them; they inspire me to do my best, whether through their physical presence or their written words.

I know that I should find and read and cite writing which contradicts my own, which I disagree with. This is necessary intellectual work. I tell students how important it is, and when I do it myself I feel clever and a bit smug. But when I cite my friends I feel loving and loved, which are much nicer feelings. And I hate when I read something by a friend which I can’t cite, not because it’s poor quality (my friends don’t write bad stuff!) but because it doesn’t fit with the work I’m doing.

We can’t separate our emotion from our intellect, whether we’re interviewing people for a job, or reading scholarly writing with a view to citing it ourselves, or simply taking a walk. So maybe we should stop pretending we can make that separation, or even that it’s somehow desirable. Perhaps it’s time to give feelings and thoughts equal billing in our decision-making, and to acknowledge this in our writing and other work. Those who practise reflexivity advocate this, but I don’t remember anyone I’ve read writing about the ethical and emotional aspects of citing (or not citing) work by your friends. I had a look online and there’s very little written about this. I did find one interesting recent open access article from the field of economics, by fellow independent Steven Payson. He points out that if you cite your friends in academic journal articles, the editors are more likely to pick them as reviewers, which can work in your favour. His article also states that close friends may ‘cross an ethical line’ and game the metrics system by citing each other as much as possible for mutual gain.

These are interesting perspectives on academia, but as an independent researcher they’re not relevant for me. Also I’m working on a book, not a journal article. So I guess what I need to do is get my emotion and my intellect working in tandem. They already do, to some extent; however much I love a friend, if they write rubbish I’m not going to cite their work. Also it’s not as if I only cite my friends. But I do recognise that the pull to spend time with the written work of people I like is strong, as is the wish to cite their work. This may be skewing me away from other potentially useful sources. So I need to aim for a balance: cite my friends’ work where relevant, be sure to seek out opposing views, and cite the work of lots of people I don’t know. Especially women and people of colour. That’s what I think I’ll do. As always, though, alternative views and counter-arguments are welcome in the comments.

This blog, and the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, is funded by my beloved patrons. It takes me at least one working day per month to post here each week and run the Twitterchat. At the time of writing I’m receiving funding from Patrons of $23 per month. If you think a day of my time is worth more than $23 – you can help! Ongoing support would be fantastic but you can also make a one-time donation through the PayPal button on this blog if that works better for you. Support from Patrons and donors also enables me to keep this blog ad-free. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!

The Power Of Naming

Posted by Helen Kara

words When I first learned about research, as a student of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics in the early 1980s, the people we collected data from were called ‘subjects’. They were subject to our research, and subjects of our research; we were (told we were) the objective neutral researchers with the power to collect and analyse data. That power came from knowing how to do those things: special, arcane knowledge available only to insiders, i.e. those with enough educational capital.

By the time I got back into research, around the turn of the century, researchers had begun to acknowledge that positivism might not be the only game in town. The terminology had moved on and ‘subjects’ were becoming more widely known as ‘participants’. We felt good about this: instead of subjecting people to our whims, we would let them join in with our research (up to a point, mostly defined by us). How kind.

I’m beginning to think it’s time for another shift. I’m enjoying the way some researchers are being creative here, such as Alistair Roy with his ‘tour guides’. However, while that term works well for Roy who conducts walking interviews with marginalised young men in cities, it’s not universally applicable. So I’m wondering about… contributors?

I also think it might be time to rethink ‘data’. The word is drawn from the Latin meaning ‘something given’. Yet more often data is something researchers take and keep. The ability to classify things as ‘data’ has enabled serious abuses, some of which are still ongoing today. For example, in her magisterial book An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz demonstrates that Euro-Western researchers retain the human remains and burial offerings of millions of Indigenous people by classifying them as ‘data’. For Indigenous peoples, these remains and offerings are sacred, yet Euro-Western researchers continue to ignore their requests for the return of their sacred objects, using ‘science’ as the reason. On this basis it might make sense to reword ‘data’ as ‘loot’ or ‘swag’.

Another option would be to refer to people who provide information for research as ‘people’ and to the information they provide as ‘information’. I’m in favour of this because it has a levelling quality, especially if we researchers also refer to ourselves as ‘people’. It saves us from the irregular verb effect: I am a researcher, you are a participant, they are users of research.

All this is still researcher-led, though, so potentially paternalistic (or, in my case, perhaps maternalistic?!). A further option could be to let people who contribute to research decide how to define both their roles and what they offer to the process.

Some readers may regard all this as quibbling over semantics. However, given the strength of the relationship between language and thought, it seems to me important to consider these issues. Names have power: power to identify and classify. When we name individuals, roles, groups, artefacts, we are saying something about how we see the world. As always we need to use this power with care.

This blog, and the monthly #CRMethodsChat on Twitter, is funded by my beloved patrons. It takes me at least one working day per month to post here each week and run the Twitterchat. At the time of writing I’m receiving funding from Patrons of $23 per month. If you think a day of my time is worth more than $23 – you can help! Ongoing support would be fantastic but you can also make a one-time donation through the PayPal button on this blog if that works better for you. Support from Patrons and donors also enables me to keep this blog ad-free. If you are not able to support me financially, please consider reviewing any of my books you have read – even a single-line review on Amazon or Goodreads is a huge help – or sharing a link to my work on social media. Thank you!