Writing Week Day 1

Researching PhD Through Writing

Research is a process through to writing.
Read, research, analyse, write.
Important to write as you go.

Read widely.
Group your articles
Mind map - colour code what is ideas from your reading, and your thoughts about them

Don't think of your writing as an object, an end product.
Think about what you want to argue.  Not about the text as an end product, but how to produce it.  It's about creating the knowledge.

Write all the time.  Your ideas/focus will change from what you put in your proposal, to what you put in the Masters/PhD.

Book - Writing Your PhD in 15 minutes a day.

Pre-writing and Playful Writing. 
Keep notes on what you have read, what your opinions were.  Play with ideas.  Define the problem.  Find conflicting arguments.  Use the polemic and find your position.

Re-drafting
Streamline by argument and iterative process.  Get some structure.

Revise 
Get the structure right.  Sequential order.  Linear process of points in argument.

Editing

Grammar, punctuation, spelling.  Minor alterations only.

Find daily writing time.  Same time/place.  Get into a discipline of writing every day.
I think I do this - sometimes on my blog, but also in my exhibition book.

Start an Annotated Bibliography

1. Citation details
2. Statement of main focus
3. Argument/theory?
4. Limitations of paper (identify the gaps)
5. Your evaluation of fit/non fit with your research.

Free Writing

This enables you to separate the creative ideas from the dross, while preventing the editorial mind from removing creative/unstructured bits because they aren't obviously useful.  Then review a few days later to pick out the gems.  I think I do this anyway via my blog.

How Experienced Writers Revise - George Ttroouli

You are looking to find your niche in relation to other known stuff.

When reviewing your work, continually revise - look at your Research Question, what are you doing, which way are you going next?  

Guide the way you make decisions about what next by setting limits to your scope and checking them continually.

Create your abstract.  What does your framing achieve?

Useful book - Writing your Journal Article in 12 weeks - Belcher.  Useful techniques.

Be brave enough to discard.  Understand the 'why' for the need to change.

1. Set own measures - be clear about the purpose of each paragraph/chapter.
2. Recognise the emotional side to intellectual work.
3. Invent (your questions)
    Plan
    Draft
    Revise (macro changes)
    Edit (micro changes - don't do this earlier as it is a waste of effort when you subsequently revise it)

Then there was a bit that I was not clear about.  We were talking about the first few lines - but I'm not sure whether this was about the whole thesis or an article or a chapter?  Define your terms.  In the literature review or the chapter?  Outline the conceptual processes of article.  Keep narrowing the direction of the chapter.  WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get.

Signpost your writing.  At the start: This will do .....     At the end: Having done ... I move to ...

Science theses have standardised structure:

Introduction (purpose, literature review)
Methodology
Research
Analysis
Discussion.

Subheadings are part of the signposting.

Art subjects less clear/more flexible.  But no actual direction given!

Paragraphs are 3 stage structures.  Point, evidence, analysis.

I enjoyed the day, but feel both sessions were very brief overviews, with too much input with very little actual practice or understanding gained.