Why should I define my term?

I am always asked how I define patriotism or citizenship. And I always struggle to reply. Because out there in the literature, there are gazillions of definitions, some of them conflicting. I always tell people, the term is defined the way people want to define it, I don't fix the definition... I think... Perhaps I should play the role of a Philosopher and try to define it for myself.

'The nature of citizenship', Aristotle declared, '... is a question which is often disputed: there is no general agreement on a single definition.' Yet the terms 'citizen' and 'citizenship' are in constant use throughout the world today: the concepts are central to everyday political discourse. Is it therefore good enough for 'citizenship' to be a 'Humpty-Dumpty' word, in danger of crashing into fragments while asserting that it means just what it chooses to mean? Surely not. Citizens should know what their status implies; and they should understand when politicians abuse the term by according the whole concept only a partial range of attributes. It is, moreover, important to understand the complexity of the role of citizen and to appreciate that much needs to be learned if civic rights are to be exercised, civic duties are to be performed and a life of civic virtue is to be pursued. The citizen, in short, must be educated; and no teacher can properly construct the necessary learning objectives if semantic confusion surrounds the very subject to be studied.

This is not to argue in a world of richly diverse political traditions that a detailed prescription of universal application is either possible or desirable. Rather to suggest that those who use the words 'citizenship', 'world citizenship' and 'education for citizenship' should be aware of the long history and great wealth of meaning which lie behind them. Furthermore, only confusion and harm can arise from loose employment of the term. If we can but reach an agreement on some definitional highest common factor, political discourse and social education can only benefit from the clarification. To this end the present work is offered as some contribution. (Heater, 2004, p. vii) 

I think one of my goals for my PhD studies must be to come up with an operationally ready to be used definition of patriotism, usable in the educational setting. Yes. Cannot skirt this issue anymore. Difficult to define, so go in and solve the problem, don't avoid anymore.

I just received a book to review (Kleinig, Keller & Primoratz, 2015) and they did define patriotism. Will learn from these philosophers and write one for myself.

References

Heater, D. (2004). Citizenship: The civic ideal in world history, politics and education (3 ed.). Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press.

Kleinig, J., Keller, S., & Primoratz, I. (2015). The ethics of patriotism: A debate. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell.

Word Count Analysis

I thought of doing a little analysis of how an article evolves. This article is still evolving but I am impressed with how it has taken shape so far. You can see the ideal of 6000 words and how I started out with 9540. Also, the most problematic part was the Findings and you can see how it has progressively fall in word count. It fell because of my supervisor's feedback to restructure. So the fastest way to cut word count is to find a neater structure that can contain your ideas. Copyediting will not help much at cutting down the words, it only chips away. So those minor fall in numbers were the results of concision and clarity, the drastic fall was the result of major re-writing. Also, perhaps you can see my struggle with the conclusion, especially at the beginning. So clueless I was, I left it empty. I have consistently found the conclusion one of the hardest sections to write.

I hope this analysis can encourage others who are finding it difficult to write. It's really a matter of perseverance. You keep working at it, and you don't give up, and one day it will be ready to be submitted.

So I am going to give myself some appreciation and validation now (and be self-compassionate). Good job, Shuyi! Nice work you have there. It's not yet completed, but I like the way it's going. :)

Struggles with the third paper

The third paper is much harder to write... It is harder to come up with common themes for four very different and distinct individuals. I struggled so greatly. I thought I could just list them case by case, but my supervisor said that was too boring. It was. It was a chunk full of words. So I re-wrote it into strange dichotomies. There's this inner-quantitative-man in me that likes binaries very much. I have a tendency to do this... My supervisor told me binaries are not themes, themes are focused on a single aspect and don't come in this-or-thats. Today, I tried again... Finally, a semblance of themes. I will need to read through what I wrote and refine it and also adjust my Discussion according to it.

This paper is taking much longer than expected to complete... We were targeting mid-August...

However, I noticed I have really grown in terms of receiving feedback. In the past, when my supervisor had once asked me to make drastic changes like this, I actually broke down and cried, because I did not know how to do it. My dear friend, Glenda, comforted me. Back then, I really had no resources to draw on, because I was doing major re-writing for the first time. But today, when something's not right, I just go back to the drawing board, quite emotionlessly and re-structure, re-work and re-write. It has reached a stage that perhaps I am close to calling it a skill I have mastered... The skill of changing the way I think and write, as others and myself wish and dictate. I no longer find that I am restricted to a set of thoughts or piece or writing because of a lack of ability or resources to change.

So this is something worth celebrating over.

*pats herself on the shoulder*

Good job! :)

"I want to enlarge my mental, emotional and/or spiritual horizons."

Something beautiful I read today:

"There are many intriguing questions we might raise about each new person that we meet (and some of our old friends as well), but the most intriguing of all is to wonder how large his or her world is. The obvious answer: "As large as the world that God has made" or "As large as Reality", is rarely the true one. God, Providence or Life has given to everyone of us the power to narrow our attention, restrict our consciousness, and limit our mental horizons, so that each of us can create for ourselves - in effect - a world that is much smaller than the World That Is.

Indeed, we begin with such a world - in the natural order of things. We all came into life as infants, conscious only of a very small world, bounded by our mother's arms, or - at best - not wider than our crib. But all the processes of growth that were implanted in our nature, clearly were not willing to leave the matter there. Life, Providence or God - depending on your point of view - seemed bent upon moving us, willy-nilly, into an ever larger world. Each new week, each new experience, each new learning, accomplished this in us. With the coming of our sight, our infant world grew larger than our mother's arms; as large, in fact, as our room. With the coming of crawling, our world grew as large as our home. With the advent of walking, as large as our yard or our street. In time, as large as our  neighborhood, or the town. The older we grew, the larger the world that we were conscious of was destined to become - the further out our mental, emotional and spiritual horizons were pushed.

Once grown, if our horizons were to shrink, it would only be because we fell ill or fall ill. Whether that illness be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. We all know, for example, when a man falls physically ill, how his conscious world becomes much much smaller. Indeed the sicker he is, the smaller it becomes. His attention becomes restricted, his interests become elemental, the horizons of his consciousness often no larger than his room or (if he is seriously ill) no larger than his body. He loses interest in the world, in the daily papers, in the running of the hospital, and can think or talk only about what is going on in his body and being. He is like a general whose central headquarters are under attack, and who consequently withdraws all his troops from the field in order to defend those central headquarters. Only when this defense has been successful are the troops then sent out into the field again. And so with sickness: one of the signs that our man is beginning to get well is that his energies begin to go 'out into the field' again. He notices now what is going on in the rest of the hospital ward. He begins to complain about his food. He asks to see a daily paper. He is getting well. His world is expanding. And just as this is true of physical illness, and its healing, so it is true of illness that is emotional, mental or spiritual.

If illness is the principal enemy of Growing, and Our Expanding Horizons, Education is its principal ally. For example, through geography, we become conscious of a world as large as the world. Through history, we become conscious of a world as far back as recorded time. Through prophecy, as far ahead as we can imagine. Through philosophy, we become conscious of the unseen world of Ideas. Through atomic physics and science, our world expands to include the sub-particles of our very being. Through astronomy, our world expands to include the universe and the stars. So, one of the reasons you may want to take some further education is - quite simply - because you want to expand your mental, emotional, and/or spiritual horizons." (pp. 117-8)

There are many reasons why people further their education. This is clearly my main reason. Education is healing. Education opens your mind, heart, soul and spirit to the world that sick people hide away from. When I learn about the world, I feel restored, humbled and free.

Reference
Bolles, R. N. (1981) The three boxes of life and how to get our of them: An introduction to life/work planning. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

Writing for impact

I used to be ashamed of what I have written... despite the surprise I get when I re-read some of the things I've written. I am surprised because I never knew I had so many amazing idea and I think I write quite well. :) But I want to change this. I want to be proud of the ideas I have and fight for them. I will change them if you can convince me as well. But I want to stand for something first. So here I promote myself:

https://nie-sg.academia.edu/ShuyiChua

Feel free to engage me. We are all intelligent in our own ways. And I would say, even if you don't consider me very intelligent, I am very academically humble, meaning if you are willing to give me any form of feedback, I will consider it carefully and gratefully. So this enables me to learn very broadly and quickly and this makes up for any lack.

Today, I share a paragraph from a book. The purpose is to motivate myself, because I am re-writing an article for publication and if you lose sight of the reason why you do it... It can become a very tiring process. So here I am reminding myself of why I do what I do.

"Writing for impact is trying to change the conversation: pointing out something new and interesting, changing how people think about a familiar problem, refining the field's vocabulary, adding new concepts and tools. The impact of an article is made visible in many ways. People cite your work in their papers; catch you at a conference and mention they read it (i.e., they saw it and intend to read it someday); ask you to peer review manuscripts and grant proposals on the topic, thus proving that no good works go unpunished; invite you to be part of conference sessions and edited books related to your area, thus proving that the rich do get richer; and, at the end of it all, conduct research inspired by yours." (p. 10)

Silvia, Paul J.  (2015). Write it up: Practical strategies for writing and publishing journal articles. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.