"You cannot begin writting too early"

I have written many things that would probably never see the daylight (never be published). They are in varying states of disarray. Many were written not for myself, but for others, whether for my bosses or my professors. But today, I feel that while those works did not come to fruition, the writing I did seem to be really for myself.

I can write faster and with greater ease today than I could while writing those stuff in the past. Could it be possible that those rejected works were foundations upon which my current works stand?

I'm now reading an AMAZING book called "Writing Up Qualitative Research" (3rd Edition) by Harry E. Wolcott.

"Writing is not only a great way to discover what we are thinking, it is also a way to uncover lacunae in our knowledge or our thinking. Unfortunately, that means we must be prepared to catch ourselves red-handed whenever we seem not to be thinking at all. The fact should not escape us that when the writing is not going well, our still-nebulous thoughts cannot yet be expressed in words." (p. 19)

"Writing is a way to access that personal fund of information - and misinformation." (p. 21)

Here I have shifted focus to what I am currently writing, my thesis. I have started writing again. And whenever I am unsure about something I have written... I highlight it in yellow. It sits uncomfortably there. And it forces me to return to check out my assumptions and the basis upon which I wrote those sentences and to change those parts till they fit in with what I'm saying.

About two years ago, I learned a systematic method of doing a literature review. It involved a lot of reading. A year ago, I was so immersed into this reading and trying to synthesize everything I have read into a coherent whole. I found it extremely difficult to synthesize, as my reading transverses many fields, many nations and many styles. I have since given that up. I have stopped reading. And stopped obsessing about knowing enough before I can write. Fair enough, that method was good for a start and exposed me to (almost) everything there was to patriotism. But as for today, I find my reading most strategic and effective, when I begin writing. I agree with Wolcott who says:

"Not surprisingly, I regard my most effective reading as the reading I do while I am engaged in fieldwork and/or preparing a manuscript. Writing gives purpose and focus to searching for new sources and reviewing old ones. It provides pegs on which to hang relevant ideas and a basis for deciding what to retain, what to let go." (p. 18)

Another I learned through writing of manuscripts, was that my real difficulty, while initially was in producing text, but thereafter was really in reducing text. I tend to write too much. I was forced to confront this when the editor raised this issue that there was much text to cut. That episode taught me not to develop an attachment to what I write or how I think, but to be ever read to re-structure and edit, so that what I write would be interesting and easy to understand for a reader. I learned that what I want to say must align with what others want to read. So I also agree when Wolcott says:

"The major problem in writing up descriptively oriented research is not to get but to get rid of data! With writing comes the always painful task of winnowing material to a manageable length, communicating an essence rather than compiling the bulky catalog that would provide further evidence of one's painstaking thoroughness.  The greater one's commitment to letting informants offer their own interpretation of meanings and events - the emic emphasis, as it is referred to in anthropological circles - the greater the proclivity to provide lengthy accounts that dampen the enthusiasm not only of readers but of potential publishers as well. The lengthier the study, the more costly to produce it, and, correspondingly, the greater the risk of it does not attract a wide readership."

Research Problem

I am now thinking about how to write my research problem. 

"Doctoral study should be concerned with a problem, justify the importance of attending to that problem, and persuade a reader that the evidence they have accumulated on the topic sheds new light on the issue. So, the essence of the doctoral dissertation is not recount or summary. It is extended argument. A dissertation that contains little argument may well struggle to achieve the stated goal of making a scholarly contribution." (p. 117)

Kamler, B. and Thomson, P. (2014) Helping doctoral students write: Pedagogies for supervision (2nd Edition) Florence, KY: Routledge

What is my problem?

"The problem indicates the need for the study. In writing up your problem statement, be sure that it refers to an important, authentic, genuine problem that we know little about, but that is significant and therefore worthy of investigation. Ask yourself: So why is this a problem? The fact that there may be little in the literature on the subject is not a problem. For every problem there has to be a worthwhile reason for the study to be conducted...
All qualitative research emerges from a perceived problem, some unsatisfactory situation, condition, or phenomenon that we want to confront. Sometimes the source of research is around a particular scholarly debate, a pressing social issue, or some workplace phenomena we want to better understand. Basically, the problem statement is the discrepancy between what we already know and what we want to know. A research problem is driven by what Booth, Colomb, and Williams (2008) state is "incomplete knowledge or flawed understanding. You solve it not by changing the world but by understanding it better" (p. 59)."

Bloomberg, L. D., & Volpe, M. Completing your qualitative dissertation: A road map from beginning to end (2 ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc

Could it have been me?

"Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics. What sort of mind or temperament can all these people be supposed to have in common? Obligative scientists must be very rare, and most people who are in fact scientists could easily have been something else instead."
- Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble

Sounds like it would make an AWESOME book. It is, however, out-of-print. :( Okay, it will have to wait for now.

I am reading "Advice to a Young Scientist" by P. B. Medawar. I feel so honoured and cherished that he considers a social scientist, also a scientist, for "human beings are among the most prominent fauna" of the natural world, of which, Medawar explains, "it was our purpose to seek an understanding" (p. 2). He also said this about science: "The important thing is the inclination to get at the truth of matters as far as he is able and to take the steps that will make it reasonably likely he will do so (p. 3)."

"Any passage in this book that a reader may think especially apt and illuminating is that which was written for him or her; that which is well understood already will not be thought interesting and will pass by unnoticed. (p. xiv)"

I love the way he writes. It's beautiful.

Medawar, Peter. 1979. Advice to a Young Scientist. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.

The sound of my voice

I like hearing the sound of my voice, not on audio recordings, but on paper. I recognize my voice. It's distinct from others. I have my own perspective and opinion about things and while how good they are, we don't know, but I seem quite sure about my own voice. I see that in writing. I don't think like the people whose work I am reading and making references from.

I see my voice in the scribbles on the margins of paper where I comment on the voices of other authors. I analyze what they say and compare it to what others say, and find that I am able to remove myself from what these authors are saying to make a mega-comment, a big picture comment on what is happening.

And I love doing this. :)

Doing a PhD

I was talking to my friend. I was just sharing that when I learned the credentials of some PhD candidates, I became intimidated at the "competition" I would be facing if I went on to pursue a PhD in graduate school. And he shared that it's not about "competition". We really don't compete against one another, as we are all interested in different things and we will all be experts in our own right in our own area of expertise. I really heaved a sigh of relief at that. Doing the PhD is going to be a personal race where we compete against ourselves, really. And there is no need to be happy if you "do better" than others or feel insecure when others "do better" than you. You really can't compare like that and you shouldn't. Each has their own race to run, own glories, own difficulties and challenges. We should not be desiring what others have but pursue our own dreams and goals.

Data Displays for Analysis

"Our experience tells us that extended, unreduced text alone is a weak and cumbersome form of display. It is hard on analysts because it is dispersed over many pages and is not easy to see as a whole. It is sequential rather than simultaneous, making it difficult to look at two or three variables at once. It is usually poorly ordered, and it can get very bulky, monotonously overloading. Comparing several extended texts carefully is very difficult.
...
The argument of this book is, You know what you display. Valid analysis requires, and is driven by, displays that are focused enough to permit a viewing of a full data set in the same location, and are arranged systematically to answer the research questions at hand.  A"full data set" does not, of course, mean the complete field notes. Rather the condensed, distilled data presented are drawn from the full range of persons, events, and processes under study...
...
Although such displays may sometimes be busy, they will never be monotonous. Most important, the chances of drawing and verifying valid conclusions are much greater than for extended text, because the display is arranged coherently to permit careful comparisons, detection of differences, noting of patterns and themes, seeing trends, and so on.
...
Good displays permit the researcher to absorb large amounts of information quickly (Cleveland, 1985). But the qualitative analyst has to handcraft appropriate data displays." (p. 91-93)

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994), Qualitative data analysis Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Publishing

I was just flipping through the first two drafts of the paper that was finally published. The first one was really bad and heavily critiqued by my supervisor. The second one was poorly written, a mouthful, also heavily edited. But this was the one we sent out. That was some time in May. It was forgotten. Until July, the editor got back with the reviewers' comments. They were all extremely kind and nice in how they first praised me before they put in the criticism. But that being my first time having work critiqued by experts, I did not take too well to it. I emailed M to share how I felt. And I took a few days, even a week before I could face the feedback objectively. I struggled to not acquiesce to the comments but to maintain what I wanted to say as well. I finally got something out. And my friend who is working on his political science phd read my work and gave me very good feedback. After working on this, supervisor went through and tightened it. And I sent it out again in September. Three weeks later, my supervisor taught me to email to ask about it. And a few days later the editors replied to say it was well received by the reviewer and accepted and so happened to be in time for the next issue.

That was my publishing journey. If you asked me, I say it was a miracle, a gift from God. So many people had their hands in it to make it even possible. That God surrounded me with so many good people, I am grateful. 

The two types of literature reviews

So there are two types of review in doing a thesis, the beginning one when you craft your proposal and the ending one when you are writing your thesis! The following is cited from Kamler and Thomas (2014): "

• the scoping review. This review sets out to create an agenda for future research. It documents what is already known about a topic, and then focuses on the gaps, niches, disputes, blank and blind spots. It delineates key concepts, questions and theories in order to refine research question(s) and justify an approach to be taken.
• the traditional review. This is somewhat like a scoping review, but its argument is not to create the space for a research project. It is to position a piece of research that has already been undertaken. In essence the reader gets what's-already-known, plus the newly conducted research as the contribution. The literature is used to locate the what-we-now-know-that-we-didn't-before-and-why-this-is-important. Some texts and themes from the initial scoping review are omitted, and other things are now emphasized in order to make clear the connections and continuities, similarities and differences of the new research to what's gone before. 

 ...One justifies the research to be done, the other locates the contribution in the field of completed research... The initial text has to be modified - not just because more has been read, but because the purpose and argument are different." (p.52)

Kamler, B. and Thomson, P. (2014) Helping doctoral students write: Pedagogies for supervision (2nd Edition) Florence, KY: Routledge

Writing as "physical, emotional, and aesthetic labour"

From my heart, I sometimes write snippets about writing on Facebook. But I want a better place to collect them. So I'm gonna add some here. Maybe more to come in the future. This is to remind me that writing is so much more than a technique and a product, it is also a craft and a process.

The difficulty with writing is oftentimes not that I do not have enough ideas but that I have too many, and I have to learn to pick and choose those that I can thread together into a beautiful necklace. This often involves abandoning some of my favorite beads that do not fit the theme of the necklace I'm stringing together. - May 5 2014

Writing is an art. Initially, I approach it with my own bare hands, molding and restructuring it into shape. Towards its completion, I come with a chisel, chipping off bits and pieces to reveal the sculpture. My work has a frame - the word limit. And like an artist, I have put in so much tears, sweat and blood into my work that any criticism is hard to bear. - 7 September 2014

Kamler and Thomson (2014) say that, "Writing is physical, emotional and aesthetic labour... Many scholars carry their scholarship deep in their psyche, bones and muscles. (p. 3)" I think so too. :)

Kamler, B. and Thomson, P. (2014) Helping doctoral students write: Pedagogies for supervision (2nd Edition) Florence, KY: Routledge

The courage of a writer

I have good news! The paper that I co-wrote with my supervisor has been accepted for publication!

But you know at this stage when the editor asked me to work on the "writing" which means things like grammar and style... it made me very uncomfortable. Grammar isn't my strength. I felt immense insecurity and sought help from friends.

My insecurities about writing surfaced as well and I was scared. I am afraid that my reader will read my work and spot all my grammatical errors. And other sort of writing and thinking errors.

I think this is the courage that is needed by the writer. The courage to say it, even if you cannot be 100% sure it is correct, even if it's wrong, to say it loud and clear and not be ashamed that you do not know some things or many things. The courage to submit your work, even when you know the work is not perfect, it cannot be perfect and never will be perfect. Because you only have who you are now to do the work, you don't have who you desire to be, who you'd be 10 years later, all the time and help and resources in the world. The courage to put yourself (how you think) out there to be criticized and to allow people to make a judgement on your work.

I find this quotation immensely encouraging at this stage where I ought to be extremely delighted about this good news, yet I feel trepidation.

"For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." - Aristotle

What this means is that we must not be paralyzed to start, to continue and to complete a work; wherever we are, at whatever stage we are at, in whatever we do. If we have the idea that we must first be of a certain standard before we can start, continue and complete something, we forfeit the experience of learning through the process. Thus, we must not be afraid to make mistakes, to make many of them. Not be afraid to produce substandard work. For this is probably is the only way to master something. And everyone, excluding a few anomalies, will probably start as an amateur and perfect their art and skills along the way.

"Every artist was first an amateur." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I also find comfort in that even established authors still spot errors in their books and still change the way they think and write by writing new editions. (I will not laugh anymore when I spot typo errors in printed books.)

Changes within me

I started working on my Masters thesis with a brashness that I have found something so special that everyone will want to know about it. I made strong claims, too strong perhaps. My writing was harsh, as if I were trying to tell you how great my work is.

Today, as I come to write another draft of my work... I find that I have mellowed much. After having my work criticized by experts and friends, I have lost that brashness and pride. I find that I am more like an explorer now. I am more humble in my attitude. I delete the parts where I was over-confident, and replaced them with more simple and genuine words.

I can sense this change within me, because now I feel so uncomfortable with what I had written in the past. Why did I write like that? Why those lofty words and big concepts? I feel like my feet are more firmly planted on the ground now.