Experienced tutor Gillian Saunders helps a graduate student
In graduate school, students are expected to write skillfully in their disciplines, yet explicit writing instruction via academic writing courses is rare at the grad level. Moreover, instructors are not often able to provide the intensive mentorship many students require, and if they can, such supervision “is costly and time consuming” (Dunleavy, 2003, p. 4). Tutors at the Centre for Academic Communication help to close this gap in grad student support by providing regular meetings to talk about writing, help to plan writing, and work on specific writing issues.
Grad students benefit from CAC tutors’ knowledge of and experience in graduate academic writing. Additionally, graduate students appreciate the continuity of support we offer. For example, one MA student finds that meetings with her busy supervisor are sporadic, but she can count on a weekly meeting with a tutor to check in. Another Master’s student (EAL) saves questions throughout the week and uses his time with a tutor to check vocabulary, syntax, meaning, and organization of his thesis in computer science, questions he deems inappropriate to ask his supervisor.
Students also appreciate the encouraging, non-judgmental approach we take during tutoring sessions. Writing at the graduate level involves developing a new scholarly identity, and this process can be fraught with anxiety and self-doubt. Students often feel reassured after meeting with a tutor because they realize they are on the right track. They can set goals and talk about how to be more productive—topics their supervisors may not have time to discuss.
Graduate students number over 3,000 at UVic, and they need academic writing support. With faculty members supervising multiple graduate students in addition to their teaching, research, and service commitments, the role of the Centre for Academic Communication has never been so important. Connect with us by creating an account online and booking an appointment with a tutor. Check out our spring schedule for tutoring, workshops, and other services. Come to the Grad Writing Room, Library 151B on Fridays from 10 to 1, where you write in community with others. Or just drop by and say hello. We’re located on the main floor of the Mearns Centre for Learning – McPherson Library. We’d love to see you.
Reference
Dunleavy, P. (2003). Authoring a PhD: How to plan, draft, write and finish a doctoral thesis or dissertation. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
“Isolation is killing.” (Thomson & Kamler, 2016, p. 50)
Writing a thesis can feel isolating. Even if you are traveling the grad school journey with a cohort, you may get out of sync with others or feel different from the group. One way to break out of isolation and kick-start your writing is to connect with your peers and either write together and/or share your writing. Wendy Belcher, editor, teacher, and the author of Writing Your Journal Article in 12 Weeks, is a proponent of making your writing social and collaborative, whether through involvement in a writing group or with a writing partner. Writing with others can allay writer’s block and other forms of anxiety, make you more productive, and help you feel connected to others.
Following are some ideas to get you started in creating a sense of writing community:
The Centre for Academic Communication: Working with a tutor at the CAC can help you deal with writing challenges that you don’t necessarily want to bring to your supervisor. You can book a 50-minute session once a week (2 X 25 minute sessions, back to back), working with the same tutor for continuity or trying out different tutors. Email cacmgr@uvic.ca to inquire about our face-to-face and online tutoring.
Every Friday from 10-1, the Centre for Academic Communication hosts a “writing room” for graduate students in Library 151B. It’s a quiet space where you can write alongside other graduate students.
Blogging about your experience can help you feel less isolated on your journey and, according to Thomson and Kamler (2016), is an important part of performing your “scholarly identity” (see pp. 116-121). As a UVic student, you can use the Online Academic Community to start a free WordPress blog with technical support from the experts at Technology Integrated Learning, UVic. If you don’t want to start your own blog but would like to share your story, get in touch with me at cacpc@uvic.ca and we can talk about getting your story up on the Graduate Student Writers’ Community blog.
You may not relish the idea of connecting with a writing partner, writing group, or writing tutor. Have you considered reading academic blogs on topics relevant to you? Reading academic blogs can make you feel connected to the wider community of academic writers, graduate students, and researchers. A few recommended blogs follow; please let me know if you have a favourite one you’d like to add:
The Thesis Whisperer. From the blog: “The Thesis Whisperer is a blog newspaper dedicated to the topic of doing a thesis and is edited by Dr Inger Mewburn, Director of research training at the Australian National University.” Mewburn and guest writers from across the world post about every possible topic related to writing a dissertation. Her approach is humanizing, playful, and encouraging.
Patter. From the blog: “Patter is Pat Thomson, Professor of Education in the School of Education, The University of Nottingham.” Thomson blogs often on scholarly writing, writing a dissertation, publishing, and writing or research problems and solutions. Her posts are organic—springing from what is happening in her busy life as an academic.
Explorations of Style| A blog about academic writing. From the blog: “Explorations of Style offers readers an ongoing discussion of the challenges of academic writing. The ability to formulate and clarify our thoughts is central to the academic enterprise; this blog discusses strategies to improve the process of expressing our research in writing.” Dr. Rachael Cayley, from the University of Toronto, covers many topics of interest to dissertation and other academic writers in a down-to-earth style. The blog appears to be inactive now, but there are some great classic posts about reverse outlining, paragraphing, and transitions.
Do you have a recommendation about how to “make writing social”? Send your ideas and resources to Madeline at cacpc@uvic.ca
This is adapted from a page written by Madeline Walker in the Dissertation Writers Resource on this blog; last updated November 22, 2018
This is my first official blog post and I am thrilled and nervous to write at the same time. I have just finished my seventh course for my master’s program in Curriculum and Instruction focusing on Literacy. At this point in this 13-month journey I fall asleep if I sit still for more than ten minutes. Hilarious but true! Being a literacy consultant, doing a master’s program and trying to balance a family simultaneously is tough. What made the workload even tougher is having Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and a learning disability. Translation: I do not process directions, readings, people’s comments or class discussions in the patterns my classmates did. My unique learning style translated to 25 very rewarding years teaching junior high, or as you say in BC, middle school, but the learning style has not made grad school easy.
I started a master’s program in July 2017 because as a consultant last year in Alberta, I supported 13 junior high schools and coached 100 teachers. I was asked to come back month after month and every meeting there were more and more teachers in attendance. Junior high teachers want to adopt practices that transform their student learning. In my school district in Edmonton, there are 100,000 students, and approximately 263 schools. Translation: many teachers want to adopt their classroom practices to meet the varied needs they see hourly. My master’s program has given me the language and capacity to walk into every classroom or school, see the strengths of the staff, listen to their “what if we could . . .?” questions and find the scaffolds and strategies to support the inquisitive professionals. The master’s program also highlighted my learning disability and required me to ask for help.
I have always had difficulty writing for academic purposes because I could not understand the patterns I was to follow. I saw connections between the theories and classroom practice. Twenty-five years of reading, studying, practicing and planning, which resulted in 55 to 60-hour work weeks, allowed me to find ways to motivate and engage my students. My whole career I was able to get results from students that were supposedly unattainable or from the students who don’t care. In my classroom I have LOVED making literacy theory practical for my students and my colleagues! What my insane work schedule did not do was develop my writing skills for academia.
Then the Learning and Teaching Centre came on my radar after a professor this summer handed back a paper saying, “Barb you get the ideas and theories, but you need an editor to find the transitions and develop the coherence.” The comment was said with kindness and in support, and I had already come to this realization during my last 12 months. One of my supportive cohort members suggested the Centre for Academic Communication (CAC). I was spending HOURS trying to meet the academic standards and barely making it.
It is so humbling to ask for help once again in my academic studies. New to me, NOT! My grade 12 Chemistry teacher was so excited when I got a 67% on the provincial diploma exam. He told me that mark meant more to him than so many of the students who got honors because of the hours of work he saw me put in that did not result in higher grades. Yet now I was in a master’s program asking for help. Did that mean I did not actually have the stuff to be here?
At the CAC I asked for an editor and received a writing coach! What a delightful surprise. Someone who read aloud what I had written and allowed me to hear the lack of coherence and then that same someone asked me to clarify how the ideas related? These were easy questions and I quickly rattled off the answer and then typed as if the keys were on fire and I had to quickly unload my ideas from my hands. The words flowed from me because the gift of ADHD is that I learn the material to a level of specificity that most people don’t see. My brain wants to understand the theory of literacy to the degree that I can disperse the theory into practical application for all the teachers I support.
I would leave an hour’s session at the CAC so excited and energized that many of my cohort group are planning on using the writing supports during the 2018-19 year as we complete our project. My fellow grad students could not believe I revised 800 words in 45 minutes and took the quality of my writing to a much higher standard. Not only was my writing more aligned with masters degree benchmarks but my confidence soared after each visit. I started to realize I could write and that I was in grad school for valid reasons. I want to help teachers so that I am really helping teenagers embrace the potential they have and encourage them to heal and bring hope to combat some of the ugliness in our world.
Who knew one hour could do so much? Luckily, I did not, and I was so grateful to have been able to sign up for three hours in my last week. My writing abilities can almost leap tall buildings in a single bound and it’s just in time. This master’s project is going to take every writing skill I have and now I have more.
About Barb
Barb has taught junior high/middle school for 25 years and is now a literacy consultant with Edmonton Public Schools. She has taught for many years, in all four disciplines, but landed in English Language Arts. Her love of diverse learners has allowed Barb to teach the spectrum of learners who are gifted to learners identified with special needs. Barb is part of the international Freedom Writer Teachers and is looking forward to the year when she finally figures out all there is to know about teaching. She can be reached at barb.melnychuk@epsb.ca
After finishing my major and minor candidacy exams (which took several years of research), the prospect of writing the Dissertation Proposal (DP) seemed like a daunting and mammoth task. Like many other graduate students, I had a number of different avenues I wanted to explore and had difficulty narrowing down an area of interest, let alone a specific research question. When I began “seriously” working on my DP, months seemed to go by without much progress, yet in the end (after about 6-7 months of reading and note-taking), I was able to write a complete draft in about two weeks. Admittedly, this was surprising to me, as I was used to “big papers” taking months and months of writing; however, looking back I can identify 2 points about writing that helped me better understanding the process.
“Writing” isn’t “typing,” but rather a process that includes reading and note-taking
It did not feel like it at the time, but most of the work that went into my DP was completed during my research visit to the University of Copenhagen. After teaching for two semesters, I was fortunate to have four whole months to focus on my own research and luxuriated (as one of my dissertation committee members put it) in reading whatever I wanted day in and day out. I had gone to Copenhagen with the intention of working on my proposal, but in practice I became interested in the work that was happening at the research centre and read many papers and books that were outside of my own discipline. I filled several notebooks with a seemingly disparate assortment of notes and ideas, and when I returned to Victoria I had to admit to my supervisor that I not made much progress in my “writing.” However, the bulk of my DP ended up being comprised of these notes with just a few transitional and connecting paragraphs and sentences added in. It was in weekly progress meetings with my supervisor that I was able to articulate the common themes the ran through much of what I had been reading, as well as the open questions that had yet to be addressed. These open questions became the starting point for my dissertation project and the background/introduction of the proposal itself.
Reframing the task at hand might be the impetus you need to start
My DP began as a ten-page grant proposal that I decided to apply for five days before the deadline. Given that I had written several funding applications in the past, I was familiar with the structure (background, literature review, objectives, method, implications) and could break the task of writing down into smaller, more specific steps. After submitting this application, I was able to use the proposal as a detailed outline for my DP. What had seemed like an overwhelming task (writing a dissertation proposal from scratch) became much more manageable and I was able to turn the grant application into my proposal in about ten days by expanding on, and adding detail to, the structure that was already there.
I often find the biggest hurdle to writing is getting the first sentence on the blank page, however, it’s important to keep in mind that writing is (long) process that involves reading, doing research, and note-taking. By recognizing this, I find there is less pressure to write so many words or pages a day, and much of my “writing” involves integrating or restructuring notes that I have already written. Moreover, reframing a large project (such as a dissertation proposal) into a series of smaller papers or into a format that I’m already familiar with (e.g., grant proposal) has helped to motivate me to keep moving forward.
Emanuela Yeung
About Emanuela
Emanuela Yeung is a PhD candidate and sessional lecturer in the Department of Psychology. She received her MSc. from UVic in Lifespan Development and BSc. from the University of Toronto in Psychology and Human Biology.
Last week, I wandered over to Cornett to visit Dr. Lisa Mitchell, Associate Professor and Graduate Student Adviser in the Department of Anthropology. We sat together in her cozy office on a cool March afternoon to talk about writing—a favourite topic for both of us.
Dr. Lisa M. Mitchell
I asked Lisa about her own graduate school experience—could she share any tips gleaned from writing her dissertation? Lisa admitted that she didn’t become as “deeply reflective about how to write and especially what to do if writing doesn’t go smoothly” until she had her own graduate students. We agreed that we often learn best by teaching. Lisa’s experience supervising graduate students exposed her both to students who experienced writing as pleasurable and to students who experienced writing as terrifying, and this helped her to a realization. “I needed to get more reflective about my own writing practice and what I might offer to them to work through problems or how to take the writing to a deeper level.” Here Lisa touched on a theme she returned to several times during our dialogue: self-reflection in writing. As we become aware of our writing process, we come to know and accept ourselves as writers, and therefore we become more effective at writing, making the most of our idiosyncratic methods.
Garnered from both her own writing experience and her experience supervising, Lisa shared some of the ways she guides graduate students when they run into writing trouble. “Don’t assume that writing is easy and don’t assume it’s something natural. Take it as an aspect of your learning process. It’s a skill and needs to be practiced. Do it regularly so it becomes a habit and something you think about through that regular engagement.”
Lisa noted that in anthropology, writing is sometimes the site or space for analysis, and students may get stuck in their writing because they are “still in the process of figuring out the analysis and trying to sort it out.” She went on to describe several ways to overcome barriers that arise when we try to think things through before writing them down. “When I start a piece, it’s not unusual for me to have a very hazy, broad idea of what I’m talking about, but when I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, I am working out the analysis as much as I am working out the narrative structure.” Lisa paused thoughtfully. “When things don’t go well, when you start to stumble in writing, change it up a little bit. Pick a different topic for even a few minutes or a day or two. If you’ve been sitting with your computer, stop and try pen and paper. In some of my classes, I have a session where you get a sentence fragment to start and you have to keep writing for five minutes. Just do freewriting. Unleash the initial apprehension about starting a writing session.”
Lisa also finds that using visual tools can help shift stuck writing. “I rely very heavily on making diagrams with my students when working through not just writing but analysis. I need to move between the word, the mind map, and the flow chart, and sometimes it is enormously helpful to sit and talk about what you are trying to write and try to represent it visually. So you have both a sense of the component elements of your writing, but also there is something very freeing, very stimulating in moving away from the word and putting it into circles and arrows.”
Another method Lisa uses when she needs to change things up is voice. “I turn on a recorder and just start talking. Sometimes it’s just me and my dogs and I’m going to start somewhere, sometimes in the middle or sometimes I think this is where I want this paper to end up. It’s a bit time consuming because you have to go back and see if there’s anything you really wanted and at times there is and at times there isn’t, but generally that process begins to bring to the surface bits and pieces that I know need to be in the piece I’m working on.”
Lisa then stressed the importance of sharing your writing: “We end up writing in little closed off spaces and there is much value in thinking about how you can make the writing more social. Talk to other people about writing – don’t assume that other people are writing without problems, without crisis. Sometimes, talking to other people about what you are writing is a way to express it differently.”
This led Lisa to think about how she shares her own work with colleagues: “I think particularly among faculty we are unwilling to share our unfinished, our unpolished drafty drafts, and I think there is enormous value in working through even some of the basic foundational elements of an argument or the structure of a piece by being willing to open yourself up a bit.” She elaborated on the metaphor of writing as conversation, a metaphor that can liberate us from the intimidating prospect of writing a thesis or dissertation: “Think of writing as a creative process. If you load it up by saying ‘I have to write my dissertation,’ that’s such a daunting process, whereas if you say ‘I want to ask some interesting questions’ and ‘I want to engage in some conversations,’ it’s so much more doable, and it also feels like something that is much more like our everyday lives. Although there are certain requirements for a dissertation or a thesis in the level of academic language, and you are engaging sources in a way you wouldn’t ordinarily in everyday conversation, by metaphorically framing what you’re doing as engaging in a conversation and asking interesting questions, you don’t take on that huge burden: ‘Now I must create original knowledge’ in five or seven chapters or whatever.”
I agreed that the conversation metaphor is very useful in academic writing, mentioning a helpful writing text based on the idea of dialogue, They Say/ I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing by Graff and Birkenstein (2010).
As the clock crept closer to the end of our allotted time, I asked Lisa for any further thoughts on how she writes best, and she reiterated the importance of opening up about your writing: “I sometimes think the reason we don’t talk about what we’re writing is there’s always a risk that we won’t finish it, so we don’t talk about it.” “Yes,” I said, “like telling people you’re quitting smoking then starting again.” Lisa laughed. “The list of things we would like to write is always longer than the list of what we actually manage to write, but I don’t think there’s any real shame in that. Sometimes part of the creative process is working through the possibilities and then settling on the one or the two that you’re ready to actually write. I tend to think of myself as a non-linear writer, so I really am one of those people that sometimes just starts in the middle. I kind of know where I should end up, but I’m not too sure where I’m starting from. I think by this point in my career I’ve made peace with that process; I don’t stress about it very much anymore and I’ve also made peace with the fact that sometimes I start articles or writing pieces that don’t get finished. Sometimes I lose interest, and other times I can’t figure out a way to tell the story that is compelling to others. It may be something I found deeply interesting, but I think why would other people care about this?”
I responded: “What I am taking away from what you have said, Lisa, is that self-reflection, self-knowledge about being a writer is extremely important. Once we know what kind of writer we are, we can make peace with that, work with it, instead of thinking we ought to be a certain way.” Lisa nodded in agreement. I left feeling validated—I am one of those “start in the messy middle” writers, and I was happy to know that others worked productively, even confidently, in this manner. Thank you, Lisa, for sharing these ideas. There’s no shame in being the writer you know you are. . . in fact, it’s cause for celebration. Writer, know thyself.
Lisa M. Mitchell is Associate Professor and Graduate Advisor in Anthropology at UVic. Her research interests are at the intersection of bodies, technology, and inequalities. She has conducted research on prenatal testing, perinatal loss and reproductive politics in Canada, on the visualizing technologies of medicine, especially ultrasound fetal imaging, on experiences and meanings of body and risk among impoverished children and their families in the Philippines and among street youth in Canada, and on bereaved parents’ use of social media.
If you are a PhD student and candidacy exams are part of your program, you are either already thinking about them or very glad to have completed them (congratulations!). Candidacy exams, in the English Department at least, are structured in a way that allows students to read for months and then take the exam (twice: A Major Field and a Focused Field) either in the form of a take-home exam over a three-day period or an on-campus exam written in five hours. The exams have three major components: preparing, writing, and defending. This post will focus on the writing process for the three-day take-home exam.
First of all, before the day your exam is set to begin, take a moment to realize the amount of information you have acquired over the preparation period, embrace the fact that you have accomplished what you have so far, and acknowledge the fact that you have done your best and the time has come for you to engage with your knowledge and skills. Now you have the questions and you are supposed to pick one from each of the three sections. It goes without saying that you should pick the ones that sound the easiest and most doable for you. However, make sure to choose ones that allow you to cover the different texts you have to engage with and ones that allow you to demonstrate your understanding of the field as fully as possible. Some supervisors advise their students to set a back-up fourth question they could go to as a plan B.
Once you have picked your questions, pick the texts you want to refer to in your answers. Make sure you stick to the number of texts advised in your exam prompt and that the ones you choose do not overlap across questions. Once you have this down, breathe and pat yourself on the back; you’ve already done something. As a next step, outline your answers–yes, all three of them. Writing the outline will reveal to you that you know what you want to talk about and how you are going to approach it. It also eases you into the process of writing, and prepares you for the second and third day of your exam, during which you will be thankful that you don’t really have to do much brainstorming. Note that it is important that you have a thesis, or something close to that, as part of your primary outline. Also note that it is okay if these outlines change a little. Their purpose is to rid you from the heavy load of planning and brainstorming on your two later days, so minor edits are acceptable and even expected. Next, you write.
Start with the question you are least comfortable with. You are on your first day, you are well rested, and quite alert. You can tackle the hardest question. Besides, once you are done with this first answer, you will feel more confident and more comfortable approaching the two “easier” questions. When you are writing, follow the process you are most comfortable with: if you free write then go back, add sources, edit, etc., stick to that; if you write and edit as you go, do that. The point is, this is a very structured setting, so call upon your most confident strategies and adopt them. Make sure, however, that you are aware of the time constraints and that you have time to go back and edit your essays before you submit. In addition, keep going back to your main argument and make sure that your claims speak to it. Just as with any other argumentative piece, your thesis is meant to guide the rest of your work; this exam is no different. Your committee wants to read a work that is clear, concise, and coherent. Though they are aware of your constraints (time and word count), they also know very well how capable you are, and they expect a certain level of competency, nothing you haven’t already achieved. Aim to finish the first question on the first day; set the tone for the rest of the exam. Don’t worry about final editing right away. As you may know by now, it is good to step away from your work and come back to it with a fresh look. However, if you feel like you need to completely finish every question on its own, then do whatever keeps you in a good mental space.
A few things might come up as you are writing. This is a very stressful time; acknowledge that. If you feel the stress creeping up, and you think you need a break, take the break. Go for a walk, grab a coffee with a friend, call someone dear, take a breather. If you engage in a conversation and feel the urge to brainstorm with a friend, do that, jot down some notes while you’re at it. Do whatever you feel will keep you going. You know you can do this, but the setting and the structure are definitely adding to the stress. Some of your colleagues may have smoothly cruised through their exams, and you might as well. But if you don’t, you’re not alone in this. Many students, including myself, give in to the haunting load of candidacy exams; we make it through nonetheless. One way I managed to overcome a writer’s block on day one is a change of scenery. I went to a nearby coffee shop where other students were also immersed in their work. I set a goal (number of words) and only left after I achieved it. Once back in the original setting I automatically acknowledged the progress and felt a little more confident. It’s the little things, the little steps, the brief moments of “I got this” and the large coffees/smoothies/juices/energy drinks or whatever keeps you running. It is important that you eat well and be well rested. These exams are doable, that’s why they’re there. These exams are not meant to be easy though, and that’s also why they’re there. Just write those answers; get it over with!
About Tracey
Tracey is a PhD student in the English Department at the University of Victoria. She received her Master’s from the American University of Beirut, after developing a Social Network Analysis tool for post-war Lebanese Anglophone novels. She currently works in the field of Digital Humanities, focusing on Critical Technical Practice. Her research focuses on the intersections between computing and culture, looking at how the humanities can help shape more socially aware technologies. She is also a TA in the English Department and a tutor at the Centre for Academic Communication. Tracey has a passion for teaching alongside research.
For a chance to win a prize, enter our blog post contest about how the University of Victoria’s extraordinary environment matters to your writing.
Describe where you love to write, take a picture of yourself in that location, and share with us how the amazing environment at the University of Victoria and its environs inspire your writing.
Or, describe who helps you write: a writing group, counsellor, tutor, librarian, instructor, supervisor, or friend? Tell us how this relationship matters to you and your writing and include a photo of yourself and whoever makes UVic an extraordinary environment for you and your writing.
Submit your entries (blog post plus photo) to cdrcac@uvic.ca by 11:59 p.m., February 28, 2018 for a chance to win one of three prizes:
First prize: $100 gift certificate at UVic Bookstore
Second and third prizes: $50 gift certificates at UVic Bookstore
Winning entries will be published on the Graduate Student Writers’ Community blog.
We’d love to see you.
Graduate students: Tell your writing story