Downtime is Productive

by Robyn Byrd

As winter break approaches, folks will ask writers and researchers, "so you plan to get a lot done over vacation?" First of all, winter break is not a vacation. Second... NO.

As behind as one might be on writing a thesis or dissertation (or on any other big project), it is important to take your downtime where you can get it. Even if it means filling your schedule with other things, like a day job. Some of my colleagues spent the break doing nothing. If you can afford it, downtime doing nothing can be just what you need. But if you can't, or if you're restless, then setting aside knowledge work for a time and working on "regular people" stuff instead can be a much needed respite. In the 21st century, we now know that sometimes a break from work is the only thing that can really increase work productivity. 

It is important to affirm this to yourself, just as it important to renounce the lie that downtime is lazy. Americans, even those of us who have opted out of the rat race, are obsessed with being productive, with working ourselves every hour that's available. It doesn't actually help us get much done, and it wrecks our relationship with the intellectual work we love.

I spent my winter "break" doing seasonal work and teaching intensive ESL courses for international students. I worked seven days a week. I don't recommend it. But what didn't I do? I purposely didn't work on my dissertation. Sometimes this stressed me out, but other times it was freeing. I had license not to do schoolwork. It was winter break. Besides, I had not a single hour left in the day to do anything but "real" work. I paid off the bills, almost as if I wasn't a poverty-wages grad student. I gave my kids a middle-class Christmas. And somehow, as exhausted as I was by all this... I'm ready to start my dissertation work again.

It's okay to bench yourself.

Pushing through a winter break, or even too much of summer, by working on a thesis or dissertation is a bad idea. Think of any other craft that involves such specialized, Herculean effort. Athletes, for instance, don't train like crazy for their sport in year-round. Not until it's time. If they trained every day, they would wear themselves out, open themselves up to injury, and probably become bored. And if they're smart they don't train right up until the night before the big meet. They stop to eat, and take much needed downtime to heal. Knowledge workers, mental athletes, need to allow ourselves the room to heal, to prepare, and to let downtime make us yearn for our work.

This analogy applies to musicians as well. My partner's band goes on hiatus every winter after a December Christmas show. They play hard through the summer and into the holiday season, so they know they'll burn out if they play through the year's end. In spring, someone will get a gig again. They make a plan to have one by March. And then they rest. It is then that new ideas for songs come, tunes heard on the radio remind them of what they love about music, and soon enough they are back at it, ready to rock.

It's important to note that even though I worked my butt off at not writing this winter, I didn't do it without a plan to come back. The semester system gives an unstructured person like me just the calendar I need to plan my work. Next week the university starts up again. Winter break officially ends. I will officially quit my seasonal job, and I will set to work on my dissertation, yet once more. You see, while downtime is very important, you have to set a limit on it. A couple of months was just right for me. Just enough to get lost in this different life of being a working person. After my time away, physically and mentally, I'm ready to strain my brain instead of my back.

The Drive You Save May Be Your Own

From start to finish, the thesis or dissertation is an arduous journey fraught with highs and lows.  Along the way, many things require special care, including even the computer device(s) on which you save your important work.  For many writers, the principal means of storage is a USB flash drive.  Words to the wise (and reminders to the conscientious): flash drives are a convenient but by no means failsafe storage option.

Nothing Lasts Forever

If you’re like me, you devote much of your attention these days to drafting and revising your dissertation.  You depend on a flash drive to store your work as you go.  You rarely consider flash-drive wear and tear.  But you should.  Think of all the places such devices regularly visit: in between connections to various USB ports, they spend time in pockets or backpacks or on table surfaces alongside other objects large and small.  Drives that hang with keys on a keychain experience another broad assortment of surroundings.  Imagine the bumps and variations in temperature flash drives regularly encounter.  Note that such stresses can gradually weaken the connection between a drive’s plug and its body.

Inside a flash drive

This connection is partly mechanical, partly electrical.  It involves a short row of tiny lugs.  They’re soldered atop the surface of a small internal circuit board.

I became keenly aware of such technical details of the typical flash drive about two months ago when the plug on mine—a drive on which I had been saving enormous amounts of precious data—suddenly snapped off.  In one stroke, recent notes and chapter drafts became instantly inaccessible!  A mammoth tornado swept through Research Avenue and knocked down Dissertation Hall, the home I had been digitally building for over a year on the remarkably vulnerable grounds of a flash memory chip.

Flash Drive Fiasco Headed Your Way?

No, you’re safe.  Clearly you won’t suffer such a catastrophe if you always handle your flash drive with tender loving care and keep it in a special place when not using it.  Or if you regularly back up files on your drive to other storage media (in accordance with the First Law of Safe Computing).  And of course you’ll avoid flash-drive horrors if you never store files on such a device to begin with and instead save everything to your hard drive…and/or external backup drive…and/or the cloud.

Yes, you’re flirting with disaster.  Again, however, if you’re like me, much of your attention nowadays centers on revising and composing your big writing project.  When you’re in the thick of all that and moving from home to office to library and back, plans for a rigorous storage routine fade into the background.  You easily fall back on the familiar habit of quickly and simply saving to the flash drive (and often forget to make backups).  Actually, in the Thesis Office, we’re quite used to working with grad students well acquainted with this habit.  Those who stop by for help with editing or formatting typically bring their working drafts (and many other important files) on what appear to be well-used and fully-loaded flash drives.

Flash Drive Recovery

What can thesis or dissertation writers do if most or all of their saved writing vanishes when their flash drive snaps in two—or otherwise fails?

Closeup of my wreck, post recovery. 

In my case, after it quickly became clear that I myself wouldn’t be able to repair the damage, my first stop was a DeKalb computer shop.  For a small fee, the attendant there soldered the USB plug back onto the drive’s circuit board.  But no luck: now Windows wouldn’t recognize the drive!

Flip-side view.  So much data in one little chip.

Was all my data really gone forever?  He then calmly referred me to an out-of-state recovery service.  I soon learned that data recovery experts can fetch fees that range from the livable to the breathtakingly astronomical.

Eventually I located a different and more feasible service online.  (Details on such services are plentiful on Google.)

Preventative Measures

Save to the cloud.  This well-known and sound advice, noted above, is always worth repeating.  One way to integrate cloud storage into everyday flash-drive usage is to set it up to run automatically.  Look for shareware or software that enables automatic uploading of files from your USB to Dropbox, OneDrive, or other cloud storage services. (Several such options are easy to track down on Google.)

Make regular backups.  You’re likely familiar with ways to configure Windows to perform automatic backups of your computer’s hard drive.  Note that relatively inexpensive software programs exist that also enable you to back up data automatically from your USB drive to your hard drive.

Remove safely.  Obviously, you should be gentle when removing your flash drive from USB ports.  Never remove the drive while a file is being written (or copied) to it.  And despite any optimizations you may have set on a Windows machine for quick removal, always right-click Eject and wait until you see the window that says the device can be safely removed before you unplug it. 

Long Story Short

In the end, I was able to recover all data on my damaged flash drive, but not right away and not without considerable misery and embarrassment.  If you ever face such an exasperating (but largely preventable) dilemma, know that recovery is possible...but not always certain.  Scribe carefully.

Working through Summer

That one time I rode 70 miles RT to NIU
and back, because I didn't have a car.
I coulda gotten a ride, but what fun is that?
Nothing else going on in summer...

On weekends when my kids were with their dad, I'd ride my bike up to the boat ramp and meet a friend who taught kayaking classes. I was the sweep, the person who kept everyone together and made sure they weren't upside-down. I could even rescue them if I had to. (Though none of them ever believed me when I told them this. I'm short and 115 lbs.) All those weekends behind the paddle earned me huge arms and dark shoulders, and about $40 a class. Not enough to pay the bills, but enough to have a taco afterward. The waitresses knew I'd sit outside, stinking from the river as I was. And maybe after that I could ride the bike to get bread and milk ALDI.

This doesn't sound like the work life of someone with a master's degree. But it was. In the six summers since I began that degree, and now the doctorate, I've kayaked, waited tables, sung in a band, taught little kids to read, lifted boxes at a home improvement store, wrote product descriptions, designed industrial soap bottle labels, and tutored high school kids in creative writing for extra cash. Actually, for ALL the cash. There was no other cash in the summer, except for the coins I'd collect in a coffee can, and the occasional fifty my dad would mail me to put gas in the car. And sometimes, there was no car.

As a graduate assistant at a state school, most of us don't get paid for about 3 1/2 months in the summer. And neither do most adjunct professors, anywhere. With most contingent academic contracts, the pay runs through the academic year. Every May 15, my stipend would dry up, and my adjunct paycheck would stop coming. And then the work stopped too. People stopped depending on me. Kids stopped accidentally calling me "professor." It hurt.

One may think, "Well now you are freed up to get another job!" But it's not that simple. Losing the academic and teaching work hurts some of us just as much as losing the money. I want to discuss a few things about "working through summer," give my two cents as a veteran grad assistant, and solicit ideas from you.

I think of summer as three things at work:

That was no fun, that job.

Working for Money: Maintaining your income (or at least part of it) is tricky, and finding a job that fits is even trickier. I did not tell Menard's that I had a master's degree. I will not put teaching kayaking or even teaching little kids to read on my resume. So, should I do something that I can add to my C.V., like try to teach college summer school? Should I suck it up and put my little self to work in a warehouse and sock away normal workin'-(wo)man wages all summer? Or should I rest, and live out of the coffee can? The best summers I've had have been spent resting, with intermittent work.

As you put some summers under your belt, there will be more and more opportunities for summer work, and even assistantships that span the year, or are summer GA gigs. Stay informed about opportunities on your campus. Ask your Graduate Director, and read the email newsletters. I am now, after all those miserable summers, on a 12-month contract thanks to a recommendation from the former Grad Director! (It doesn't make up for lost adjunct work though...the coin can abides.)

Working on Scholarship: The summertime blues are further complicated if you are writing a thesis or dissertation. You HAVE to keep working on the school stuff all summer. Even if two-thirds of your committee is away in another country for two months (my actual current dilemma!). The library is not open late like it usually is. You are not on campus all the time, surrounded by other working students, your advisors, and the general productive buzz of the university. You lose touch with your tribe. It is easy to get out of every good habit that your work and social environment gives you.

But you HAVE to keep at it. The whiteboard is my summer friend. I list everything I need to do, every day. (I make schedules on paper for the bigger picture.) Use methods like Pomodoro or "5 minutes a day" to ensure even the tiniest steps are being taken toward your goals.  This is a lonely, lonely time in the writing of the dissertation or thesis. Exercise, connect, read, or do whatever you need to to keep yourself grounded and healthy. But keep at it. You can pick up with advisors in the fall, and they will be happy you have something to share. Unlike with coursework and teaching work, professors (and the university) do expect you to be at work on the thesis or dissertation year-round. This is so hard, I know. But don't forget about it in your struggle to keep food on the table and keep the kids in pool passes.

Three summers ago, this is
literally what my coin jar was for.

Working on Yourself -- the Professional Identity Crisis:
I have a few colleagues of quality who do not experience this, and who are happy to "live out of the can" and rest for a long spell. That seems like the sane thing to do! But many of us grad students are driven in a way that can't be powered down. It's a blessing during the school year, and a curse during breaks. Personally, when I lose my titles (instructor, "professor," committee member, etc.), I lose a little bit of myself. I wear cut-offs around town and quick-dry shorts to kayak and no one addresses me with anything like deference. I become a nobody, and a poor nobody. Taking demeaning jobs, as I sometimes have, only reinforces this. If I had the pay or the position I might be happy to lounge around and dress like a slob for awhile. Who cares what anyone thinks? But when you are still crossing the impostor syndrome threshold, have $7 in your bank account, and realize that it's your former student putting milk and eggs in your cart at the food pantry (that happened), life is hard. And you're not sure where you fit. Don't forget that this is only temporary. You are working through summer for a very good reason.

In conclusion

I will make it through, like so many of my colleagues before me. And you can too! I'm looking at a May 2019 graduation with a Ph. D. (It will take me a year longer than it will take most of my cohort. I'm the only one with kids, and that's my standing excuse.) That means I have less than a summer and a half remaining of squeezing by, wallowing in existential crisis, rolling coins, and forcing myself to work alone.  As painful as it has been to work through all these summers, now that I can see the end of it coming, I know it will all be worth it. I already have great memories of pool time with the kids (paid for in sweaty cash), bike rides to the ice cream shop, and my daughter's August birthday parties. Look at that! I'm already forgetting the terrible jobs and summer insecurities.

Now if I can just make it till Tuesday when I get paid for my band's last gig...

To misquote T.S. Eliot: August is the cruellest month. Let's survive it, let's work through it, and let's all look forward to September's welcome return.

How do you work through summer?

Fear of the Blank Page

We've all been there. In fact, I was there until about three seconds ago.

No matter what kind of writing we do, whether we're consummate wordsmiths or grammar-phobic mathematicians, the blank page is, as one Modernist writer called it, "The face of fear." While we meet many other faces of fear along the way to completing a thesis or dissertation (procrastination, stalled research, critical advisors...), simply getting started causes its own unique terror. But there are several simple ways to overcome this phenomenon.

How to Vanquish the Blank Page

 1.  Put some words on it. This is the simplest way you can lessen the starkness of a white screen.  Something about empty white space instills fear in us, and of course it hurts our eyes too. Really: simply type out a working title. Format a table of contents or dash off an acknowledgements page. Or paste in your bibliography and begin to edit it.  Any of these little tasks not only fill the page with quite a bit of text, but it will get you comfortable with sitting with THAT document. (You know the one.)

2. Use a blue blocker, especially after sunset. Reducing the blue light in your life is good for your overall health, but it also decreases the whiteness (read: scariness!) of the screen. You can buy a physical screen blocker or download an app.

3. Trust that every little step leads to the next one.  You don't have to begin at the beginning! When I began the draft of my dissertation prospectus (so we're talking draft and prospectus... not even the real deal), I was terrified. So, I started with the low-hanging fruit. Did I know how to write a contextual history of the topic I'd barely begun to research? No. Did I even know what methodology I would use? No. So, I began by pasting in my bibliography, cleaning it up, and formatting it. I learned from that exercise which sources were most important to me. Then I was able to write a methodology (i.e. which literary texts I would research and using which sources).  Once I did that, I was homed in on a topic, and better suited to write the introductory paragraphs of the proposal.  And, if I had had to write a literature review, I wouldn't have been able to do that until I'd read everything for the rest of the proposal. Every simple task teaches you something that helps with the harder tasks.

4. Type up your notes. You've already written or typed out ideas, observations, and reactions as you read or researched. Paste those ideas into an outline. The outline can be loose! Whenever you write a first draft, it's just a draft. You can make it pretty later.  Seeing all your thoughts in one place, and connecting them with the tissue of a paper-structure (however tentative it may be) gives you a framework for imagining your paper. 

5. Actually use your imagination. True story: When writing up prospective chapter outlines in my proposal, I asked my advisor, "So, I just imagine the chapter I hope to have written and describe it? Like I'm describing the best chapter I can imagine?" Yes, she said.  Use your right brain to power through those crippling left brain moments. At some point you have to make your imaginary dissertation into reality (and edit the unicorns out of Chapter 2...), but visualizing it helps make it happen. 

These are the tricks I'm currently using to make my dissertation happen.  What frightens you about writing? And how do you find ways to overcome the fear of getting started?

Staying in Love with Your Thesis or Dissertation

Exams passed, proposal approved, and you happily move forward with your writing project.  The growing relationship between you and your significant document draws on several forces, not least passion and devotion.  For some writers, these forces never waver and may even increase over time.  Yet other writers can face weary stretches due to a fading of that initial spark.  How does it happen?  How can writers stay enthralled with their thesis or dissertation?  This post mainly goes out to those of you who ponder such questions.  But it also offers helpful bits even to those convinced from the outset that they will blissfully go the distance—and those thrilled to be nearing their project’s final stages.    

Prime Factors Behind Burnout

Waning enthusiasm over the course of such a long undertaking can result from many things.  You deal with certain matters beyond your control, such as outside commitments to work or family, schedules of your committee, or availability of resources for research, experiments, or data analysis.  But most important are your own contributing thoughts and emotions, internal matters that can press acutely but that you can likely address more readily.  Such as:

Doubts about your progress.  Uncertainties about the development of your lengthy document can crop up during writing slumps and delays.  You may also harbor doubts while waiting for feedback on chapters from your readers—or, after receiving feedback, while acting on requests for changes or revisions, major and minor. 

Concerns that what you’re doing is trivial.  Such concerns partner with the so-called imposter syndrome.  They may cause you to reconsider the theory or methodology you’re applying to your endeavor.  You may ponder tweaking your approach, revisiting your proposal, or even stripping away at the foundations of the entire affair.

Temptations to pull the plug.  These can accompany outbursts like “I’m sick and tired of this whole thing.”  Probably not the exact words of any contemporary American grad student, and most likely not always true about all parts of the undertaking.  For example, in the case of my dissertation, the literary texts I’m writing about are, to me, endlessly fascinating and enjoyable.  But let’s face it: even re-examining stuff you like can eventually become draining.  Outside the context of language and literary research, important supporting tasks like tabulating results, running statistical tests, or transcribing interviews can each get tedious.  Any project requiring long stretches of deep thought, creativity, intense focus, and adherence to standards and guidelines inevitably leads to exhaustion.

Some Solutions

OK, so what to do about all this?  Among the many possible courses of action, the following three seem eminently achievable:

Revisit work that brought you to your project.  Look back at previous studies or research relevant to your current doings—or at things not directly related to them.  This experience may help remind you of what drew you to your project in the first place or point out approaches to it you may not have considered yet.

Talk about your project.  Although your ultimate aim is to arrange your ideas in writing, talking them over with others can help you maintain momentum and flow, rediscover what excites you about your project, and see what others find interesting in it.  The first person to turn to is your director, who knows your project well but is still one step removed from the composition process and, therefore, able to rekindle your sense of its strengths and significance.  Certainly you can also approach your committee readers for similar feedback.  Friends and family members can be good sounding boards, even if they’ve already heard a lot from you about your various compositional ups and downs.  Also consider the benefits of sharing your project’s aims with new acquaintances in your department, across campus, and at academic conferences.  I recently traveled to a large national conference, where I presented a portion of my dissertation research, attended several panels on topics relevant to it, and took in few that were distantly related.  The trip was a brief but helpful break from the writing.  It gave me welcome chances to meet and talk about what I’m doing with grad students and faculty from other institutions.  I came back refreshed and reenergized.    

Take regular breaks.  Needed diversions from your largely indoor endeavor should be regular and clearly distinguished from your main tasks at hand.  Getting outside, especially now that the weather is turning sunnier and warmer, can do wonders for your writing, thinking, and overall enthusiasm for your project.  Such sessions of “meditation on the move,” a term writer and runner Joe Henderson has applied to recreational long-distance running, will be explored in a future post on taking your writing outside.  Look for it in the coming weeks.  Until then, happy writing!     

Meditation on the Move, Southwest of the NIU Campus

A First-Generation Academic

"First-Generation College Student" is a label proudly worn by many undergraduates at NIU. These students used to be the minority. But since the twentieth century's Civil Rights movement and resultant anti-discriminatory provisions ensured everyone a fair shot at education, and since increased government funding and loans enabled more and more students to eke out some tuition, students from all walks of life have flocked to universities and community colleges to do better than their parents did. As an instructor, I am aware of their unique challenges. And I am also aware of their unique advantages; they bring to the culture of the university a fresh outlook and a profound appreciation for the opportunity to learn.  However, their challenges sometimes outweigh their eagerness and talent, and many do not complete degrees.

While this is a big problem for first-generation students, it is an even bigger problem for first-generation academics.  Those of us who come in as first-generation, complete that bachelor's degree, and then stick around for more degrees... well, we are not only entering the realm of university life without much direction, we are entering a culture in which a very small percentage of Americans ever participate.  Academia is its own beast. So the stick-tuitive-ness that got us our bachelor's degrees is not necessarily enough to finish a masters thesis, and certainly not enough to push us through the drudgery that is Ph. D. work and dissertation writing. We need a special kind of help. But no one really knows what to do for us.

But...we're so alone!

Scores of extensive, longitudinal studies have been done on the first-generation college student. Those kids have been around for some time! But the first-generation academic is still a somewhat rare anomaly. Also, the amount of time it takes to produce one of us (years upon years of coursework, going back to school after taking breaks, part-time work while having kids, etc.) means the data just isn't there or hasn't been collected yet, that is, extensive data on who finishes, who achieves success in academia, and what kinds of services, attitudes, or funding, got them through all of it.  This is something that needs to be studied, both for the success of these students and for ensuring that the future fields of technology, education, health, and others, can benefit from an increasingly diverse pool of talents. 

Quite frankly, I think that first-generation academics are the key to revitalizing the stagnating university model. We can innovate how we do research in a budget crisis. We can engage with the community outside of academia and bring our discoveries to bear on the "real world." There, I said it. Academia needs us! Or it might just perish.  Nowhere is navel-gazing stronger than academia, a group that can cut itself off from the struggles of the world (and of their students) by living, working, and socializing among their university bubble. But this phenomenon of the academic enclave does not apply to blue-collar and low-income academics. I take offence when any blue-collar type tries to accuse me of being out of touch, just because I'm doing a Ph. D. ...Sorry, guy, I'm living in your "real world" every damn day. And I can also think abstractly! :D

While the studies are lacking, the stories are not. In fact, our Thesis Office Director, Carolyn Law, published a book entitled This Fine Place so Far from Home, a collection of personal accounts and essays from first-generation academics working in the 1990s.  The pieces range from opinionated, to irreverent, to poignant.  You can check it out here, at Temple University Press.

Think about it -- college is a defining experience for many people. But a decade of college and then a *life* at the university is, well, your entire life! When no one in your family or inner circle has any experience with college, let alone designing experiments and writing monographs, this can mean that not only is your college journey a lonely and confusing thing, but so is the life of the mind to which it leads you. Even the most supportive families can only offer hollow messages of encouragement -- they literally have no idea what we're doing.  Blue-collar scholars, like the ones in Law's book, speak of not being able to fit in anywhere -- afraid of being found out at the university, afraid of getting made fun of at home. (And of course, saddled with the debt of climbing out of the lower classes.) How do we address this? What can universities do to help us find a balance? And, perhaps more importantly, what can they do to ensure that our unique voices are not drowned out by the ideas of the privileged, established scholars?

Let us know in the comments of anything you've read on this. Or tell us about your experience!

Yours Truly,
Daughter of a Truck Driver, M.A.

Writing Happens Step by Step, Day by Day

“So…how’s that writing coming along?”  It seems the longer you’re engaged in your project, the more often this question—or one like it—finds a way into conversations with colleagues, friends, and family.  For insights on writing progress and occasional writing delays, below we share a few sources of wisdom from a little beyond the well-traveled paths.
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“Avoidant Syndrome”?
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Writers sometimes hit snags.  Perhaps you find yourself lingering over getting a part of your project started—or, even after starting on it, getting stuck and staying that way for a noticeable while.  Are you avoiding pressing tasks at hand?  Maybe.  But not all writing delays simply boil down to avoidance.  Writing can slow or come to a stop due to multiple factors, some beyond the writer’s control.  Yet if you experience a lengthy writing block that feels closely bound to thoughts of dodging criticism or rejection of your work, perhaps you’re flirting with what some call The Avoidant Syndrome.

I’m adapting the above terms and ideas, by the way, not so much from experience as from information about writing stoppage found on the detailed Website of A.R.T.S. Anonymous, an organization I hadn’t heard of until very recently.  As you might guess from their name, they’re a support group for creative people modeled on organizations that guide members as they follow a twelve-step program to recovery—the acronym in their name stands for Artists Recovering through the Twelve Steps.  OK, quick disclaimer.  My aim here is not to promote or question A.R.T.S. Anonymous (or any similar twelve-step programs).  Instead, I want to point out some of the principles that inform the way this support group treats the creative process and creative blocks, which share a few things in common with the writing process and writing blocks.  These principles can be of some use to anyone working toward completing a thesis or dissertation, perhaps the longest and most vexing writing project a grad student may ever face.
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Useful Insights
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Process, Not Product:  A.R.T.S. Anonymous outlines a path toward creative success in their list of Twelve Talents for a Good Life.  Item 11 in the list stresses that the creative process itself—rather than the product eventually created—is the artist’s (or writer’s) most valuable reward.  Useful for writers of all stripes, this principle is especially helpful for writers in the final composing phases of a master’s or doctoral program.  One of the biggest reasons such writers sometimes experience stoppages may be that the aimed-for product is so highly esteemed.  The thesis or dissertation is a mark of academic distinction that propels its author (you) through the beginning stages of the post-degree career.  It’s hard not to contemplate that weighty fact as you work on your project.  But heeding the principle of process over product healthily encourages you to defer such reflection until the most appropriate moments, which likely come after, not before, the process of writing the whole thing is complete.  

Setting Goals: In guidelines they provide for their initial meetings, A.R.T.S. Anonymous suggests that participating creators draw up a simple plan of tasks with projected completion dates.  The list they have in mind should be structured something like this:
Task 1 ______________  To be completed by ______________
Task 2 _____________    To be completed by ______________, etc.
Such a scheme is commonsensical and calls to mind the project-based angle on completing the thesis or dissertation, which this blog touched on last November in a review of the book Writing the Dissertation: A Systematic Approach.  Yet two bits of advice stand out in the A.R.T.S. Anonymous view on goal-setting: (1) you do need to jot down a projected completion date, but then (2) you shouldn’t feel pressure to complete the tasks in the order you list them or on the exact date you set.  At first glance, these tips seem contradictory, but they mesh with their process-over-product principle.  The essential message of A.R.T.S. Anonymous, once again, is that you must constantly engage in your creative endeavor.  Process is primary.  Time taken and final product are secondary concerns.  It’s a message that can certainly be of help to some of you in the thick of writing a thesis or dissertation. 

Daily Five Minutes:  A.R.T.S. Anonymous calls this 5 Alive, and it’s fundamental to their program.  The idea behind this potentially transforming practice is simple: devote five full minutes each day to your project.  Consider how just five minutes per day gradually adds up: after one week, you’ve put in 35 minutes, and after one month, nearly 2 1/2 hours.  Yet surely that short daily session can easily turn into a longer one, leading to more productive weeks and months.  And that’s the idea.  If you commit to a firm but manageable daily schedule, you’ll not only stay productive but often find yourself exceeding original expectations for your progress.  Writers sometimes employ similar schemes for individual composing sessions.  For example, the ten-minute freewrite: put pen to paper or hands on keyboard and write anything and everything that comes to mind, nonstop, for ten minutes.  No matter how unrefined or choppy, the text you compose in a freewriting session nearly always yields a phrase, sentence, group of thoughts, or some combination of these that you can build on as you work toward shaping your ideas in writing.  And last December, this blog detailed ways to organize a chunk of writing into four 25-minute sessions, a so-called Pomodoro.  But setting aside five solid minutes each day to your project is by far the simplest and most achievable benchmark we’ve come across.
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Routine is Key
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In summary, several ideas from A.R.T.S. Anonymous deserve consideration as you keep your writing going.  Most important is to make time for focused engagement with the writing process every day.  One last bit of related wisdom, which eloquently stresses some of the points raised above, especially the importance of daily writing: a short but powerful piece penned by detective and mystery novelist Walter Mosley, which appeared in The New York Times.  Happy Daily Writing!


Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Stop Reading and Start Writing: Good Advice?

The Passion of Creation, 1892, by Leonid Pasternak (1862-1945).

This entry is dedicated to those of you working on the dissertation proposal as well as to those who’ve cleared that hurdle.  At bottom it also calls out to thesis and dissertation writers in STEM and related fields.

Slouching towards Proposal’s End

It was rough, putting my dissertation proposal together.  Winter merged into early spring as I ran ideas past my director and formed my committee, taught two sections of English 203, and completed an internship on campus.  All the while I was steadily tracking down books and articles and even a few dissertations related to my research, reading them extensively and intensively, rereading notes and papers from courses I took last year and several years before that, compiling a colossal bibliography, staring into space, making notes and plans in my head and on paper and screen, thinking ideas aloud during long walks and bike rides, and trying to explain what my dissertation would be like to colleagues, friends, and family members whose quizzical grimaces, doubting frowns, and muffled guffaws in response to my ramblings linger on in bittersweet memories of that drawn-out span of time.  The best part of it, of course, was when the actual writing happened.  Once I finally entered the “zone” and was drafting and revising my proposal in earnest, things moved ever more smoothly and swiftly.
   
Sound familiar?  Most likely you can offer up an account like the one above about your progress on your proposal (or, for that matter, your progress on just about any major writing project).  Plenty of similar accounts on the proposal can be found on relevant blogs like The Thesis Whisperer (a particularly popular blog, which we here at Project Thesis recommend).  Such accounts tend to convey the idea that accomplishing the proposal is like completing the dissertation in miniature. It’s a big project but not as big as the main event.  It’s simply another engagement with the writing process. Many predictably advise that in order to complete it you must eventually do two very important and rather obvious things: stop reading and start writing.  But, in the cold light of second thought, to what extent is that bit of advice helpful?
   
Stop reading?  

It’ll never happen.  No matter how many times others tell you to stop reading and start writing, no matter how many times you say this to yourself, those words and the message behind them won’t dissuade you from naturally turning from your writing, at some point, to read something else. Perhaps it’s a secondary source like another research article that may shed more light on your project.  Perhaps it’s a book chapter you read two months ago that now seems to deserve another look.  Perhaps it’s a primary source, a text or study you’re analyzing and have read countless times before but now feel compelled to return to once more.  Turning to readings such as these when you need to be writing is often branded taboo.  Consider, however, that in some cases this judgment may a bit too drastic.  Recall the writer in the picture at the top of this page.  He’s clearly engaged in the writing process but isn’t putting words down.  He appears to be working out an idea in his head.  What should he do next?  Continue thinking with his eyes closed?  Draft whatever comes to mind?  Why not turn to some of the notes or books by his side?

Reading through a Writing Delay

Sometimes during the writing process writers get stuck in the drafting or revising stages and need to find a way back in.  Temporarily revisiting the pre-writing stage at such times can be a constructive move.  Among the various strategies for pre-writing, there is certainly a place for reading or rereading old or new sources.  Yet when you do turn to reading or rereading such materials to reactivate the writing you need to do, heed these tips:

• Set suitable reading parameters
For example, if you’re proposing a dissertation on popular songs during the American Civil War,
clearly you should stick to sources within the boundaries of this topic area and avoid irrelevant
readings about, say, Modern Art.

• Read and write in tandem
Reading broadly and deeply is a fundamental component of your project, but, naturally, you do need to write in order to complete it.  However, instead of thinking you should be either reading or writing, accept that, as you progress, both reading and writing can overlap.

No matter what your field is, embracing reading while working through each stage of the writing process is an idea worth considering.  Certainly, however, the nature and scope of the reading involved will vary from one field to the next.

A Call to Writers in STEM and Related Fields

Incidentally, if you happen to be working on a thesis or dissertation in the sciences, technology, engineering, mathematics, or related fields, we’d be interested in hearing from you about your experiences with your project proposal (or hearing about your project as a whole).  What important differences in process or approach do you notice between your own work and what you read about here (and elsewhere)?  We invite you to drop ideas in the comment box below.

Building Your Tribe (Again and Again)

If you're an average-aged grad student or older, you're a full fledged grown-up by now, whether you like it or not. Like me, you've probably realized that making friends as an adult is not like making friends as a young person. When we lose the easy friendships of our high school tribe, our college tribe, or even our bar-going, concert-going, or [insert any 20-something activity here] buddies, the road to a graduate degree can get lonesome. The sobriety of adulthood and of the graduate journey are two strikes against us as friend material.

What I've realized is that adults, especially in our line of work, need friends with common interests and similar goals. The exuberance of youthful friendships and the energy of their bodies and minds (and their staggering amount of free time) makes friendships of all kinds enjoyable and sustainable.  We can still have our old friendships. But as graduate students, we have a specific goal shared by a small percentage of the population. Not only that, our most passionate interests are only interesting to an even smaller, infinitesimal percentage of the population. It seems like we need to bust out the Venn Diagrams to figure out which of the people we know should still put up with us as friends!

The First Tribe: Get One!

When I say we need similar people in our lives, I don't mean vaguely similar. Like "We are both success oriented and outgoing!" similar. I mean SIMILAR. Like, "We both study the genome of a rare species of Bolivian rat!" similar. ...I'm kidding. But students in your department who share the same journey are the first place to look for camaraderie, if you are newly doing the grad thing. Attend lectures, talk to people after class, join a group, go out for drinks. At first it will be awkward. But we're all old enough not to care about being "cool"! So try really hard just to soak it all up. Be observant, and don't be competitive.  You are all in the same leaky boat.

In the English Department at NIU, we had a broad core of classes, no matter our focus, and I met many like-minded people. Among the TAs in particular, our shared experience of teaching composition to freshmen created a strong bond. (Working on campus and being a part of the department is priceless.) The coursework experience, and the combined experience of the first few years of teaching with people I also studied with, won me a new tribe. I can only hope that coursework and GA work is such a social boon for all early career grad students.

End of Coursework, End of Social Life?

That tribe disappears, all too soon. The MA students were gone in two years. I miss some of them a lot. PhD students who entered ahead of me, core members of my tribe, are off dissertating, locked away from social interruptions. Some have finished and moved far away.  I stopped driving to campus for the drink nights that used to be so easy to attend when they were right after class. Today, I have the solid support of my office, and the vague support of my family who have no idea what I'm doing. But I haven't much in the way of comrades. I feel like I'm writing all alone.

All I can say is don't let that happen. The involvement will diminish, but the time spent together is still important. At the stage of the thesis or dissertation we need so much more than commiseration and shop talk. We need support, strategies, hope, and human connection. We spend so much time with our research and our laptops. It's odd, really. But you know who won't think it's odd? The other people who do it.

Facebook groups (friend everyone!) are a great way to plan events and stay in touch, even when you hardly see each other in person anymore. Part of the reason I dropped out of the tribe was lack of transportation.  Well, I've got a new car! Writing this post has given me the urge to get back on social media and find some real-life social activities to do.

Other Ways to Connect

I know I just said you need grad student friends. But there are other kinds of specifically like-minded friends! That's my main thesis here --  we are not the best friend material right now.  So we should seek friendship that is as supportive as possible of our unique situations.

I have a social life outside of school, almost solely because I'm in rock bands. This is another way that I surround myself with people of very specific interests. Do you play? If not, you're probably not someone I see very often. It sounds bad, but we only have so much time, and we need to fill it with the right kinds of stimulation.  So in addition to your efforts on campus, finding a hobby and focusing on it can round out your social life better than aimless bar-going or online dating. Most of us can't turn our brains off, right?  So find something that stimulates a different part of it.  Art, geo-caching, gaming, hiking, whatever. A specific thing to share.

Someday We'll Be Normal (Sort of)

Someday we will finish our theses and dissertations. We can nurse neglected friendships, balance our lives out, and maybe even start eating real food again! I'm not arguing at all that high-achievers have no use for broader social circles and diversity among their friends. I'm just saying that right now, you need grad school friends. And the best way to find the ones who will help you along your journey is to simply look around at your fellow travelers.

Break Time!

We’ve been posting some heavy material in our last few blog entries—so this post encourages you to relax! With many of us about to start (or have started) a new school year or semester, and others working hard in other ventures, I'm excited to tell you about the studies revealing the benefits of taking a break, especially outside. 

On June 23 of this year, NPR’s Patti Neighmond posted an article, “Take a Hike to Do Your Heart and Spirit Good.” In this piece, Neighmond references an NPR study on adult exercise. The poll revealed that about 50% of adults say they do exercise regularly, with walking being the most common activity. Neighmond reveals, however, that many people think walking isn’t good enough exercise, so they may skip it.

Neighmond then reports on studies by Dr. Tim Church of Louisiana State University. These studies show that while walking might not help adults lose actual pounds, it does help reduce belly fat and keeps the body generally healthier.

What does that have to do with writing? Well, Church also found that regular walkers have    

•     less anxiety
•        less depression
•        more energy

So for writers of serious, lengthy research, why not stop for a few minutes and take a walk to recharge--so to speak? And even if you are quite energetic already, there are more benefits of nature breaks...

In April 2014, Ellen Stuart from the Ernst & Young Leadership and Professional Development Center at NIU wrote a post called “Boost Your Brainpower!” for the LPDC Blog. Ellen reports that “spending time outside can actually boost your brainpower”; she references the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which finds that a “20 minute walk through ‘green space’… reduces ‘brain fatigue.’”

These ideas may be second nature (pun not entirely intended!) to most, but I think sometimes we need to be reminded and prompted to actually get outside!

Yet, as I was riding my bike on my favorite path recently, I began to wonder if even the smells around me had a positive influence—including that dank river smell. I did a quick Google search and found a piece that Bonnie Tsui wrote for The Atlantic City Lab entitled “The Smell of Nature Is Almost As Good As the Real Thing, As Far As Our Brains Are Concerned.”

Hmmm…really?

Well, yes. Tsui provides good evidence for using aromatherapy during those times when you can’t get outside. Tsui refers to a study touting the benefits of walking outside done by Qing Li, an immunologist at Tokyo’s Nippon Medical School. In this study, Li found that “walks in the woods boosted natural killer immune cells that helped fight infection and cancer,” and he, as I (patting myself on the back), “came to suspect that it was the natural scents of evergreens and other trees that did the bulk of the work." Some countries are now even promoting “forest therapy,” according to Tsui. Read Tsui’s piece to learn about Li’s findings on sniffing cypress scents and more. 

So while I might fire up the aromatherapy diffuser soon, right now, it’s beautiful outside. I’m going to take a walk and view and smell the real outdoors. I hope that you can too.

The Defense Rests

Recently, after a conversation with my director, I came to the realization that some day -- sooner than I may realize -- I am going to have to defend my dissertation. Normally, such an epiphany would stress me out considering all of the horror stories that other graduate students have revealed to me about the defense process.

But I decided that worrying myself over something that has not even happened yet was crazy and a waste of my time. Instead, I decided that if I wanted to prepare myself for what was coming, then I should sit in on a dissertation defense. After all, they are open to the public (the calendar of defenses can be found by clicking on this link).

You know what? It wasn't that bad.

The defense that I watched was for a doctoral student in the humanities. I cannot guarantee that her experience is typical for every graduate student, but I had the sense that her dissertation defense followed a fairly standard format.

The proceedings began with the members of the dissertation committee and the doctoral candidate taking their seats around a long conference table. The director began the defense by introducing himself and the other committee members, and followed this with a review of the day's agenda. I liked how the director was letting the candidate know beforehand what all she could expect to take place.

The entire procedure consists of nothing more than a q&a. It reminded me a great deal of an exit interview. The candidate's answers basically are a narrative -- X is my topic; I chose X as my topic because . . . ; my thesis about X is the following . . . .

The director started the questioning. The candidate was asked why she chose her topic and what she learned about her topic. Next, she was asked what she learned from her graduate school experience -- she was a more mature student compared to many of her peers and I had the impression that her committee was interested in ascertaining what aspects of her education proved beneficial so that they might be replicated with future students -- and, finally, what did she experience through the research and writing process. These were very easy questions that any graduate student could answer. They helped to relax the candidate, establish rapport, and let everyone know that while the defense is serious business, it was nothing more than a conversation between colleagues.

As the candidate answered, she transitioned into a detailed discussion of her topic. She chose to incorporate a powerpoint presentation into the defense process that I found very stimulating.

The big thing: she did not read the slides to the audience. I dislike when speakers do this. I find it tedious and unprofessional. The candidate clearly had good experience incorporating powerpoint into a lecture. I do not think that every graduate student needs to think about putting together a presentation for his or her defense. In this case, given her choice of topic, integrating the slides into her defense was ideal.

This brought the director's line of questioning to an end. Next, the other two committee members asked questions about specific passages or particular arguments found in the body of the dissertation. Everyone seated at the conference table had a paper copy of the dissertation in front of them so that everyone could refer to individual chapters or pages if need be. Passages were examined and the candidate was asked to clarify a couple of points.

After the committee was done asking questions, people in attendance but not directly affiliated with the candidate or the committee were invited to pose questions.

Once it was apparent that the session was complete, everyone was asked to vacate the room so that the committee could confer in private. After a few minutes, the candidate was invited back into the room to hear her results: Pass, or Pass but some revisions necessary.

The portion of the dissertation defense that I was allowed to witness lasted no longer than 45 minutes. It was a very casual affair. I was surprised coffee was not served. The experience felt as though it could have easily taken place in a cafe.

I noticed the candidate had her dissertation clipped into a three ring binder and there was a plastic divider separating each chapter. This allowed her to turn to the appropriate section of her dissertation quickly and effortlessly when prompted to do so by an examiner's question. This is one aspect of the defense that I would recommend that every graduate student follow. It made the candidate look poised and professional.

Now that I have watched a dissertation defense, I feel a lot better about the experience. I plan on attending more defenses in order to determine what other tips I might pick up that I can integrate into my own defense.

Until then, I have books to read, secondary research to track down, and lots of coffee to drink while I stay up late to write.
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Have any thesis or dissertation defense tips? Know any classic thesis or dissertation defense stories? Feel free to comment on this blog or share them on with our Facebook group!