Revising and writing papers

Phew! I just uploaded a conference paper "Cycles of Engagement", due in today!

Revising my work for the viva started with

1. reviewing generic viva questions,
   
2. then the more specific ones that came up in the mock viva.
   
3. A third approach is to write a paper for a conference, and that's been the focus of my work over the last couple of weeks.
   

Of course, this conference paper for the Management Consulting Division biennial conference has got my supervisors' names on it, and deservedly so. After speaking with someone from the MCD at the Academy of Management conference last August, I was encouraged to present at the PhD consortium, but once I approached the MCD they suggested I presented a paper at the full conference. I wrote a proposal, and they accepted it, to my surprise and delight. But I shouldn't be so surprised, because now at the end of my PhD, I know what I have to say, so perhaps I wrote a sensible and interesting proposal.

After the mock viva, my supervisors offered to help me to write this paper, and I'm glad they did, because, in the last few weeks, I've learned a lot from the way they write. One supervisor addressed the challenge of how to put all the richness and detail that makes a PhD study what it is - into just 8000 words, restructuring the original paper I wrote; the other has greatly improved the flow of the argument. Whenever am I going to learn to write like this!

Why write a paper before your viva? Because it:

• helps you to identify the key points of your thesis,
  
• makes you reread parts of your thesis,
  
• helps you spot typos and mistakes before the examiner points them out to you

If the conference were before my viva, I'd also have practised speaking the points I'm learning by heart for the viva. But the viva is in May (probably) and the conference is in June. Look here for the paper if you want to read it because it's a good summary of my work.

I'll welcome constructive feedback, so do contact me through this web form.

I acknowledge

The journey to achieve a PhD is a marathon. Decades ago, I set myself this target and many people have helped me on the long way with practical and emotional encouragement.

The most recent support came from my two supervisors. They encouraged, berated and trained me through exciting and intellectual conversations. I enjoyed their realistic, enthusiastic support and their complementary approaches so that my research developed in ways I’d never have guessed.

I thank our erst-while director of research students for accepting my original naïve proposal for the Masters in Research Methods and then allowing me to continue onto the doctorate. What faith the man has! I thank our erst-while project assistant Shelagh for her practical help. I thank my fellow OUBS students for our coffee-time seminars where discussion has ranged from soccer to supervision, from cricket to critical realism. They’ve helped me get alternative angles on progress and research. I thank also Minh, LizT and other unseen commentators on this PhD blog for their electronic encouragement.

A big thank you goes to my anonymous participants for providing that all-important access to their organisations, for giving me their time to provide insights to their experiences of IT projects.

I set aside my domestic duties (not so sadly) to complete this research, so I thank Cherry for cleaning round me while I typed, my lovely husband for doing all the cooking and shopping the last few months, my brothers, my brother-in-law, and my son for reading and feeding back on earlier drafts of this thesis. I thank my late husband too – we used to talk about IT project management and the public sector client. To him I owe the original idea for the research.

Later, after the viva, you can borrow my thesis from the OUBS or OU library, or download from the ORO - assuming I pass.

Critical realism pondered

I think the term 'critical' is about responding to criticisms. In IS philosophy, according to John Mingers (2004), critical realism seems to be a response to criticisms of an empirical and naturalist view of science. Mingers says that the original aims of critical realism were

"(i) to re-establish a realist view of being in the ontological domain whilst accepting the relativism of knowledge as socially and historically conditioned in the epistemological domain; and
(ii) to argue for a critical naturalism in social science."

In a context where research has been of machines, of software, of hard systems with less of a focus on people, I can see how there might be a realist approach that was closer to positivism, and I'm finding it a fine line to distinguish between positivism and realism. I had the impression that critical realism was a step further away from positivism, and a compromise between positivist and constructionist approaches. I find support in Mingers' statement

"The major advantage of a critical realist approach is that it maintains reality whilst still recognizing the inherent meaningfulness of social interaction."

I like the idea that critical realists "want to get beneath the surface to understand and explain why things are as they are, to hypothesise the structures and mechanisms that shape observable events. "(p100) because that's the way I thought I was working, so I thought I was using a critical realist approach.

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Mingers, J. 2004. Real-Izing Information Systems: Critical Realism as an Underpinning Philosophy for Information Systems. Information and Organization, 14(2): 87-103. at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6W7M-4C47BCF-4/2/873a061fe87e6979e71a48c3fe922ddd

Critical realist or realist?

Having pondered my methodological approach, supervisors are happier with this second attempt at the chapter. I've written:

A reason this research should use a constructivist approach is that project participants construct each other’s behaviours in the context of a project and shape each other’s understanding. Examples of this approach discussed in the literature review include Schein (Schein, 1997), Bovens’ (Bovens, 2007) constructions of client models, Wenger’s communities of practice (Wenger, 1998), the importance of space and time for understanding projects (Maaninen-Olsson & Müllern, 2009). However, this research takes a critical realist research perspective because, although organisations’ IS projects take place in real objective spaces, each individual participant constructs themselves in a particular way in relation to the project setting.

Supervisor #1 says that I should say it's a realist perspective, not a critical realist perspective. I'm not sure about this because I thought there was a difference that mattered, and isn't realism close to positivism? Or does the term 'critical' apply when research seeks to identify practices or structures in order to highlight inequalities or injustices, in which case, I should remove it, because I'm not attempting to highlight such inequalities. If I remove the word, then everything else I've written still holds, but if I leave it in, then I'm open to queries about my perspective.

I'll ponder.

Full draft done

I have sent my supervisors all the chapters, with humble apologies for lack of articulateness on the conclusions, but reporting that I'd got someone else to read at least some of it to check for the cryptic clippedness that supervisor#1 dislikes in my style. My style has so changed, and I didn't realise until one reader said he'd had problems where I'd used 'combinations' as a noun. I had to go back to the theory I was using to check those authors also used the word as a noun, not as combining or combined. It is now so clear to me, but I've read that particular paper many times.

Supervisor #1 has come back all cheerful and praising that I've got it done to the time we'd agreed (took me three 60 hour weeks) and says not to worry about the conclusion as it usually takes a few iterations. Now I have to wait three weeks for their feedback.

Am I on the last 385 yards of this marathon?

End of three years

At the end of September my three-year scholarship ends. The end of my scholarship means the end of my funding, so no more conferences, outside workshops, transcription, or travel will be paid. I need to finish unpaid, unwaged, unfunded.

Fellow students are fretting, excitedly and worriedly arranging to submit.

• My fellow third year has registered her intention to submit in the next three months.
  
• A fourth year student has submitted and awaits her viva next week.
  
• Another fourth year student has just taken her thesis to the printers.
• Another fourth year has gone part-time.
  

At the end of four years you get deregistered and if you haven't submitted or gone part time, that's it. Done. Cut off. NO degree. Nothing. And a waste of four years with nothing to show for it, but if you go part time before the cut off date, then you have several more years as a registered part-time student. That costs over a sixteen hundred pounds, so not the route you want to take if you think you'll submit in only a few more weeks.

At this end stage, when things are getting desperate, you have to manage your supervisors' expectations. If they think you're going independent and you will submit anyhow, then they support you - that's my observation of my senior students' experience. But if you bow to their experience and wisdom and hesitation, then you're going to take longer. Supervisors who've given you other tasks that delay you, land you with problems so make sure the supervisors know the regulations too.

I finish unfunded, but I shall finish well before 30 September 2011.

Rewriting

After supervision, I seem to have found a new ball to roll. By the end of last week, I was getting stuck, apart from a short moment when I realised that my theoretical framework could act as a paradigm for good practice and if components or connection on it are missing, then I have a tool to analyse how to improve engagement.

I wrote that idea up in a hurry, illustrating it with some of my case studies and gave my supervisors 24 hours to read it before our meeting. I'd already given them two other papers and then rolled to a stop.

Supervisors' response is positive because it may be a way to compare across cases instead of using tables, (which I'd tried and weren't working).

Future weeks' work then will be to rewrite all five cases studies:

• do they show mutuality of engagement of interactive problem solving?
• do they show a meta-capability to produce engagement?
• what was complex about each project?
• identify the value that grew from solving complexity and knotty problems
• write about the value for each case
• identify what the key issues were that needed to be resolved, if they were resolved and how engagement helped the extent to which they were resolved.

I feel like my supervisors have given me a kick, and like a ball I'm slowly rolling again. May be this mess of thoughts will gain speed.

Dangerous paths in writing

A recent Academy of Management paper on writing, {Pratt, 2009 }, includes advice that my supervisors have already given me, especially dangerous paths:

1. telling about data not showing it
2. showing too much data and not interpreting it
3. using deductive 'short hand'
4. quantifying qualitative data
5. inappropriately mixing inductive and deductive strategies

Having the feedback from my supervisors is so much better than reading about what I’m supposed to be doing, even in an excellent paper like this.

To find better paths he advises:

1. make sure your methods section includes 'the basics' (like discuss why this research is needed)
2. show data - in a smart fashion
3. think about using organizing figures
4. think about telling a story
5. consider 'modeling' someone whose style you like who consistently publishes qualitative work (who might I pick?)
   

Not sure I can do this writing right yet, but I keep practising.

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PRATT, M. G. (2009) For the lack of a boilerplate: Tips on writing up (and reviewing) qualitative research. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 856-862.

Hooking your supervisors

What must I do to finish my PhD?

• project manage
• balance time and money
• cope with life
• manage the data I have
• learn skills

Supervisors help by guiding, approving (e.g. conferences), and mainly advising on writing (I think). There are books available, like Rowena Murray's. Your university supports you by providing details of processes and what you and your supervisors can expect in a PhD Student Handbook. A Google search reveals lots of handbooks from lots of universities. A Google search "difficulties with supervisors" reveals plenty of advice. Advice to supervisors can also be helpful to students; I like this page at Oxford.

I wonder what hidden agendas supervisors have

• to cover their backs if something goes wrong
• not give too much help (but see PhD Comics early Nov 2009)
• join you in writing papers in the longer term relationship

At a recent seminar on managing your supervisor, the advice was to shape your relationship with your supervisors, find a hook to engage them. Initially the metaphor appealled, but then I thought of nasty fish hooks like in the anti smoking ads here, and pirate hooks and hooking kicks in tae kwon do. Boxing uses hooks here. So I'm looking for a different metaphor. Anyone got one?

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MURRAY, R. (2002) How to write a thesis, Buckingham ; Philadelphia, Open University Press.

Putting framework together

I've got a bit of imagination working, which means I am putting something new together for the theoretical framework. I'm rather excited by what has come out of days of thinking, doodling, jotting of words, and drawing of lines to connect ideas. It was a painful process, but then a bit would drop into place and then another bit. I think I've got something I can work with, and which is new.

What will my supervisors think? Have I wasted my time?

Supervision

A supervision meeting was planned today, with both supervisors, which is normal - usually they are both. But one can't make the planned meeting in the morning so I met one at the planned time and the other in the afternoon.

It just goes to remind me how useful it is that they strive to meet together.

Holiday

Some students are thinking of having a holiday. We're supposed to ask our supervisors for permission, but they aren't around - they're on holiday (or sabbatical). After reading this PhD comic, I reckon that what they aren't around to know, they don't need to know.

Wisdom

I've got a note on my kitchen wall:

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest, second, by imitation, which is easiest, and third, by experience, which is the bitterest". Confucius.

I suspect these are the three methods by which I must learn to write. Reflection comes from the data and reading. I must imitate the best writers. The experience comes when no-one reads my writing. At least my supervisors read it, even if they say horrible things about it.

Writing overload

I may have a case study on paper, but it's only a draft, and it's still so so mixed up .

But I've more to write. For example,

• Supervisor #1 wants to be reminded of my framework.
• Supervisors want me to rewrite those parts that were "completely unclear"
  
• I've got some ideas to write down about control, risk and behaviour being involved with engagement.
• I still haven't written anything about methodology for the supervisors - I wonder if they haven't asked yet because they've been more concerned about collecting data.

Third year stress looms!

Rewriting again

Supervisors have received my rewrite of a case study, and still are not happy. Parts are

"completely unclear".

Oh dear.

I'll have to try again. Sometimes, I think a PhD is a three year course on writing and rewriting and writing again.

Rewriting

I'm rewriting a case study for my supervisors. I think it's the third rewrite. I've restructured it, added information, reworded information, taken on board what I think they said, listened to the recording of our last meeting to make sure I've heard what they said.

Will they be happy?

View of landscape after

I've honed my twittering skills, realising what twitter tags are. That's practical.

The learning is through reflection on what I do in my roles as Associate Lecturer or research student, arriving from earlier practices in teaching and computing.

The workshop on Landscapes of Practice has drawn my attention to the different practices of the different people on IT projects, the different practices in public and in private sector. They exist, but they're not always explicit. Boundaries aren't always visible, and you wonder what's stopping you, but you can't see what's stopping you.

There're boundaries between research students and supervisors. My supervisor was at the Landscape of workshop, where his group did a brilliant sketch on the different landscapes of teachers, parents and school children. At one point, as parent, he turned to his acting teenage daughter and said, "I'm always available." She exploded with complaints about him being available at 9.30 on a Sunday morning when she was recovering from a night out till after midnight. The funny thing is, that he's used that line to me, about him and fellow supervisor: "We're always available, at least electronically." There's an equally possible sketch about the different landscapes of research students and supervisors, the sort of thing that PhD comic is always getting at. As the PhD student participates at the periphery of the academic researcher's landscape, how does the supervisor enable the student to identify, and move centre of the landscape. That is the supervisor's job, isn't it?

Whose job is it to help the different people in a public sector IT project to cross the boundaries? Is crossing the boundaries how people transfer knowledge?

Getting the message through

Had supervision today. It wasn't great. Supervisor number 1 is into nag-about-access-mode, worrying that I haven't any more case studies yet. I daren't assure her that I have access until it happens, so I don't give her best case scenarios, but let her worry along with me.

Then neither of them were happy with my writing, "muddled" they said it was and too note-like. I've used bullet points - they said at the last meeting to use bullet points - but it's not good enough because I need to join up the bullet points and the quotes with explanations. And layout the setting more clearly and describe the actors more clearly. And write the story more clearly.

The day after I'd sent the paper to them I had an insight to something in the case study that showed how a missing client-consultant engagement at tactical level was overcome through good consultant-consultant engagement and consultant client engagement at strategic level. When I told them that idea, supervisors liked it, though I thought it analytical and they'd told me to write descriptively so I'd not have included it in this paper.

Weekend writing

I must spend the weekend writing a paper for my supervisors. I should have done it earlier but spent two days doing voluntary work this week plus a day at the GC expo. So it's catch up time

Systematic supervisors

Yesterday's session on a systematic review of the literature must be useful to more than just the PhD students. Our erst-while director of studies uses the approach - says it saves him much time. I hear of supervisors who send students off to look at a whole area of literature that is not relevant to the study, and am grateful that my supervisors do not make those demands on me, but insist that I not be distracted and keep on track.

After yesterday, I think that had I had done that session right at the start of the PhD, or even of the MRes, then I would be very likely to finish on time.