Memorygirls - Make Do and Mend

clairewop

Right see you guys later

Coffee is finished, gonna put breakfast dishes in dishwasher and get cracking.

Also forgot to say it was a lot calmer here this morning too It was like being in a different house, no shouting (apart from shouting up the stairs to wake them ) and no being shouted back at bliss

jc2703

Morning

Hope you enjoy your meeting today and get all you want from it - be sure to update us!

Wishing all a positive day

J x

Lara44

Hmm top 5 problems.... perhaps these are more personal but they are things I would like to change. Universities often have lots of the hard skills taken care of but sometimes it's the softer stuff that needs attention.

1. How to feel good about working - Some days you're lucky to deliver 500 decent words, and other times 2000 can flow out. So how to manage feelings around this process? When I worked, I had a list of tasks and I could easily complete these. When I finished for the day I almost always felt 'good' about it. I rarely get the same feeling now - I feel like reading is not 'work' and thinking is not quite 'work' either, writing is *really* hard.

What can be done about this? How to break down a big goal into smaller chunks is the obvious thing. I have tried to do this, but PhD work is like a winding road - how can you work from big plan to small chunks when the plans and chunks are all changing, all the time?

2. How to stay confident - As the work is such a long project, and so personal and to an extent isolated it is easy to 'lose faith' in yourself and what you're doing. My OH 'keeps the faith' for me about my project even when I think everything sucks. Here I think some personal exercises would be great - how to learn to value what you have achieved, how to feel good about yourself, techniques to identify where you don't feel confident and actually do something about this. Perhaps even how to identify your learning style and therefore let your supervisors know how you best learn?

3. How to do distance learning - Again I guess this is about developing a social side, staying empowered, getting over barriers to staying in touch. It might involve advice on how to set up an online group, reading group, mailing list around a particular interest, or how to use the university 'virtual learning environment' in the best possible way. How to get the most out of your supervisors in meetings?

4. How to 'open up' texts - By this I mean how to get the best out of the reading you do for your literature review. How to read something, pick out the important parts and summarise. How to turn these into a set of notes that are really useful in writing up, or writing the literature review. I looked into this kind of active or structured reading and found the SQ3R system. This is fine for a normal research paper, but what about something like a philosophical text that is like 10 papers combined. How do you not get lost in inner book space?

5. How to plan writing - I have used your mind maps to plan my literature review, but I had to go through several 'abstract map' stages before I could get to my proper mind map. The challenge is how to use mind maps as thinking tools to develop analysis, rather than using the mind map to structure already known facts.

HTH

Firewalker

Good morning MG,

let me try the maim problems of PhDs from three points - one of someone who has been through this one (twice), someone who supervises regularly and someone who has looked at and developed research training programmes for Doctoral researchers (hence might come up with more than five). Also, I suspect that PhDs and MBAs (Masters) students have somewhat different problems to dance with - so probably not very wise to bundle these together. What are the main issues that PhDs face:

1) Problem definition - most PhDs think they know what they would be doing but they have an interest not researchable problem. They don't know how to identify researcheable problems - so loads of time goes here. With some help they can do this much faster.
2) Identifying relevant areas of literature and sticking with these. Problem is that the relevant areas of literature are at different levels - one of these is fairly concentual and, I would say, philosophical. There is a measure between being broad and being focused - most PhD students don't know how to find this measure. Many get into reading and reading - this is 'chicken soup for the intellect' and good displacement for writing. Writing is the big scary thing - usually.
3) Structuring the PhD thesis - this is a very tricky one; particularly if the problem identification/ representation has not been done properly. Also many PhDs don;t seem to realise that: a) the structure of a PhD has its origins in a story about the problem; b) this story should fit on one page - if it doesn't they should go back and re-think the problem and the story; c) to structure a piece of work you have soemthing to structure - in other words perfecting the structure is part of writing the thesis and is an iterative process.
4) Writing - this is a really big one. I have had PhDs who were extremely clever and refused to write; they ended up with extremely good PhDs (straight pass which is fairly rare in the world os social science) because of a combination of: a) enabling (asking them to write texts on the PhD; on their motivation to do it; on how does it relate to their life; on what they had for dinner - anything but just write); b) teaching them simple techniques and rules for writing; and c) bullying.
5) Finishing the PhD - this is hard for two main reasons: a) PhDs don't know that great texts are a result of hard and boring work of re-writing these a number of times; and b) finishing is a right of passage which is scary - once you are finished you stop being an 'academic child'.
6) Insecurity - all academic persuit is deeply founded on insecurity. If we felt totally secure about the world we inhabit we won't question it. So there is a natural contradiction between insecurity being the foundation of research and preventing people from doing it. Even more seriously Academia is not known for grace and cuddliness - it is a tough world functioning on criticism. Lack of praise and social grace is hard to take.
7) Dealing with rejection - many extremely talented people fail their PhDs because they don't learn how to deal with rejection. They give up at the first rejection - from supervisors, journals etc.
8) Organising their time - this is not so much about the fact that PhDs don't know how to do that but about trying to postpone doing the PhD. So I see it more as a matter of procrastination rather than lack of organisation.

This probably should do for now. Most Universities now provide research training for PhDs - trouble is they teach them how to be good PhD students rather than how to be outstanding researchers.

Firewalker

Karmacat

MG, good luck for today! And all those who need it. I can't add anything to the PhD debate, its a long time since I studied for anything.... but some of these posts are really excellent, its interesting just reading about it...

Helen105

Good luck from me too. I'm totally confident that you will wow them all and then enjoy your tea.

Cheery_Daff

Morning MG! Sounds like you're all dressed and raring to go! :j

Top 5 PhD challenges?? Hmm. Well. A lot of them have been covered already! Lara's I found particularly comforting to read Anyway, these have been my biggest challenges:

1. Time - finding time to work, but also making work time productive. I found it difficult to set boundaries and was forever thinking about the PhD even when I wasn't doing it, so found it difficult to relax (or, the alternative - finding it far too easy to switch off completely and do something else!)

2. People - I've had four different supervisors, each with their own ideas, and at times found it difficult to keep track of what *my* project was essentially about. Also other research students - sometimes easy to get dragged into a culture of moaning, or alternatively feel like everyone else is doing it better than you...

3. Feelings - feeling incompetent for the last 7 years has taken its toll I've found it incredibly difficult to deal with EVERYTHING I handed in not being finished, ever - in my case even my entire thesis! (I got major corrections and am having to spend a year revising the entire thing). It's sometimes difficult for supervisors to remember to tell PhD students about the positive things they've achieved.

4. Information - Lara hit on a good point about opening up texts - something I'm just beginning to use mind maps for myself, and finding them very useful It's partly about knowing where to look for the information, knowing how to extract it when you find it, being able to recall it (from literally hundreds of references), and also managing it - making notes, keeping them in a coherent order, having a system to be able to find them...

5. Writing - how to manage the process of writing, while leaving enough time for plenty of revising! And how to have the confidence to write *something* knowing that you can revise it later rather than trying to write everything perfectly first time

6. Subject - how to retain interest in your subject when you've been doing it for so long. Before I originally handed in my thesis, on more than one occasion Mr Daffs had to jump in and finish a conversation for me because someone had asked what my thesis was about and I'd just said 'I'm sorry, I can't tell you' :rotfl:

Ok, that was six, and quite quickly thought out. Will have a proper think over the course of the day

Memory_Girl

ok - i have cleaned my heart out this morning ( i know, i know - displacement activity) - but i did rehearse my killer keynote whilst i was at it - lol

ds2 has been collected by grandma - i'm off to shower and make myself ready.

got a huge avocado smoothie ready to sip for lunch - and for energy.

bag is packed and ready to go - makeup is laid out and ready to slap on.

deep breath - an your marks, get set, go!!

mg

scaredy_cat

we know that you'll WOW them all, MG!!! Most important is to enjoy it and have fun!!

Houdini

Thinking of you MG and sending lots of positive vibes - you will dazzle them!

Here are my top 5 challenges in terms of completing my PhD:

1. Procrastination - I can always find something else to do when I should be writing!
2. Going off on tangents - a PhD can acquire a life of its own if you let it. Random pieces of information can suddenly seem unduly important and deserving of further in-depth research (taking me further away from the root of my thesis)
3. Perfectionism - I love conducting research, but I find the writing process painfully slow and difficult because I spend ages agonising over each sentence trying to get it exactly right, editing and re-editing.
4. 'Letting go' - I think one of my biggest challenges will be submitting my final thesis and finishing the PhD. It's a big part of my life, which for several years now has been something that defines me to some extent. I can't imagine not having it in my life - it will be an interesting transition when it is complete. Maybe this is partly why I procrastinate - in order to prolong it as long as possible.
5. Guilt - the PhD is always there, waiting for you! When I spend any time doing non-phd things (e.g. reading a novel for fun rather than studying a text as part of my PhD), there can be an element of guilt. This has diminished over the years as I've become better at managing my time, but when I first started the PhD I felt I had to thrown myself into it completely and dedicate all my time to it, so I would then feel guilty spending time with friends, watching a film etc. But balance is vitally important.

This is just from my own personal experience, but I hope it helps.

ps I would very much like to be part of the MG Matrix - will PM you my details.

Right - off to do some writing now! Wishing everyone a fantastic day!

Houdini