During Writing Week, we were given advice from 3 highly experienced PhD assessors. One piece of advice was to get into a network of 'critical friends' so you can mutually critique each others work, so you don't end up handing in ill-crafted work. These Assessors had obviously seen too much work that was only crafted to first or second draft level. They said 8-12 drafts were normal.
So I took a brave pill, found a critical friend and sent my work to him. Oh my word - I've found a gem! He went straight to the heart of my discontent and identified what it was. I think participating in Writing Week has given me a very high overview of writing issues - but not given me the thinking skills to apply them.
One of my issues was about the use of integral and non-integral references. We were clearly told the difference between them - Author (date) says "..." (integral), or this is the idea (author, date) (Non-integral. Use one when you want to privilege the idea, the other when you want to privilege who said it. But no indicators as to when each is appropriate - that is for you to decide - unless your supervisor says otherwise! We were also shown bar charts analysing when integral and non-integral references were used in 4 different PhD theses (engineering, peace & justice; art, health sciences) - but these were only on the screen for 30 seconds each; they had different patterns of referencing; and had been randomly selected (not selected for being good examples). These bar charts showed referencing patterns varied, but not what was appropriate or why. So I came out of the session feeling somewhat bemused.
I decided to write my literature search as if the ideas were most important - so did non-integral references throughout. Yet, if I think about it, the literature search must focus on the high quality writers who went before - there is no point standing on the shoulders of anyone other than giants - so therefore credit them! Some of the points that I made, originated from the seminal writers in the field and were not opinion (which is how my review read). It would have been much easier if we had been directed to credit the authors in the literature review.
I had been worried that when I stopped writing about Standpoint Theory and Situated Knowledge, and moved onto Schwartz's Theory of Basic Values, it was too methodologically heavy and should be sited in the Methodology, rather than the literature review. But this appeared to be ok.
One of the Writing Week sessions told us about signposting. But I've not grasped how to do it. I suppose a major criticism of this week is that while we've been told what is needed, we have not been told how - or given examples of work that shows it. The Centre for Academic Writing does offer one-to-ones, but this means another trip to Coventry for me. Maybe I should submit a piece of writing to them for critique, and book a session with them before I have my next tutorial with Jill. I'd like to get my Literature Review wrapped up for my next tute with her on 28 November. Hand-in is on 7 December.
I think a major stumbling block to higher level education is that we just don't do enough writing. In my first degree we only did 2 essays a year (theory and taught modules were a small part of the process), and when studying abroad in Australia for a year, I think I did 6. For my time at London Met, we only wrote 1 piece per module, and these were not always essays. A friend who did a history degree a long time ago said he had to knock out 4 essays a month, and with this level of practice, he could do it quickly and articulately. If I had written more essays, for different purposes, I'd be more able to just knock out an essay. If I'd only had to use one referencing system I'd be at least partly competent at it.
My writing skills should be better. It's not as if I've never written. I find it odd that I'm still feeling as if I'm running in treacle, and that highly experienced PhD supervisors are making very basic criticisms of the work submitted to them. Yet it is obvious that the same mistakes are being made by students and they are not being pushed to the right quality before submission.
My critical friend was so helpful - but I feel a bit downhearted that I can't already write to the appropriate standards. I need to think of it like an apprenticeship (except I don't have 7 years) - I have 2 years on my MRes to get from beginner writer to master wordsmith. It takes a lot of practice and botched work to attain skill. I'm not sure whether this makes me feel better or worse!
No comments:
Post a Comment