Vexing questions, real dilemmas and new territories

"It is a mistake to imagine that writers are experts on the things they write about - at least, it is a mistake in my case! I write about things I am still wrestling with, things that are important to me but that I have not yet figured out. Once I master something, I put it behind me. I lose the passionate curiosity that writing a book requires. I write to explore vexing questions and real dilemmas, to take myself into territories I have never seen before in hopes of understanding myself and the world a bit better." - Parker Palmer, Preface of The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring, 1999

This resonates with how I feel research writing is about, it is like trying to resolve a mystery for myself. Some big cosmic puzzle is troubling me, and I keep trying to find answers for it, and as I seek the truth, I share it with others. There is no pressure to prove something, I am simply exploring, and so there's no fear of arguments against mine...

What is a proposal?

Your dissertation proposal is an opportunity for you to present your idea and proposed actions for consideration in a shared decision-making situation. You, with all the integrity at your command, are helping your chairperson and/or doctoral committee to see how you view the situation, how the work you propose fills a need, how it builds on what has been done before, how it will proceed, how pitfalls will be avoided, why pitfalls not avoided are not a serious threat, what the consequences of your efforts are likely to be, and what significance they are likely to have. It is a carefully prepared, enthusiastic, interestingly written, skillful presentation. Your presentation displays your ability to assemble the foregoing materials into an internally consistent chain of reasoning. (p. 5)

Krathwohl, D. R. and Smith, N. L. (2005). How to prepare a dissertation proposal: Suggestions for students in education & the social and behavioral sciences. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press.

"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.

Writing is Social

"The best writing is created in community with a strong sense of audience."

"Do not get distracted into reading yet another article when a conversation with someone in your field can better help you to shape your ideas and direction. You should be spending as much time on establishing social scholarly connections as you do on writing, for the best writing happens in active interaction with your potential audience.

The more you participate, the better your experience of writing will be. This is partly because others give you ideas and language. But it is also because you must relate your ideas to others' ideas. You must know what theories professors in your discipline are debating, what their primary research questions are, and what methodologies they consider appropriate. You can only know this if you are an active member of the community." (p. 7)

Hey! This book is good!

Belcher, W. L. (2009). Writing your journal article in 12 weeks: A guide to academic publishing success. Los Angeles: SAGE.

The Importance of First Understanding Before Critiquing

"Every author has had the experience of suffering book reviews by critics who did not feel obliged to do the work of the first two stages (meaning analysis of the book). The critic too often thinks he does not have to be a reader as well as a judge. Every lecturer has also had the experience of having critical questions asked that were not based on any understanding of what he had said. You yourself may remember an occasion where someone said to a speaker, in one breath or at most two, "I don't know what you mean, but I think you're wrong."

There is actually no point in answering critics of this sort. The only polite thing to do is to ask them to state your position for you, the position they claim to be challenging. If they cannot do it satisfactorily, if they cannot repeat what you have said in their own words, you know that they do not understand, and you are entirely justified in ignoring their criticisms. They are irrelevant, as all criticisms must be that is not based on understanding. When you find the rare person who shows that he understands what you are saying as well as you do, then you can delight in his agreement or be seriously disturbed by his dissent." (p. 144)

Adler, M. & Van Doren, C. (2014) How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. New York: Simon & Schuster

I love this book. I am so humbled by it. I learned that I have been leaving life wrong in some sense. I learned that I can be so quick to comment and tell others what I think, that I have neglected listening carefully to what they say. I have not truly understand. This fault of mine is even more apparent in the academic setting. So I am going to learn how to read and how to understand and how to critique.

I thought of sharing with you a list of my favourite books that have helped me very much in my development as a thinker-writer (and now, I shall add -reader). I love to read such books.

The next time I attend a talk/presentation. I must first make it a point to understand from the speaker/presenter's point of view first, before I make any comments.

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.

Where do ideas come from?

I get my ideas from many places. Sometimes, actually many times, from scholarly articles. But many times more easily from unrelated books. Sometimes I chanced upon a sentence from a book, and immediately I get a sense of how I can write a particular idea or topic or thesis according to its structure or the concept. :)

Also from movies. :) I try to watch movies related to my work because it gives me an experience I never had before and I tend to learn better from something I can relate to. 

When I'm looking for something, seeking to understand something, I find it everywhere. It reminded me of a quotation from the Alchemist:

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream. (Paulo Coelho)

I t    I think this is one of the ways to keep your your sanity when you're doing graduate study. You cannot get stuck with stale ideas or it quickly becomes a burden. You need fresh ideas from various viewpoints all the time. 

Christmas Submission

You know, we typically think publishing an article is harder than writing a thesis, because it's supposed to really show your scholarship.

This year, I had the taste of trying to write articles and thesis. I actually find it harder to write a thesis. Even for the 7,000 word article, I struggled to read the article in one setting in order to edit it. Can you imagine, how am I supposed to do that for a 40,000 word document? I've been working on my thesis chapter by chapter, but eventually I will need to check the whole thing for coherence.

Writing a thesis is more like writing a book, more ideas to put into in a megastructure; whereas an article is very concise and direct and you don't need to try to tell everything. Oh, but that poses a different challenge. How to write with focus is difficult as well, I guess, especially for someone like me who is easily distracted by new concepts and ideas.

I have to work on that thesis soon as I hope to get it submitted for examination in January 2015.

But I am actually so grateful that my supervisor supported me so much in writing of articles. When I was an undergraduate, that was my then supervisor's goal. He said that if I can publish before I complete my thesis, it would help me get pass the thesis examination better. But it remained a lofty and unattainable goal for me. Back then, just struggling to grasp the research I was doing, also words didn't come easily. I also didn't know back then that writing was a very labor-intensive project, requiring a lot of editing. Back then, a week before submission, I started to write. *shakes head*

I remembered my supervisor being surprised that I wrote quite well, given the really "dire straits" situation I was to rush to complete that thesis. I still remember and feel proud, because till this day, I still felt that God enabled me to write the discussion of my undergraduate thesis. Rather than feeling insulted that others thought I got someone else to write for me, I felt proud that I wrote well, because I had help from above. And I guess this has been a motto of my life. By nature, I have few strengths, but I always desire to avail my body for the use of the Lord, so that when His strength is displayed, I know who to praise and who to thank.

Fear and Greed

I didn't write this. It was something my colleague's boss sent to him, written by someone else. But I remembered how comforting when I first saw this two years ago, because I experienced strongly the emotions of fear and greed as a beginning writer. I have a hardcopy of it and am thinking of archiving it here so I can throw it away and save some space. (And to also share it with you. :))

So here it goes:

"I feel any writing project has two phases: 1. fear and 2. greed.

To get started in writing, you are stepping into the unknown and you are not sure if what you write is going to be good or not. So, you are fearful, and you are paralyzed by the fear. Usually the best thing to do is "just do it". Don't be a perfectionist. Write whatever comes to your mind. "There is no good writing, only good rewriting". 

Once you get started, the momentum may carry you over to phases two. You feel good about your paper and can't wait to finish. Along the way, it might be a good idea to get your students, postdoc, and colleagues to help you such as writing certain parts of the MS, so that it is not too solitary an endeavor.

Having an incremental goal and reward mechanism also helps. For example, if I write one page today, I will do something I really want to do. Or when I finish this paper, I will go to Bermuda for a nice vacation."

Feedback

I think I enjoy thinking about writing, sometimes more than writing itself. I am in the thick of it. I have revisited my Chapter 1 and a newly created Chapter 4 which talks about the context of Singapore. And recently, I have started revising my Chapter 5 which is findings. And now, time for a break. I read this passage in Harry Wolcott's Writing Up Qualitative Research (ed. 3 page 73):

The search for theory, like a cogent review of the literature, offers another way to link up with the prior work of others and a shorthand way to convey the gist of our interests and inquiries. This "searching" stage is where one's dissertation committee, one's faculty colleagues, even anonymous reviewers, can - but seldom do - render invaluable service. Rather than belittle the efforts of novice researchers who thrash about trying desperately to hook up with theory, those more experienced in inquiry of this kind can - and should - suggest possible leads and links. We all run the risk of getting tunnel vision when writing up our own research, failing to see the broader implications or remaining unaware of relevant work that might provide a fresh or clearer perspective. 

I like this passage because I have been the recipient of many kind feedbackers. I don't take very well to criticisms and praises. I'm like those tender reeds that break easily, though I'm put in that situation so often, I hope my skin has grown thicker. So I have been extremely blessed that people who give me feedback are always very kind. They never fail to first draw out my strengths, before showing me my weaknesses. My confirmation reviewers wrote such nice comments about my work that I hid the comments for about a year. I was so embarrassed by it. But when I took them out to read them more objectively, I found that they had given me very good directions about how to expand my work, rather than having that "tunnel vision".

I've written here a couple of times about how I broke out of that theoretical box and that mesmerization with theories. It took me one year to get out of it. But actually, early into my study, my reviewers have already pointed out that I should break out of it. As I continued my research, the part that I have wanted to distance myself most from - the context of Singapore and Asia - were what my reviewers and supervisor thought were key to my research. The more I analyze my data, the more I realized what they said were very relevant and true on hindsight.

So that was my journey. Your feedback counts. :) So invaluable to my thoughts and thinking.

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.

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.

Reflections on academic life

I am one of those you might say is a late bloomer. I am looking at some of the ecological research articles I have printed out and read as an undergraduate student in university. And I must honestly say that back then, I didn't really get what scholarship was about. I did not really know how to use research papers or knew what was primary research. I also did not like reading the textbook, which is a collection and synthesis of much the research done on that topic so far. I did not understand all these back then, what was research about. I think some of my friends got it very quickly. They were doing research at a young age and having fun at it.

But for me... It's only now. I only started understanding what scholarship and academia is about now. And that's 5 years after I obtained my undergraduate degree. I did not know what I was doing. Bombarded by what other scientists have found, I did not know that there is so much out there in the world that we do not yet know. I wish I had got started on this earlier. I could have been a true botanist or biologist have I realized what research was about back then. (I was perhaps too touch and go to delve deep into something. I had one foot in biology, but another in architecture and urban planning. Actually I was very fascinated by human geography too. I liked being in the university because it exposed me to so much knowledge about the things that I love.)

It's only now when I'm doing educational research that I learned this. :)

That's life isn't it.

And I also learned something else that I did not know in my undergraduate days. You become familiar with a set of literature, a group of scholars who are active in your field. I took 3 years to become somewhat familiar with the famous educators in citizenship education. I have left the biology scene for a good 5 years and I really no longer have any idea who is up and coming in that field anymore. (I remembered my professor once commenting that there was this fig researcher who suddenly vanished from the scene and he did not know why. I was fascinated by that. You know biologists' job can be harrowing at times in the wilderness. I imagined  him losing his footing while scaling mountains and plummeting down or kidnapped by cannibals in the jungle. But I soon found out that he changed line from a researcher to a wildlife photographer. Imagine that!) And these people in citizenship education have become my 'friends'. I listen to what they say and I respond to them and they respond back to me. Many of them I have not met, but there's this relationship that has been developed from reading what they write and writing in response to that. It's actually going to be hard for me to start afresh in another field. I like these people. :)

I'm thinking of throwing these set of papers away... It also means there's no turning back symbolically in one sense.