Category Archives: Productivity

Procrastinating? Feeling stressed? Read on…

Deadlines, Education, Environment, Goal setting, Graduate student writers, Inspiration and motivation, Mental health, Motivation, Procrastination, Productivity, Stress, Time management

Two of our learning strategists, Brodie and Hannah, offer their thoughts on the timely topics of procrastination and stress. If you want to consult with a learning strategist about time management or goal setting (in-person or on Zoom), book an appointment: https://uvic.mywconline.com/

Some Thoughts on Procrastination

By Brodie

If you are anything like me, at this time of year just after reading break, it is easy to put your writing on the backburner and procrastinate. I am sure that we are all master excuse-makers by now! So, let’s see if I can give you some ideas about how you can put your writing back on the front burners and get cooking again (or writing, but you know what I mean!).

Build some awareness about your patterns with procrastination. When do you procrastinate? How, or in what way, do you procrastinate? Or maybe why? Understanding these questions will help you to put in place strategies that will reduce this pattern.

Feeling overwhelmed with your writing? Try breaking it down into smaller chunks. I am always reminded of the ancient Chinese philosophy of Lao Tzu “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Sure, I admit that sounds cheesy, but practically, taking smaller steps toward your writing goal is a good way to reduce those overwhelmed feelings and build a little momentum.

What about your environment? Is there a particular space that tends to support you staying focused and on task? Or do you try writing in spaces where there are lots of potential distractions? Knowing the kinds of distractions that curb your focus can also support you in creating a writing space that is beneficial to being productive.

Not sure exactly what or how you should be writing? It can be easy to procrastinate if we are not confident about what we need to do. Try taking a moment and explain to yourself what the purpose of your task is and what needs to be included in your writing. Next, ask yourself what aspect is confusing or unclear about your writing task and use that information think about the resources (i.e., supervisors, classmates, library supports, textbooks, etc.) that you can access that will help fill in some of your missing gaps and encourage you to regain your confidence with your writing task.

Hopefully, a few of these ideas will get your brain thinking. If you want to talk more, try booking an appointment for an individual consultation and explore personalized strategies to help you take back some control from the procrastination: https://uvic.mywconline.com/

Stress Management for Graduate Students

By Hannah

Stress is a fact of life. It is especially significant when one is a graduate student facing academic, professional, and personal challenges. Balancing academic rigors, professional demands, and personal life can be very challenging and stressful and if left unmanaged, it can disrupt life. What coping strategies can a graduate student use to keep stress at bay? Here are six strategies to start with.

  1. Assess your stress. Identify your sources of stress. Is your stress academic or non-academic? Being aware of your stressors is the first step to keep stress at bay.
  2. Find what works for you. Now that you have identified your stress, check what works for you. Does exercise help? A warm bath perhaps? A walk outside? Or meditation? Physical and mental activity such as mindful meditation is beneficial in combatting stress.
  3. Manage your time. Graduate studies is not just academics. It’s a delicate balance between academics and non-academic factors in your life. Master time management, stop procrastinating, take control of your calendar, and simply just do what needs to be done.
  4. Remind yourself of your long-term goal. Keeping track of your long-term goal help with motivation. Remind yourself why you are in graduate school and the opportunities you have received and will continue to receive in this journey.
  5. Celebrate small victories. A thousand miles always begin with one step. Your small victories are steps you take towards your long-term goal in graduate school and beyond. Celebrate them.
  6. Seek help. Various help services are available on campus. As graduate student, you have access to help services that will help you in when your academic journey becomes stress ridden.

References:

https://blogs.tntech.edu/graduate/2020/09/09/stress-management-for-students/

https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/11/03/managing-stress-grad-student

https://gsm.ucdavis.edu/blog/5-tips-grad-school-stress

https://gsas.harvard.edu/student-life/harvard-resources/managing-stress

https://gradschool.duke.edu/student-life/health-and-wellbeing/tips-dealing-stress/

About Brodie

Photo of Brodie, one of the writers of the post

Brodie grew up in Ottawa, or the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people. As a certified teacher, he has worked with young people and families in a wide variety of contexts including outdoor experiential education, school-based support, substance use counselling, and inpatient mental health. If he is not working or studying, you can find him playing disc golf, and mostly likely, contemplating how he can apply SRL theory to improve his game (much to the chagrin of his disc golf partner!).

 

About Hannah

Hannah was born and raised in Surigao City, Philippines. She is currently in Victoria, working on her Master in Education International Cohort degree. She is passionate about teaching and has been teaching in a state college in the Philippines for 15 years. Her free time is spent with her family exploring and integrating in the Canadian way of life.

Summer bummer and working to white noise

Academic Writing, Deadlines, Distractions, Environment, Focus strategies, Goal setting, Inspiration and motivation, Posts by Emily, Procrastination, procrastination, Productivity, Time management, Writing resources

By Emily Arvay

© University of Victoria

As the weather warms, it can be increasingly tempting to cast off thesis or dissertation work in favour of a strawberry gelato, or pick-up baseball, or a fluffy beach book. Ironically, it is often during the summer months that graduate students find themselves bogged down with preparing for major field exams, thesis or dissertation writing, or condensed language-requirement courses. For many, the intensity of graduate work during the summer months might mean having to forgo that picnic in the park or rousing beach bonfire. One tactic for warding off such tempting distractions is to pretend, at least temporarily, that summer doesn’t exist. To drown out the squeals of children leaping through sprinklers, you might try losing yourself to the quiet din of a busy library, steady rainfall of a winter storm, or smoothing balm of furniture music. Rather than bemoaning those mint mojitos you’re missing out on, you might try embracing your newfound status as a den-dwelling troglodyte by closing those curtains, silencing those devices, and riding out that tsunami of graduate schoolwork with this ten-hour loop of rainy-day jazz. Although it won’t be easy, you might approach your thesis or dissertation project as you would a sandy band-aid: by pushing through the short-term pain of getting those drafted chapters off to your supervisory committee as quickly as possible. Then, once sent, you can treat yourself to a much-deserved break. Long-awaited, that beach-side lemonade will taste all-the-sweeter.

About the author:

Emily Arvay completed her PhD at the University of Victoria in 2019 with her thesis “Climate Change, the Ruined Island, and British Metamodernism.”  Since then she has worked as a Learning Strategist and EAL Specialist at the University of Victoria. She is currently conducting further research on the intersections between literary metamodernism and contemporary climate fictions.

Need to get on track? There’s an app for that

Deadlines, Dissertation writing, Distractions, Focus strategies, Goal setting, Make writing social, Motivation, Posts by Madeline, Procrastination, procrastination, Productivity, Time management

By Madeline Walker

Our last post was way back in March. I was going to write about some time management and productivity apps and tools to complement Emily’s wonderful post, but fittingly, I procrastinated about that. And here it is, the end of May, and I am finally tackling this task! I think I need one of these apps. . .

My colleagues  at the Centre for Academic Communication told me about some productivity tools and apps they use or have had recommended to them. Today, I am checking out a few.

Some apps are about sticking to the task at hand by shutting out distractions. If you are a Mac user, this free application, SelfControl, will “let you block your own access to distracting websites.” The skull image scared me a little—I might die if I can’t  access my mail for half an hour!

SelfControl app

Calmly Writer and Forest apps also give you the “distraction-free” writing experience; as with many of these apps, you can get a free trial then will have to pay.

Kaveh swears by the kitchen timer: “I find the simple technique of dividing your working time to rotating minutes for work and a break (at a ratio of 5:1 or 4:1) the most effective. If a kitchen timer does the magic for you, then you can call it the Pomodoro Technique (but it doesn’t have to be). You can simply use any timer.”

Are you a list maker? You might like Toodledo, a listing app that helps you organize life and work. The claim is that it will “increase your productivity,” providing a place to “write long notes, make custom lists, create structure outlines and track your habits.”

Finally, two intriguing apps have to do with making commitments in order to increase your productivity.

stickk is a “commitment platform with the tools to help you achieve your goals.” When you sign up with stickk, you make a  commitment contract, for example, I will write five times a week for 12 weeks. The makers claim the difference between having a goal to achieving that goal is to make a binding agreement with yourself.  Additionally, you can put money on the line by committing to pay a certain amount if you do NOT reach your goal. They even suggest promising to donate to an organization with values antithetical to your own in order to motivate you to stick to your commitment. I thought of promising $100 to the National Rifle Association if I fail to meet my goal of walking four times a week, but then I backed out.

With the app called focusmate, you sign up to be part of a “community of doers.” You arrange to work in tandem silence with a “live peer accountability partner” for 50 minutes of distraction-free writing (or some other task), up to three times a week. The app claims that it can help you eliminate procrastination and commit to “blasting excuses and get important work done.” When you are accountable to another person, you show up.

Sounds a bit like our Graduate Writing Room, 2-4 PST Wednesday afternoons: Join us and get ‘er done:

https://uvic.zoom.us/j/84862607742

Do you have any great productivity and time management apps you’d like to share in the comments? We’d love to hear from you.

https://selfcontrolapp.com

https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique

https://www.calmlywriter.com

https://www.forestapp.cc

https://www.toodledo.com/

https://www.stickk.com/

https://www.focusmate.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Too much to do and not enough time?

Academic Writing, Anxiety, Centre for Academic Communication, Deadlines, Distractions, Focus strategies, Goal setting, Inspiration and motivation, Mental health, Motivation, Organization/ Order, Planning, Posts by Emily, Procrastination, procrastination, Productivity, Stress, Time management

By Emily Arvay

 

Q: Why is time management so hard?

A: There are many different reasons for why time management is hard. Lots of students might wait until things are already off the rails to think about time-management. And when you are in triage mode and putting out fires, taking the time to create a time-management plan can seem counter-productive. Also, students sometimes create vague or unreasonable time-management plans that set them up for failure. So within a week of setting up their plan, they are already behind and then just abandon the plan.

Often, time-management plans are unworkable because the student has neglected to really think through and spatialize their course requirements in enough detail. Frequently, students already in a state of panic about missed assignments and late penalties might find it challenging to think through complex processes in a step-by-step way due to elevated cortisol levels that often come with anxiety, not to mention sleep deprivation from pulling successive all-nighters.

Ironically, one of the great benefits of building a reasonable time-management plan is that it can greatly reduce that sense of panic by restoring to students a sense of control over their lives – once the plan is in place, a student need only review the items for a single day, hold those items in mind, and let go of the rest. So, to use a metaphor, instead of staring at the top of a mountain wondering how can I possibly climb that, a student need only look to the closest tree and hike to that point.

More importantly, having a good plan in place can prevent burnout because it enables students to give themselves guilt-free permission to set school-related activities aside. If you have ticked all of your to-do boxes for the morning, you can go for that walk to the ocean. Or, if you have completed the task you needed to do after dinner, you can binge-watch whatever new series you enjoy without feeling that you are somehow not doing enough.

One added perk that comes with good time-management plans is that students often find interpersonal tensions related to poor well-being or the perception of overvaluing school at the expense of significant relationships really improves, which can generate a supportive and motivating feedback loop.

But setting aside the impact of stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and interpersonal strain, more commonly students may not give much reflective thought to how much time it takes to complete different tasks and then do the math to see what that process looks like when spatialized.

 That is, not many students time themselves to see how long it might take to read one page of a challenging but not overly difficult academic article, or how long it might take to write 250 words of an essay. So, in underappreciating how long certain tasks might take, students also can set themselves up for failure in terms of time-management.

Most often, when I ask to see how students are presently managing their time, what I see spatialized are assignment deadlines, marked in an agenda or on their computer calendar, or on the whiteboard. What I most often see are a string of dates for submission: something along the lines of submit English research paper today at midnight and that’s it. Or a student may dedicate large coloured squares of time to different subjects: on Mondays, there might be a large blue square for Math in the morning and then a large green square for Biology after lunch, but without any indication of what particular tasks are intended to be completed during those intervals.

What is notably absent from most time-management plans are the most important elements: catch up times and necessary activities such as buying groceries, eating, sleeping, getting exercise, socializing, doing things that make you feel good about your life.

Also, sometimes what students “label” poor time-management might actually be something else, such as procrastination due to perfectionism, or writer’s block due to a fear of failure seeded by familial expectation, or a sense of dread created by overly-critical thoughts, or poor self-discipline from a lack of intrinsic motivation or greater sense of academic purpose.

So for students who find it difficult to stick with an otherwise reasonable and well thought out time-management plan, it might be worthwhile to give some thought to what, in particular, is behind poor time-management. In those moments when a plan is abandoned, it might be worthwhile to draw greater awareness to what kinds of thoughts or feelings might be surfacing to prevent the completion of that task? If the underlying issue is perfectionism, or fear of failure, or lack of purpose, there are related strategies students might use to overcome those challenges too.

 Q: What are some effective strategies?

A: To create a time-management plan with enough detail, I would forgo sticky notes, or those tiny paper planners, or even a white board in favour of a some type of electronic planner, if possible. This strategy often allows students to squeeze in more information, cut and paste items efficiently, and even automate important reminders. But really, use whatever system will work, since there is no point in generating a time-management plan that is not regularly consulted and, for some people, the physical reminder of a white board is key.

I would recommend that students build comprehensive time-management plans in the first week of the term when they have access to all of their course syllabi. First, I would recommend coding in necessary items, such as meal times, ideal start and stop times, times for exercising, times for commuting to work, times for enjoying hobbies, times to enjoy friend or family commitments. Perhaps you might decide to take each Saturday off to recoup from school?

Then code in major deadlines, noting the weight/value of each, time they are due, preferred method of submission. Then spatialize, working backwards from the deadline, all the tasks required to complete that assignment. So if the assignment is a seven page research paper requiring you to cite ten academic sources, code in the time to write each of those seven pages, time to create your outline for writing, time to collate notes and quotes from selected sources, time to read those ten sources, time to locate and upload or print those sources. Once this process is complete, time also to book an appointment with a CAC tutor, and time to integrate their feedback into your final draft before submitting that assignment.

I would do the same process for each major assignment, leaving in one hour of catch up time for each hour of time worked so that if things really start to slip sideways, if there is an unexpected illness or extenuating life circumstance that pose a setback, there is still plenty of wiggle-room left to shift items around.

Likewise, I would ask each student to give some thought to how long they can reasonably focus. Some students prefer to work for two-hour intervals without interruption followed by a long break. Some students find they focus best in 25 minute intervals with 5-10 minute breaks. Some students do their best work early in the morning, with their first cup of coffee. Some students work best after dinner into the wee hours of the night. Regardless of whether you are an early bird or night owl, you might give some thought to what time of day you tend to sustain greatest focus, think most clearly, and can produce your best work. If you can identify that time, I would complete your most challenging task then.Likewise, you might give some thought to the hours of your day that you tend to feel more foggy or sluggish (for many this is right after eating a large meal, or right before bed) so you might want to devote your easiest work to those periods of time?

You might also think about ways you might incentivize the completion of hard tasks. Perhaps you might go for a run, then sit down to complete a hard task. Or perhaps you might complete the hard task knowing that, once completed, you can reward yourself by listening to your favourite song, or watching comedy on Youtube, or eating a bowl of ice-cream.

Q: What should a student do when they simply DON’T have enough time?

A: If you find yourself in triage mode, it might be wise to adopt a “good enough” mentality that is dispassionately strategic. To this end, you might consider….

  • Which assignments are worth the least? Which readings do you NOT have to read? Which feed into assignments? Which readings can you skim?
  • Read the abstract and headings. Read only the intro and conclusion and forget the middle. Read topic sentences. Read phrases that are italicised or in bold. Read (peer-reviewed) reviews of that work to obtain a scholarly synopsis (rather than online cliff notes, etc).
  • Tag team with a trusted classmate. You read one article and they read the second; you share with each other what you have learned.
  • Ask instructors for extensions as soon as you realize you are in an impossible time crunch. Avoid asking for extensions on the day of your assignment deadline. Keep your email to your instructor simple and straightforward. Include your full name, course section, and V number. You do not need to explain why you are requesting an extension beyond using a phrase such as “difficult extenuating circumstances.” Suggest an alternative deadline, one that gives you more time than you need to avoid having to ask for an extension on your extension! Thank your instructor for their time and consideration.

 For more time-management strategies, you might listen to this podcast.

 About the author

To show the author's faceEmily Arvay completed her PhD at the University of Victoria in 2019 with her thesis “Climate Change, the Ruined Island, and British Metamodernism.”  Since then she has worked as a Learning Strategist and EAL Specialist at the University of Victoria. She is currently conducting further research on the intersections between literary metamodernism and contemporary climate fictions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s write together this fall

Academic Writing, Centre for Academic Communication, Dissertation writing, Distance students, EAL graduate students, Focus strategies, Goal setting, Inspiration and motivation, International graduate students, Make writing social, Mental health, Motivation, Posts by Madeline, Procrastination, Productivity, Time management, Web-based writing groups, Writing groups, Writing resources

Welcome new graduate students and welcome back returning students!

Writing is a big part of your work as a graduate student. Frequently we write alone, and that can feel isolating. Now that we are keeping our physical distance from one another, this sense of isolation can be profound. A great way to break out of isolation and kick-start your writing is to connect with your peers and 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, 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.

If you’d like to start your own writing group, The Thesis Whisperer has some tips on how to start your own “Shut up and write” group (you can modify to create online or socially distanced meetings).  Another resource—this one developed here at UVic—is The Thesis Writing Starter Kit, which can also be modified for online meetings.

If starting a writing group isn’t your thing, or if you simply want a pre-made writing group, why not join our virtual writing room on Wednesday afternoons? It’s a great way to set and accomplish small goals while writing in the (virtual) company of others. No registration required, just drop in on Wednesday afternoons between 2 and 4 p.m. (September 9-December 4). You can come in for all or part of the session. A tutor from the Centre for Academic Communication will be there to answer any questions and facilitate.

 Zoom link: https://uvic.zoom.us/j/91672624091 

We look forward to seeing you!

Shape out of chaos: The mysterious process of writing

Academic Writing, Argument, Book reviews, Centre for Academic Communication, Cognitive process and writing, Organization/ Order, Outlines, Productivity, Reading, Revision, Writing process

By Madeline Walker

 “Insisting on control, having a plan or outline, and always sticking to it is a prophylactic against organic growth, development, change. But it is also a prophylactic against the experience of chaos and disorientation which are very frightening.” (Peter Elbow, Writing without Teachers, p. 35).

As spring explodes into summer in the Northern Hemisphere, my thoughts are the upcoming year. Starting July 1, I will be taking a year’s leave from my job at the Centre for Academic Communication.

Since I started this blog in December 2016, we’ve published 44 posts – many by graduate writers graciously sharing their stories.  In my first blog post, Writing Undressed, I wrote about the messiness of writing, an uneven process that occurs in fits and starts and not according to some smooth trajectory. In this post, I would like to return to the mysterious and magical process of writing, a topic that continues to fascinate me.

A friend who self-published a novel asked me to write a review, and I was happy to agree because I enjoyed his story.  But getting traction on writing the review has been difficult. First I re-read the book, taking notes. The first read was for pure pleasure; the second time was purposeful—I was looking for key ideas and quotations to use in the review. I also looked carefully at the structure of the novel, which on my first read simply blended into the background.

Once I had my notes, the real difficulties began. How can I capture all of the different ideas I have? Where to start? Do I need to summarize the story first? But what about an engaging opening? Am I reading it correctly? Am I making too much of this idea?  Self-doubt flooded me and I felt like a novice writer. I’ve written several reviews before that were published, but somehow previous experience didn’t seem to give me a leg up. I felt mired in chaos.

And then I realized: This happens every time. Lately, my self-doubt is laced with the added tang of ageism: “you’re getting old and your mind is deteriorating, you’re losing vocabulary, you can’t do this anymore.” Different spice, same message, just the familiar devil of doubt sitting on my shoulder. Recognizing the pattern means I know what to do. Ignore the voice as I muddle through. And muddle through I always do! I spent several evenings writing fragments and re-starting the review, mulling over it when I wasn’t actually writing.

 “The turning point in the whole cycle of growing is the emergence of a focus or a theme. It is also the most mysterious and difficult kind of cognitive event to analyze. It is the moment when what was chaos is now seen as having center of gravity. There is a shape where a moment ago there was none.” (Peter Elbow, Writing Without Teachers, p. 35)

And then one morning as I rode my bike to work, it started to happen, the center of gravity for that review started to emerge. I need to trust that this always happens, eventually, if I muddle and mull long enough. It was as if my neurons were firing a mile a minute—ideas flowed and my center of gravity emerged like a hot sun around which my planetary thoughts revolved. I knew the key idea that I was to follow in the review and I had to stop twice, pulling my bike over to the side of Lochside trail to make notes so I didn’t forget what it was I wanted to say.

Peter Elbow’s wonderful metaphor for center of gravity suggests a place of equilibrium, where the ideas are pulled into a central mass of significance. And this happened for me when I recognized the argument I wanted to make about the book. Emergence of an argument signals the emergence of a center of gravity because for me, argument is the structuring principle of most of my writing. Once that starts to take shape, it gets easier.

I don’t make plans or outlines. Well sometimes I do, but they fail—they are provisional—I don’t stick to them. I’ve realized that I must honour the scary disorienting feeling of being groundless when I begin the process of writing. Tons of notes and scribbles and frustration and trying to find a thread.   I need to trust that the mulling and stewing and casting about for words and ideas is a necessary messy and chaotic stage I go through. When I try to force a solution or structure too soon, the process becomes distorted and prolonged.

One  dictum about writing is “clear thinking = clear writing.” I hazard a rewrite of that simplistic equation:  “chaotic thinking and messy writing lead eventually to clear thinking and writing.”  There really are no shortcuts.  One stage leads to the next: the emergence of an argument or significant idea or center of gravity or shape. And from that center of gravity the work will build itself.   At least that has been my experience.

Please enjoy the blog as it is–we will not be adding content during my absence. However, I will check my email at mrwalker@uvic.ca if you wish to contact me with ideas for the blog’s future directions.

Take good care and enjoy the work and play of writing.

Madeline

 

 

Seeing the big picture: A review of How to Write a Better Thesis

Academic Writing, Book reviews, Dissertation writing, Inspiration and motivation, Motivation, Posts by Madeline, Productivity, Writing process, Writing resources

By Madeline Walker

David Evans, Paul Gruba, and Justin Zobel. (2014).  How to Write a Better Thesis, 3rd edition. [e-book]. Springer. 173 pages.

When you hit a snag or are feeling lost in writing your thesis, reading a “how to” book can be just what you need.  Such a book might give you a new perspective, a fresh idea, great advice, or motivation to continue. I recommend you have a look at the e-book How to Write a Better Thesis, free and easily accessible in UVic’s library. Writing in a friendly and knowledgeable collective voice, Evans, Gruba, and Zobel cover every stage of the thesis-writing journey.  Surprisingly, they recommend you start by exploring the end-point. Look up institutional expectations for the finished thesis (get guidelines from your department). Then, read theses in your field (this is easy for UVic students; just access UVicSpace and search). These investigations will orient you to thesis-writing’s big picture.

Part of big picture thinking is recognizing that dissertation writing is not a logical, linear journey. Evans et al. (2014) acknowledge that this journey involves both the left and the right sides of our brains: “the process of research is often not entirely rational. . . . Research is a mixture of inspiration (hypothesis generation, musing over the odd and surprising, finding lines of attack on difficult problems) and rational thinking (design and execution of crucial experiments, analysis of results in terms of existing theory) . . . without the creative part, no real research would be done, no new insights would be gained, and no new theories would be formulated” (p. 10, emphasis added).  This claim resonates with my own experience of writing the dissertation: moments of serendipity and light-bulb flashes punctuating long periods of reading, research, and painstaking writing.

Another example of how these writers home in on the big picture is their discussion of aim and scope, where they show how writers sometimes conflate research methods with aims. Using a cogent example of a student named Alistair, they quote what Alistair has identified as the aim of his thesis about attitudes toward a marginal group in Japanese society called the burakumin:

The aim of the research is to establish which groups of mainstream Japanese continue to harbour anti-burakumin attitudes, analyze what those attitudes are and why they have remained extant, and to investigate which political measures are needed to solve the problem. (p. 64)

Evans et al. (2014) rightly ask, “what was the real aim?” and go on to show that Alistair has crammed four aims into one sentence:

  • to establish which group has attitudes,
  • to analyze attitudes,
  • to determine why they persist,
  • and to investigate measures to solve the problem.

According to Evans et al. (2014), the first three “aims” should not appear in the intro chapter, but in the research design chapter. They go on to explain that a common problem for graduate students is that they have too many aims and should identify only one aim that follows as a “logical consequence of the problem statement” (p. 65). Finally, the conclusion should respond to this aim.  So, in a nutshell, they say “stick to a single paramount aim” (p. 65, emphasis in original). This is simple but excellent advice. Less is more.

This book has many strengths:

  • The book is well organized, with introductory chapters on structure and mechanics followed by chapters on each section of the dissertation.
  • The authors are practical and sensible on mechanics; for example, if you are wondering what style is permissible in your writing, “go to the top five journals in your field and determine what style is used. Look, too, at the use of voice to see if it is first person singular, active (‘I investigate’) or perhaps third person passive (‘the event was investigated’). If your work is cross-disciplinary, settle on a single style so that your work is consistent” (p. 29).
  • They provide a comprehensive final checklist, “Dotting the ‘I’s and Crossing the ‘t’s” to review before you submit (pp. 129-136).
  • Summaries are provided at the end of each chapter, so it’s easy to dip in and out of the book and choose only what is relevant to your thesis-writing journey.

Although the authors write from an Australian perspective and they claim their book is suitable mostly for students in the physical, biomedical, mathematical, and social sciences, I believe this book has nuggets of good advice for all thesis writers.

Note: “Thesis” in this book is an umbrella term covering both the master’s thesis and the doctoral dissertation.

About Madeline

Madeline Walker is the Coordinator of the Centre for Academic Communication. She has a PhD in English and enjoys helping students to engage fully with their writing. She loves red and purple, colours of the heart.

Make writing social

Academic Writing, Blogs and blogging, Centre for Academic Communication, Dissertation writing, Environment, Inspiration and motivation, Make writing social, Motivation, Productivity, Tutoring, Writing groups

cropped-cropped-cropped-2110144017-2.jpg“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:

  • Thesis Writing Starter Kit: This resource provides tips on how to form a writing group or partnership.
  • 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.
  • Check out the twice-yearly Thesis Boot Camps for 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

 

 

 

 

Doubting my Ability to Complete my Master’s Program

Academic Writing, Centre for Academic Communication, Cognition and writing, Cognitive process and writing, Distance students, Education, Graduate student writers, Inspiration and motivation, Learning disability, Productivity, Revision, Tutoring, Writing process, Writing resources

By Barb Fouts-Melnychuk

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

 

 

 

What is the next new collocation you are learning?

Academic Writing, Collocations, EAL graduate students, Goal setting, International graduate students, Posts by Kaveh, Productivity, Reading, Vocabulary

By Kaveh Tagharobi

In my last post, I wrote about the importance of learning new collocations through reading and listening activities. Now, I am going to discuss how to record, practice, and learn those new collocations in a way that you can easily use them in your writing and speaking.

You all might have learned new words and collocations that you either forget after a while or seldom use in your writing and speaking. There are probably a group of words and collocations that you frequently see in different texts, and each time you see them, you wonder what exactly they mean. You might have a vague idea, but you are never a hundred percent sure. Or maybe you recognize and understand the word or collocation upon seeing them, but you don’t seem to remember to use them in similar situations when you write or speak. These are very common issues for many EAL writers and speakers, and in the following paragraphs I am going to introduce some simple strategies to help you learn new words and collocations at a level that they become part of your subconscious knowledge and you can effortlessly use them.

The first step is to create a list where you record the new collocations and words that you come across while reading and listening. Many of you might have attempted this in the past: to keep a list of the new words you learn. But has it helped you learn those words better and remember them more easily? Having an effective way of recording information about newly-learned items is the first step in learning them well. I have seen word lists that stretch like two parallel trains; one train is the new words and the one next to it is the translations. This way of keeping new words is not very helpful. Firstly because translations cannot fully capture the meaning of a word or collocation. We can’t always draw parallels between two languages, and translations do not account for the context in which a word or collocation is used. The second reason why keeping translations is not effective is that it does not provide a meaningful learning opportunity, and therefore it is easier to forget the new word after a while. We need something that offers a deeper understanding of the new collocations, and this is why I recommend keeping example sentences instead of translations or definitions. An example sentence features the new word or collocation in context and provides a much better opportunity to both learn and remember it better.

I recommend my students keep three example sentences for each new word or collocation that they add to their list. The first is the original sentence in which they saw that word or collocation for the first time. The second one is a dictionary example, and the last one is a sentence they make. Keeping these three sentences helps you both understand the meaning of the new item and remember it better. You can also keep a definition from an English-to-English dictionary if necessary.

Here is a sample entry:

Imagine you have a conversation with your friend, Doug, who has been running a hipster hangout downtown for the past few years. Unfortunately for Doug, business hasn’t been looking good lately with the population of people with thick rimmed glasses and messy shag cuts on the decline. (This, obviously, can’t be true so don’t take it as a fact! I am just making stuff up for my example.) Before getting into the red and losing money, Doug decides to go out of business while the profits and costs still balance out. This is when he tells you the historic sentence: “I decided to close the restaurant. It only broke even last year.” If you don’t know what “break even” means, this is your golden opportunity to learn it. Even if you know what it means, but you don’t use it yourself, you can still use the chance to make this collocation a part of your active vocabulary. Recording this sentence allows you to learn the meaning of this collocation in context. In addition, you will always remember it with the story of Doug and the decline of his watering hole that was once bustling with cool people in colourful socks and tight-fitted jeans.

Even if you don’t have a story that you can attach to a new collocation, you can make one. Just like what I did with the story of my imaginary friend, Doug.

Writing up a short paragraph gives you a chance to spend some quality time with your collocation, building a narrative around it, adding fun details to it, and in this way making it more memorable.

In that paragraph, you can also use some of the collocations you have learned before. Can you locate some of the collocations that I inserted into my paragraph about Doug’s restaurant?

Keeping a list, however, is never enough, even if it consists of made-up, real-life, and dictionary examples. To make sure these new items enter your long-term memory, you need to review and practice them, and not just randomly; I think to get the best results, it is important to have a system. One recommendation is to pledge a specific number of new items for each week when you can focus and work on those words and collocations. For example, you can decide that you read for 25 minutes every day and pick at least two useful collocations from every reading session (see my previous post on how to identify useful collocations in reading passages). In this way, you will have 14 new collocations by the end of the week. Then you can focus on reviewing those 14 new collocations the following week (while keeping reading and finding new items for the subsequent week). For reviewing, all you need to do is to remember the sentences in which the new words and collocations are used. If you can’t remember the sentence, you can look at your list and review by reading the example sentences. The reviewing part can also be a little organized. You can focus on the first sentence for all your 14 new collocations on the first two days of the week and then move on to the second and third sentences on the next four days. In this way, you will be reviewing your new items six times a week, going back to each item in a new sentence every two days. Finally, you can review all 14 items on the last day of the week.

This is not time-consuming at all, since you don’t have to set dedicated time aside for reviews. All you need to do is repeat the sentences in your head during the day. You can do it while taking a walk, waiting in line, or doing daily chores. If you don’t remember the sentence, you just need a glance to remind you of the sentence. Moreover, as you head into next weeks, keep an eye out for the items from previous weeks. If you keep reading regularly, you will encounter those words and collocations again in new texts. Every time you come across one of your old items, go back to your list and put a check mark next to the entry. Once you have at least three check marks next to your entry, you can be more confident that you will not forget it.

The next step is to insert the newly-learned words and collocations into your speaking and writing. Have a plan to write a short essay every two weeks and use the new items from the past weeks in it. Also, you can prepare a short speaking using the new collocations and present it during a one-on-one session at the CAC. Don’t wait for opportunities to reveal themselves to you; instead, create chances where you can use the new words and collocations deliberately.

It is also a good idea to review your whole list every month. You will find that there are still words or collocations that you do not have complete mastery over. Write them down on a separate piece of paper and stick it somewhere you can always see. Put it on your fridge or next to your monitor, and in this way, you can review these stubborn words and collocations every time you open the fridge or get a chance to use some of them as you are writing at your desk.

My final tip on this subject is about access: where should you keep your list for the most convenient access? What if you are waiting in line in Biblio and want to take a glance at your list to remember a sentence? In the past, I kept my lists in notebooks, which is not the most accessible format. I most probably won’t have my notebook with me when I am taking a walk or standing in line. For a while, I kept my lists in Word files, which was better, but still I had difficulty copying them from device to device. My final solution is to keep my lists on a cloud-based note-taking app. There are several such apps out there that allow you to keep, organize, and update your notes in a space that automatically uploads them to a cloud server. I use Evernote because I think it offers great options to organize your notes. On Evernote, you can create notebooks and keep several notes in the same notebook. You can also group notebooks together under a single topic. This is especially useful if you keep multiple lists, which I recommend. Based on where you find your new collocations, you can have different lists for formal, informal, and academic words and collocations. You can also keep collocations that you have seen before (but can’t quite use) in a separate notebook. Beside allowing you to organize your notes in different notebooks, Evernote synchronizes your data across different devices (you can install it on iOS, Android, and Windows), and you can also access them through your web browser on any device.

Of course, this is only one of many apps where you can keep your lists. Or maybe you want to go old school and stick to the good old paper notebooks. As long as you regularly add to, review, and use your new words and collocation, you will continue to learn and grow as a writer and speaker. In the end, I believe what is most important is that you have purpose, enthusiasm, and a clear plan to add to and expand your vocabulary. So let’s get started. What is the next new collocation you are learning?

About Kaveh

Kaveh is an EAL Specialist at the CAC.

Kaveh Tagharobi has two MA degrees in English, the second one completed at UVic in 2017 with a concentration in Cultural, Social, and Political Thought (CSPT). Before starting to work at the CAC in 2013, he was an ESL/EFL instructor for 10 years in Iran, teaching a variety of topics to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. At the CAC, Kaveh works with both international and domestic students, helping them to plan their research, organize their writing, edit for grammar, and improve their reading and critical thinking skills.