Blogging research

Fascinated to read a conference paper on postgraduate blogs, found here (pdf). It's in paper 1150 by three fellow OU post grads who are a couple of years ahead of me and in a different faculty. But their experience is similar to what I'm finding. The blog is a

• space for writing, reflection
  
• a research journal but with search and sort functions and links
• a "memory repository"

Sometimes I've used it to provide notes on a session that others have missed, so I can share. Because it's open, I'm a little more careful with grammar and spelling and readability, and like to include pictures, or links, or something other than pure text.

However, those three PG blogged together, even having a collaborative blog, and I am not in such a community; I'm the only PG student in the OUBS to blog. I do find other PhD blogs, but not physically close to where I am.

What I like most and most hope to have from my blog is some interaction. So I've appreciated the people who've commented or got in touch. The three PG authors conclude

• universities should offer a blogging facility to research students
• supervisors should draw attention to the potential benefits of this method of keeping a journal
• authors of books on research methods should cover this area in some detail.

I don't think universities should necessary offer a blogging facility. I've used the OU one, and it's not good enough because it doesn't have a comment facility, which is really important if you want feedback.

My supervisors may not know what a blog is - I'm not aware that they read this, but they haven't discussed my using a research journal so the subject hasn't come up for over a year.

But yes, to the third recommendation - authors on research methods should cover this area in detail, because there are advantages to blogging, and with more PG students blogging in a community I could see more advantages .

Viva advice

We had two recently completed PhD students advising us PG students today. They shared their experiences of their vivas.

One experience sounded quite difficult and upsetting, but now that she has come to terms with it, it sounds like a positive experience. In the viva, you would expect questions to be asked on:

• background
• theory
• method
• results

and probably asked in order. So when she found the examiner asking her questions on the literature, she expected eventually to move on to the method. But the examiner persisted asking her about articles that she hadn't read, asking her questions that she couldn't answer, and then eventually moved rapidly through the other sections. The examiners were happy with the other sections, less so with the literature. She passed with major corrections and a year to do them. The positive experience is that the examiner is now so supportive, providing a list of the corrections and the literature to embroider into the thesis; it's like having another supervisor. The student made the corrections within three months, going through the list ticking them off.

Our other new PhD student also passed. He had minor corrections, perhaps partly to do with English not being his first language. Fellow students in second and third year have been reading his work to help him with these corrections.

Their advice included:

• speak slowly, distinctly and formally
• offer short general statements
• constantly refer to the literature
• connect a point made in a question to some debate in the literature
• read viva chapter in "Doing Post Graduate Research"
  
• take a notepad in with you in case you want to write a question down
• put post-its at the start of each chapter so you can find it quickly
• draw bubble diagrams of the main themes
  
• have a mock viva
• have your say in the selection of examiners.

You can have some say in selecting your examiner. One of ours found her examiner when in her first year she attended a doctoral colloquium where the examiner was leading. She came back and discussed it with her supervisors. They usually know something about possible supervisors, may be friends with them, but can also warn the student off unsuitable supervisors. Some might not know the subject; others might have a different philosophy on the method you've chosen, or may be too intent on making a name for themselves (early researchers perhaps) to be sympathetic examiners.