Metaphor for Writing

I found a helpful metaphor that seems to nicely describe the stages of writing. It's by Carol Rosenblum Perry (2011) in her book "The Fine Art of Technical Writing".

1. Order - The Skeleton: Constructing a Stable Framework
2. Conciseness - The Body Mass: Making Every Work Count
3. Vigor - The Muscle Tone: Empowering Your Words

Perry conceptualizes writing as a living creature, like us, and all parts must work together in concert "to convey meaning and ensure the ultimate goal: clarity" (p. 19).

I am currently reworking on the skeleton of the manuscript. I am reconstructing the structure because the reviewers have asked of me many things and I find that the current structure cannot contain what they are asking of me. I am expanding the structure in some places and unfortunately (or fortunately?) have to also restructure other places in order to work in the reviewers' suggestions. To me, this is the heaviest work I have to do. Because in order to rework the skeleton, I also have to do much reading and re-reading of new and old literature but also have to go back to my data to bring in more nuances into my writing of the findings and discussion.

Once I get this out of the way, I can work on conciseness. Actually, I will probably start working on conciseness tomorrow, even though the skeleton is still not fixed, because the word count is bulging already, and I don't feel comfortable expanding anymore as I have exceeded my frame. I actually enjoy this conciseness part of writing the most... :)

The part that I may have most problem with is the last point of vigor. My English is not very good. LOL. So I sometimes (or oftentimes) lack the skill of making a sentence more powerful. I tend to write in very simple and short sentences, if you have not already noticed. So... probably when the time comes, if there is enough time, I will be relying more on Perry's book to work on my muscle tone.

An Old Paper

I don't really like to get into the specific of definitions. I don't really like to read Philosophical papers. I get confused when this person thinks this way about this, that person thinks another way about this and so on... It's easier for me to just adopt the manner of thinking aligned to what I want to say...

But the reviewer challenged my avoidance of this issue... There was a particular paper that I downloaded some time ago that addresses this. But I had a reluctance to read it for the reasons I mentioned above. This morning, I was reminded of this paper. 

And I began to read it... 

To my delight, I understood it and why it was written. It was written, precisely, for people like me who are confused about the difference between "critical thinking" and "critical pedagogies"... It was written to clarify the great mess that was created when each scholar defined these terms according to the argument they wanted to make or their own understanding, creating so many subvarieties and nuances.

They wrote to bring order to the mess. They talked about the mess.

Thank you for doing so. :)

I must face my own mess soon. Knowing how you managed this mess, will help me manage mine better.

Touched

I have one motivation to do a PhD. It's something written in my confirmation report: She has shown an awareness of what Masters work entails and exceeded the panel's expectations for Masters level work.

I have goosebumps as I type this.

This sentence is very special to me, because it proves that from reading someone's work, you can tell the quality of that person's work. It's beautiful to me because the other way to know the quality of someone is to hear them market themselves, like hear the person say, "I'm so good etc." But I am not very good at marketing myself. I much prefer showing it or proving it through my actions.

I just thank God that quality can be discerned in more than one way.

I know I have such a long way more to go and there's so much improvement that still can be made. In fact, I'm currently challenged and at a level that I feel if I breakthrough, it will be a big upward surge forward. But it's not a place I like to be in because I don't know how to solve the problem before me.

Life is like this, isn't it. You get tested and tested and tested again. It's uncomfortable, but if you hold on there and don't give up, and you breakthrough, you would have really grown.

Terminology

"... Unless the reader comes to terms with the author, the communication of knowledge from one to the other does not take place. For a term is the basic element of communicable knowledge.

A term is not a word - at least, not just a word without further qualifications. If a term and a word were exactly the same, you would only have to find the important words in a book in order to come to terms with it. But a word can have many meanings, especially an important word. If the author uses a word in one meaning, and the reader reads it in another, words have passed between them, but they have not come to terms. Where there is unresolved ambiguity in communication, there is no communication, or at best communication must be incomplete.

Just look at the word "communication" for a moment. Its root is related to the word "common." We speak of a community as a group of people who have something in common. Communication is an effort on the part of one person to share something with another person (or with an animal or a machine): his knowledge, his decisions, his sentiments. It succeeds only when it results in a common something, such as an information or knowledge that two parties share.

When there is ambiguity in the communication of knowledge, all that is in common are the words that one person speaks or writes and another hears or reads. So long as ambiguity persists, there is no meaning in common between writer and reader. For the communication to be successfully completed, therefore, it is necessary for the two parties to use the same words with the same meanings - in short, to come to terms. When that happens, communication happens, the miracle of two minds with but a single thought.

A term can be defined  as an unambiguous word. That is not quite accurate, for strictly there are not unambiguous words. What we should have said is that a term is a word used unambiguously. The dictionary is full of words. They are almost all ambiguous in the sense that they have many meanings. But a word that has several meanings can be used in one sense at a time. When writer and reader somehow manages for a time to use a given word with one and only one meaning, then, during that time of unambiguous usage, they have come to terms.

You cannot find terms in dictionaries, though the materials for making them are there. Terms occur only in the process of communication. They occur when a writer tries to avoid ambiguity and a reader helps him by trying to follow his use of words. There are, of course, many degrees of success in this. Coming to terms is the ideal toward which writer and reader should strive. Since this is one of the primary achievements of the art of writing and reading, we can think of terms as a skilled use of words for the sake of communicating knowledge." (p. 96-98)

Adler, M. J. & Doren, C. V. (2014) How to read a book: The classic guide to intelligent reading. New York: Simon & Schuster

This is why definitions are so important! And perhaps also the literature review... So you have the chance to clarify to your reader what exactly do your terms mean. Because for the rest of the article, you are using those terms and if the reader has something else in mind, you're communication is going to have some problems. 

The reviewer asked for my voice. He (or she) wanted me to articulate my own views on how "critical patriotism" might be like in Singapore. He wanted to hear my voice. And he asked me to "clarify the epidemiological tradition of "critical" and get into the roots of the version of "critical" that should or could accompany "patriotism"". 

I'm wondering if my issue is with terminology. That I need to tell my readers what is my personal version of critical patriotism, and define it well. I wonder if by doing this, I have settled the issue with my voice and also the issue with the definition. Is it true currently everyone has their own meanings of "critical" and it's not really clear which type of "critical" goes with "patriotism". 

Oh Lord, give me wisdom!

How to receive feedback of reviewers objectively?

1. Remind yourself that your best efforts are only "best" at the time you submit that manuscript, and you would have new views by the time you are ready to revise it.

2. Remind yourself that your mind is limited. No matter how many times you might have checked your work, you will have blind spots. And the reviewers' role is to serve as the person to point out the blind spots in your writing and thinking.

3. Know that the job of the reviewer is to be expert readers so their objective is to make your manuscript better. It is to your advantage that any work of yours which gets published is of very high quality. Your reputation is at stake! So be grateful for people who check your work and give suggestions to make it better.

4. Remind yourself that the main goal is not publication, but publication of high quality. It is better to have a few impactful works than many poorly written pieces.

New Manuscript to Revise

I submitted this article in December...

Now it's March, and I'm reading it with a cringe again. It's amazing how much an individual grows in the span of 2 - 3 months.

So with this perspective, let me welcome those three reviewers comments with great delight! Because, remember, Shuyi, it's not about publishing many! But it's about publishing something worthwhile and impactful and helpful for society. With this is mind, it's alright if it takes a longer time to get something published, so long when it does get published, it is of a quality beneficial to those who will read it, rather than cause others to cringe as I have.

M pointed out to me that the feedback was "thoughtfully and professionally delivered" and "the quality of the feedback is very good" as it was "thorough and specific" and "further, they have acknowledged the good work you have put, and with specifics too."

M's comments made me went back to the feedback and read the strengths of the articles. As a typical Chinese, I normally ignore praises and fixate my eyes on criticisms. But I shall change this too and receive with gladness these positive feedback before I zoom into the areas for improvements.