Confirmation Document Submitted

Just a quick note to let you know that the confirmation document was submitted as per the schedule.  It will be a month before the ‘confirmation panel’ meet to discuss and decide whether I can progress with the PhD.  Meanwhile, I’ve received permission from the ethics committee to carry out my research first time through, this is quite a big step really, but wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of the rest of the cohort who went before me.

Whilst waiting for confirmation of the confirmation document, I’m still talking to the organisation.  The number of participants has increased to twelve, which can only be good, even if it means more work for me.  I’ve also been looking at a piece of qualitative analysis software called NVIVO, and have installed on my Mac (via Parallels), and I’m attending a training course next week at my own institution.

So all it ticking over really – the real work will come when I received the feedback on confirmation document – no dobt there will be recommendations or changes required before I can progress.  It’s all part of the PhD ‘game’ though.

 

That Elusive Book

When I was thirteen years old, I bought a copy of a computer magazine called ‘Electron User‘.  The fact that I used to take this into school and read it at break times probably tells you more than you need to about the sort of geek I was at school, and probably helped the bullies identify me even quicker than usual.  I remember someone asking me “Are you going to buy an Electron then” to which I replied “Of course, well I’ve bought the magazine haven’t I?”  Indeed I did end up with an Acorn Electron for my fourteenth birthday.

Twenty-seven years later, and I’m now looking for the one book which will provide me with all the answers for my PhD – the single resource that will tell me precisely how to create aims and research questions, define my methodology for me, provide the insight (and maybe three dozen or so) papers for my literature review to be readable, academic, and more gripping than the new J K Rowling novel is sure to be.

I budgeted for about £40 a month for PhD books, over the four years my PhD takes that’s £1,920.  Wow.  I measure things as fractions of gadgets… that’s 2 x 13″ Macbook Pro’s (or 1 x 17″ Macbook Pro), or six and a half cheap Dell laptops.

I have mitigated this slightly… the University library has some of the books, I’ve access to some online e-Books (evil, evil evil products, you try reading an academic book on a laptop/desktop screen for any length of time), Kindle books sometimes work out cheaper (and you can annotate, underline etc. as good as a real paper book), and the odd inspection copy of a book does wing its way to me from publishers hoping I will recommend the product to my students (I usually do).  I do however end up spending a discernible percentage of my take home pay on textbooks.

My latest purchase comes not from a supervisor or a peer, but someone who completed their EdD last year, and has found this book invaluable.  Maybe this is the one book that will tell me all I need to know in a clear and easy to understand way.

Now if I could only find the time to read it… I wonder if it’s available as an Audiobook?

The highs and the lows

In the last week I’ve hit highs and lows within my PhD.  I’ve had a lousy rotten stinking cold, which scares me for various reasons.  I’m recovering slowly now, but being forced to take fingers from keyboard for four days has helped me reflect on my project.

As per my previous blog post, I have a lot of work to do on my confirmation document, but I also have a fair bit of time to do this.  The basic premise of my PhD is still sound, my supervisor is simply ensuring that it’s presented in the best way.  I’ll never be someone who takes written criticism well, but it’s part of the PhD game.  In some ways this helps me come my viva in two years time, I’m much more confident about defending my work face to face than when I see it written down.

Whilst I’ve not really started revising my confirmation document, the last couple of days have allowed me time to confirm that the organisation is still on board (it is), and ensure that I know what needs to change in my confirmation document… about a third of it is going to be put in the metaphoric trash can, and I have to write a literature review about a particular philosophical stance that is new to me, but fits well with my thinking (emancipatory action research anyone?). 

So, from being very low, I’m currently feeling pretty good about where I am.  I’ve got a backlog of ‘real’ work that’s scary at the moment, and the next couple of weeks are going to be frantic, but for those that know me, that’s nothing new.  Rattling off my commitments to a relatively new colleague last week (before I succumbed to my cold) she uttered the classic ‘I don’t know how you do it’ quote… the reality is sometimes I don’t, but it’s not through lack of trying most of the time.

Out of practice

It’s an amazing confession I guess, but I’m out of practice writing an extended piece of work.  For the last three weeks the longest prose I have written are emails.  I’ve put finger to keyboard however to reflect on the last few weeks of PhD, and where I have to go.

The confirmation document is more than a hurdle to be leapt on my PhD.  It forms the basis of the whole thesis, and I can understand why it is given so much importance.  It’s 5000 words summarise what you’re going to do, why you are doing it, and how you are planning to go about it.

Like everything else I’ve written my draft confirmation document is peer reviewed, and also reviewed by an institutional academic, in this case my supervisor.  One of the major reasons for spending time in Lancaster this past week was to spend some time with my supervisor, whilst we have called and Skyped each other before, nothing beats a face to face meeting.

I have some concerns about being on the programme, not least of which is ensuring that my writing is at PhD level.  Notwithstanding the fact that I have already written 25 thousand words which are deemed to have been at the appropriate level, there is this constant nag that the words that I write are not sufficiently academic in tone.  Again my supervisor has reassured me that it is possible, but at the same time there is always a subtext that I need to ‘pull my socks up’ academically speaking and write in a more dispassionate voice, even though the subject itself is something that I feel really passionate about.  The phrase repeatedly being used is ‘one step away’… from the project itself, and somehow I have to develop a detachment in my writing that does not sit comfortably with me… whilst still being able to use the first person in my thesis writing.  This surprised me, but without getting too deep into the approach I’m taking, the fact that I am an ‘agent of change’ means I have to talk in the first person.  But then I still have to be dispassionate, neutral point of view, and detached.  Can anyone else see a conflict here?

So, enough of the face to face meeting.  We actually get on well in person, he’s as keen as I am to ensure that I’m given the best possible start to the thesis.  Then a couple of days later I get the written feedback from him on the confirmation document that we have already spent a good couple of hours discussing.  He had warned me that it may appear critical, and indeed it does. A lot.

So I’m now thrown into an academic ditch that no doubt I will again climb out of, and work on rewriting the document.  Other feedback is still coming in, from the peer review I’ve already received I have had some good comments, but when it comes down to it is is my supervisor that I need to convince.  So I’ll through point by point, and address the concerns, pruning or amputating whole sections of words that took me hours or days to write back in January.

One thing that I was asked a lot whilst in Lancaster by those students who are coming through behind me on the course was “but are you enjoying it still?”  The official answer of course has to be ‘yes’, and given this is a public blog I would have to restate the same answer here.  But sometimes, in the middle of the night I do wonder… … …

It’s time for… the gallery

More about what I’m doing up at Lancaster University later in the week, but as I arrived on the nicest day of the year, thought I would share some pictures taken on campus with you.  Click to fire off new snazzy gallery format in WordPress.

As some who spends the vast majority of his time studying ‘off campus’, it’s nice to have shots like this to remind me of the institution.. it was a glorious day with a few students around, but not enough to cause Campus services to have concerns.

As promised, later this week I’ll explain more what I’m doing here, and what I hope to get out of my time up here.

Time flies

I’m sorry it’s taken so long to update this blog.  A lot has happened, so in best/worst tradition a numbered list may be of use.

1. I did indeed receive confirmation that I had passed my part one successfully, and have now progressed onto part two of the course.  I have already written 25k words of PhD quality work, so the thesis I will work on in the next couple of years only has to be 50k words.  I swing between this being an impossible target, and wondering how I’m going to fit in all I have to say in only 50k words.
2. We had to put our supervisor preferences in by the end of January.  Clearly there was some issue with the process this year, as it didn’t go as smoothly as we expected, but around mid February we were allocated.  I got my second (of three choices) for supervisor, but early signs are that we are well matched.  We’ve had phone calls, Skype chats and I’m going up to meet him at the end of this month, which is also the kickstart week for my literature review.
3. Whilst all this was going on I have been working on my confirmation document.  This in other words is the ‘proposal’, what I’m going to do, how I”m going to do it etc – consider it as this expanded to 5k words, modified, revamped, cut, pasted, and agonised over.  It is the roadmap for the next two years… and anyone who knows what my sense of direction is like will appreciate the importance of a roadmap.

Whilst all this has been going on I’ve written a paper for a journal focused on my ‘day job’, reworked another paper that will be published soon here, as well as my external examining duties for two different universities, external assessor for a third, my day job as a lecturer, and my Open University tuition too.  It’s no surprise therefore that I’ve been a little frazzled recently, and haven’t updated this blog.  The only reason I’ve managed to find time to do this is that I’m at an Open University conference this weekend, and so have been able to clear the decks.

This aside, I am enjoying working on my PhD, and a recent look back at some of the ‘how to’ books that I bought when I first embarked on this journey remind me why I am doing this in the first place.  The juggling of all the above wouldn’t be possible without the support of friends and family, the infinite patience of those closest to me, and those who I talk to on Twitter and Facebook, whom I may never meet in person, but are always there when staring at my own words on a screen gets too much, and I need a distraction.

The end of the beginning

“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”

Winston Churchill

On Tuesday I received the email that confirmed that I had passed the final Part One module, again by the skin of my teeth.  I really didn’t expect anything more than the mark awarded given some difficulties I had in responding to the feedback received.

This means however barring a disaster of epic proportions I will receive assurance at the end of the month that I can progress to Part 2 of the programme as a PhD student.

I’ve had a couple of celebrations the last week, but now it’s nose to the grindstone (this posting seems to be a collection of clichés, which I must avoid like the plague), and working on what is called the confirmation document, and getting a supervisor.

Supervisor allocation is a little like the ITV quiz show “Take Me Out”, but without the intricate psychological subtleties that are completely lost on me, as I manage around thirty seconds of viewing before switching channels.  I tout my embryonic research plan around a long list of potential supervisors, some I know well, some I have barely had contact with, and some I have to work out if they could be suitable supervisors merely by looking at their photo.  Those that show a faint flicker of interest in my idea are then ‘courted’, until they allow me to put their name on a form that has just three slots.  Some mystic process then takes place where students are allocated to supervisors, and in a similar way that Jake connects to his Toruk in the film Avatar, we are bonded for the next two years…. or something like that.

I have been fortunate, my courting has gone well and I have three names to put on my form, all of which I’m happy I could work with.  I want to submit the form now, but we are still developing the nascent ideas, through reading, discussion, and in my case copious amounts of Coke Zero left over from Christmas (though last night this was replaced with Pedigree Bitter, no hangover but shaky legs this morning).

But I do appear to have a title for my thesis… or at least a working title.  I think that deserves a posting of it’s own though, so as ‘youf’ say today – laters!

Productive Procrastination

Procrastination is the devil of the researcher.  The inability to find the energy to read an article sensibly, put finger to keyboard, or put in the actual thinking time that’s needed to get through a PhD or other piece of research is well-known and well documented.

I know my own procrastination points, these include the perception that I can only study when sealed in my own tower at the top of my home, that I must have music of a particular type to listen to (in a playlist on iTunes), with plenty of post-it notes and highlighters around.  The biggest procrastination that I have to overcome though is the idea that my PhD can only be completed in day-long, or half-day blocks of work.  In reality the number of days or full evenings I can allocate to it in the coming year is constrained by other things, not least of which is my ‘day job’, and also trying to keep some sort of work-study-social life balance.

It was whilst reading my latest book purchase as part of my next (final) part of my PhD that I came across ‘twenty forms of procrastination’.  I was going to list them below, but to be honest they vary in quality from the valid (I just can’t get started) to the trivial (The oven needs cleaning).

Today I have been productive, reading the two chapters that I needed to before tomorrow, making notes which even make some sort of sense, and also reflecting on what I will post (we have three weeks of online discussion before we are cast adrift and left to our own devices).  But I have also managed to be productively procrastinating too, in that I’ve written yet another one-pager summary (one page summaries are easy, it’s turning the one page summary into the three hundred page thesis thats the problem), and in the process have also courted another potential supervisor (we have to put down a list of whom we would like to supervise us, a bit like speed dating, but without the sweaty palms).  I’ve placed an edited version of the summary on this blog, this will definitely be a work in progress and there are some major gaps at the moment, but it is a useful document for anyone who wonders what I’m spending the next couple of years working on.

Of course, the ultimate procrastination exercise is writing a blog entry about procrastination, and you’d never catch me doing that.

Switching off

Last Christmas we were part way through one of our PhD modules, and much of Christmas was spent working on the research paper for module three.  It was really beneficial having (nearly) whole days to concentrate on my studies, rather than trying to fit it in to the usual melee that is my usual life.

This year there was no such opportunity.  The final version of our module five papers was due in just before Christmas, and we get feedback in the new year.  So for a couple of weeks at least I have been study-less.  Whilst I’ve received some suggestions from one of the programme tutors on areas that I could concentrate my reading on in the break, in reality I’ve used this time to catch up reading some of my existing library, that I have only dipped into for the relevant quotation or piece of research over the last couple of years.

One book that I am ‘enjoying’ (if reading academic literature can be enjoyable) is The Digital Scholar by former Open University lecturer Martin Weller, who had a big hand in writing the first course that I tutored on twelve years ago.  There are some controversial statements in the book, in particular about the true research skills of the ‘Google Generation’, but nonetheless it’s a very interesting read, and I’ll look forward to completing it.

But I have also hit Amazon pretty hard since Christmas, and amongst more ‘frivolous’ items have bought  and , the first for my area of research, the other a more general book on how to carry out PhD research and a ‘core reading’ for the writing of my confirmation document, the next step of my journey.

As is customary, if a little premature, I wish you all a peaceful 2012.  The economic prospects for the country as a whole seem pretty grim, I guess the best we can do is encapsulated in these two mugs that I received last Christmas.

British Library Postgraduate Day

Last Friday saw me catching an early train down to London to spend a day at the British Library.  This wasn’t my first time there, having visiting once in the summer for an exhibition, and when I hit a major writers block in September I headed down for another day hoping that being with so many other studious people would help (it did).

The day was a mix of ‘how to’ sessions, provide encouragement and confidence on how to obtain a reader’s card (the magical pass that allows access to the reading rooms and the sacred archives of the British Library), and practical hands on experience.  The morning session was particularly useful for me, as the curator (not librarian) demonstrated through fanzines, books and online resources an example of linking sport to social trends over a seventy year period.  Persuasive, engaging and entertaining.

The day was also zero-cost, as my traveling expenses were also covered by the BL.  The only expense being the mountains of coffee that I drank waiting for an off peak (and incredibly overcrowded) train back home.  It made for a long day, and maybe not directly related to my studies, but really interesting and I’m glad I had the chance to go.  If a similar opportunity arises, I would recommend you go for it.

My mind is split into two at the moment, I’ve received peer-review feedback on my draft assignment, and there is some work to be done, I am still awaiting the tutor feedback but have already adjusted pretty well every paragraph in a marathon session tonight.  On Saturday (yes, Saturday) I have an examination for my professional practice that goes a long way to gaining Certifies IS Auditor status.  The time I’ve been able to spend on this has been limited, but I have time set aside each day this week alongside my PhD work, and my ‘day job’.  This probably also explains why after sixteen hours of being ‘on’ I find myself completely unable to consider sleep, hence this posting.

So for many reasons Christmas can’t come soon enough for me.