Patriotism Trilogy

Today, I submitted journal article #3, and that's the end of the Patriotism Trilogy. It started with journal article #1 which discussed whether teachers thought that patriotism involved loyalty to the government, did they dare cross boundaries in their teaching, and discussed about controversial issues that may make the government look bad at times? Journal article #2 focused specially on two teacher who dared to do so, they exhibited "constructive patriotism" as opposed to blinder forms of patriotism. Lastly, in the crowning article, journal article #3 tells us that each teacher's patriotism was unique! There were four kinds of patriotism: cosmopolitan, nationalistic, social-movement, and person-oriented.

I like this third one the best! Because it says there's no good or bad patriotism, just different kinds of patriotism! It is the crowning article. And yes, we have ended the Patriotism Triology, the three articles published from my work on my Masters thesis. Now... time to move on and start a new series with my Ph.D work! ;)

Major Revisions and Random Thoughts

It took 9 months to get back my manuscript with reviewer feedback. Again, I got to do major revisions. But this time, I was less upset, less afraid, than I had been in the past.

Something has fundamentally shifted in me as a person. I am changing and becoming more and more like who I really am inside.

I wonder how is this going to affect my writing? Will I become a more confident writer?

I must update you about the Q-method conference soon. Yes, that conference that I sort of carved my own way into it. I read up about the method, find a means to collect data, to write an abstract, and subsequently got my tickets, ended up in New Orleans, presented, got more feedback, fell in love with the methodology (and the community), and yes, back in Singapore still somewhat infatuated.

It's like what I always believe research to be... I used to always want to be a researcher, but an independent one, who studies anything she wants, just because it's interesting to her.

Reflections on Reading the Proof for APJE

I write now to capture the immediate and most honest reactions.

I was appalled by my writing style in the first half of the paper, where I synthesized literature. I finally understood what one reviewer meant when he said, "I know what this and that guy think, but what do YOU think?" I realized in the flurry of quotation marks and my concern with rightly attributing everything to someone, I lost my voice. My friends who read my draft gave me similar feedback that the style was really bad. I was too deep into that process and too cluttered in my mind at that point to have made stylistic changes. So yes, that is evidence of amateurish writing. It is very amateurish indeed.

But when I got to the second part of the article where I am less concerned with citation and attribution, but could use my own words with ease, I wrote well. I wrote clear. I heard Shuyi's voice. I know it's my voice when I use "cute" words. I am not a very good English speaker or someone with a lot of vocabulary, so I use "cute" words to express my emotions. I love it. I can recognize Shuyi's voice. It's cute. :) And I felt I rightly highlighted the teachers' teaching style, while protecting them, by saying how sensitive they were and when they were critical, it was only out of love for the country. These two are my favourite teachers. I really think they are the most awesome teachers I've ever met.

So there you go. I have some work to do, to figure out all the Author's Queries (AQ) and how to input into the paper these corrections. Let's see how it goes now.

Writer's rite of passage: REJECTION

I had thought the most painful emotion an academic writer could experience was "rejected with MAJOR revisions". Now, I know there is an even more painful emotion - REJECTED!

But the strange thing is that after this experience, I feel even more like a writer. I feel like an ordinary academic, one who also experiences rejections. The previous two experiences of acceptance with major revisions were perhaps very lucky or blessed events, where the stars happened to align, and God winked at me, to give me a helpful boost of confidence to continue this journey as a researcher.

But the real world of the researcher is fraught with rejections.

I am hesitant to look at the article again. As I said before, when you submit something, you think it's really good, you're almost blind to its flaws. But now, I need to objectively look at it again, to see the validity of the reviewers comments, convert this article into another style for another journal. I hope to get this done by next week perhaps? Oh, bother, how time flies and it's already approaching December.

It did humble me. I felt there was a lot I didn't know after this experience. That I needed to read more. But maybe I'll start with trying to find out what that other journal we want to submit to is like and read some of their articles.

I need to come up with a strategy to convert this rejected article into a format that is worthy of acceptance in another journal now! But tactically, I have a higher chance now, as the journal we are currently targeting likes this genre of articles.

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! :)

Serious work-in-progress

I am working on another article out of my Masters thesis. This is going to be a tough one. I have a word limit of 6000 words and I have put together a shitty first draft of 12000 words. This means I need to cut down my content by half! :O

I feel a sense of achievement as I chip away at the massive stone. With every draft, I try to make it clearer, more compact, more analyzed and more to the point. So welcome to my world of heavy re-writing and editing! This is why I feel that anybody who is hardworking can publish! :D You don't have to be a genius to succeed, if you're hardworking. 

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.