Corrections done

I've given in the corrections. I hope the examiner is happy but I believe I've unequivocally addressed all the corrections that the list required.

I worry about my writing being too cryptic and consequently perhaps being misconstrued, but it wasn't worth taking any longer because the extra time was unlikely to improve my writing and content.

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.

Short sentences

Your writing style is cryptic

advised my supervisor.

My fellow PhD student and Open University blogger, Minh, has blogged on writing for his PhD here and here, for instance. Now, Minh, like me, has an IT background and, like me, has a tendency to produce short sentences on the grounds that short is better, but his supervisor, like mine, has asked for longer sentences and dislikes the clipped style we go for. Of course, we follow our supervisor's advice, but wonder and grumble.

However, I've begun to be persuaded of the value of longer sentences. I like a short sentence. But that very shortness raises questions in my readers' mind, for instance:

• Why do I like short sentences?
• Under what circumstances?
• And what do I mean by short?

My supervisor says to make it easy on any reader by answering those questions, and I can't answer them if I write short sentences. I could of course write a series of short sentences:

I like short sentences.
Short sentences give one idea.
One idea is enough to cope with.

But the problem with that approach is that it sounds dogmatic and unreflective, which is not what I want my reader to think, especially my examiner. It's a style that doesn't explain enough, focused (which I like) on one purpose, but suggests the writer is not considering alternative points of view, and considering alternative points of view is something that a PhD student must do and demonstrate the doing thereof.

So I'm convinced about the PhD needing a writing style that uses longer sentences, and my supervisor's comment:

"Your writing style is cryptic"

is now self-evident!

Plasticine

I've got 'O' level plasticine. We talk about dumbing down education now, but my education included 'O' level sculpture. I call it plasticine because rather than sculpting, for which we had few materials other than plaster of Paris, we used clay, which is only a grown-up version of plasticine. With clay, you can cut out a few bits here, and squeeze in a few bits there. I loved the feel of the clay on my fingers. That work required craftsmanship.

Editing a draft thesis requires crafting too. I am moving bits here, and putting something else there. Cutting and pasting. Adding sentences or paragraphs to improve my argument, and to address my supervisor's detailed comments. Maybe eventually, one day I shall look back with as much pleasure on the experience as I do on my plasticine days.

Croquet

Croquet is a game of strategy, in theory simple - you just get your croquet balls through all the hoops in sequence. In practice, it's vicious. Your opponent can use his balls to roquet yours away from the hoops, in totally the wrong direction. So you might be sitting there, complacently leaning on your mallet, just in front of a hoop that you're ready to go through on your next turn, and your opponent is already through it with at least one of his balls and should be ignoring you.
It's his turn.
He doesn't ignore you.
He uses his balls to hit yours, the one you were about to put through the hoop and he sends your ball in totally the wrong direction, forward of the hoop, far away, and it's going to take you ages to get back, and now since he's hit one of your balls, he's allowed another turn. So he can move forward and you're left way behind.

I feel like my supervisor has just roqueted me. He's read and commented in detail on my cross-case analysis chapter, which is great, and I'm really pleased, but he's seriously questioning my conceptual framework, which means I have to do a lot of rethinking, then set out my arguments to address the issues he's identified, and it's going to take me ages.

Am I done yet?
No, so write well, (which is better than "No, and the requirements have changed" so throw it all out and start all over (See http://xkcd.com/844/))

And it isn't really croquet, because supervisor's not playing PhD anyhow. He's already through all his hoops.

Concluding

I note that whatever you conclude, there's likely to be more that you can draw out later. Supervisors agree, and advise that over the next couple of years' research as you write papers that "you distill and distill". I hope so because I want to write a couple of papers to present at conferences after I've submitted.

Slowing progress

There's been a hiccup in work. I've damaged my left wrist & can't use both hands to type. Bother! Wouldn't it be nice if I could hand write all my thesis and give it to someone else to type.

Same place

Nearly two weeks ago I blogged that I had only this and that to complete. But I've still got only this and that to complete.

I've been working on this darned methodology chapter all week, yet I don't think I've produced anything worth showing anybody yet because it's still so higgledy-piggledy. I still have the conclusion to write, having concluded that I was nowhere near writing it, despite my hopes two weeks ago.

I seem to be in the same place. Why?

Fellow Post-Grad student has the same question. Six months ago FPG had the whole thesis planned and was going to finish in September. I wouldn't say that I'm competitive but I see no reasons why I should be lagging behind her, and so if she could expect to finish in September, then so could I. Neither of us are lazybones - we put the hours in. But FPGS hasn't submitted yet, and doesn't understand any more than I do why six months ago it wasn't obvious that we weren't going to submit yet.

At the last supervision, a supervisor commented that progress seemed slow. Yes - it seems slow to me too, but I don't need to be criticised for slow progress. Hey! It is progress. So with that slow progress in mind, this week another FPGS grilled a long memoried academic here on when a post grad last completed within the three funded years. The answer after much thought and wriggling was never in memory. So to be where we are, FPG and I are making progress, and it might not be that slow. It's just not as fast as we expected or planned.

So perhaps I'm not quite in the same place as two weeks ago, but just a fraction further.

Shell shocked

I always come out of supervisions feeling slightly shell shocked and unable to do anything for 24 hours. It is slight consolation that supervisor had the same feelings when she was doing her PhD.

However, my Facebook friends console me.

Informatics Friend: Once you recover, do you find the content was useful and usable?

Me: I do something different as a consequence, so the content is used. But these discussions are so mind challenging that it takes time to use the content.

IF: Being stimulated is good :-)

Psychologist Friend: Know what you mean.

Me: In summer I wrote 5 case studies, and sups said don't structure the thesis with these 5 chapters, rewrite them as four chapters, analysing across cases by addressing four developing ideas. I gave them those 4 chapters last week, but they don't like it done cross-case like that and they want a different structure - more like the first effort.

IF: Which I hope you've got saved somewhere.

Successful OUBS Phd Friend: That is so annoying. Don't they realise you haven't got endless time to indulge their whims!

Me: And the final comment was, "you don't seem to be making much progress". So I don't think I'll be able to submit before Christmas

IF: Which do you think is the better structure? Would there be any value in just outlining it and trying to get some quick reactions rather than going through the pain of writing several chapters to have them 'not liked' again?

I know all this is ahead of me, but I guess there is something in this around who actually owns your thesis and the structure of it - and whether you are happy with changing/conflicting advice.

Good luck!

Me: Outlining is what we discussed, now I have to implement it. I can see where they're coming from, but until I'd written it this way, they, none of us could have seen that it wasn't going to work. Now, it's clear that it doesn't read well that way, so I have to write it another way, and just slightly different from what I did in summer. The slight difference also means that it will integrate more with the methodology, and lead to the conclusion. I see them every four or five weeks, which gives me 3-4 weeks to get stuff to them, then they're very good at reading and commenting. Their changing/conflicting advice is because they're moving on in their understanding of my research as I write it - and I do write and give them stuff, which is why I'm upset by the comment about my progress as if I weren't working.

IF: If they could have said something like - it must feel as if you are not making much progress, but actually it is because of all the work you have done that the way ahead is becoming clearer...

I guess they were wanting to encourage and empathise but it came out all wrong - lessons in this for all of us who try to mentor, tutor or teach!

Are you able to edit your previous work rather than having a major re-write - and are there other chapters you can work on in parallel to draw out that integration?

Me: Oh yes, IF- that's the way it could have been said. It's a major edit rather than a major rewrite because I've written it all before, and filed discards in a discard folder. What will take time is editing the drawings that I use to show the thread through the thesis. So it's like

• in spring I had skeins of wool and didn't know what I was going to knit,
• by summer I'd started on a pullover,
• but in autumn, now I realise it should be a cardigan, and the sleeves are too short, so I have the right colours and know what who has to fit, but need to unpick, redesign and knit more.

PF: Yes, you need to look at the positives and try not to worry about the negative. You have made progress - you've started knitting and now you have a better idea of the final garment

Thesis structure

Thesis contents
1. PROBLEM
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
3. METHODOLOGY
4. Case studies description 4,500 words
5. Case studies discussion 15,000 words
6. Case studies emerging behaviour 9,000 words
7. Findings 10,000 words
8. CONCLUSION

And it will be done! I'm polishing chapter 7 (or rewriting it entirely), and have still to write the chapters in block capitals.

Restructuring

Supervisors advise me to restructure my case studies, which I understand because I can't have five chapters, one for each case study, at 8,000-10,000 - it doesn't fit in with a balanced thesis. To structure it I should write round the framework I have built from the literature and the case studies and answer four questions:

1. Which conditions were important for producing qualities of engagement
2. What else made it possible for people to produce these qualities?
3. Which qualities of engagement emerged over time?
4. What kind of value resulted and how?

I should answer the first and third questions together because they address the components of engagement, what preconditions or steering factors were there initially and what emerged. The second and third questions address how these components/conditions/factors connected.

That's the idea. I'm just not quite sure what I'm doing.

Weekend writing

I haven't posted for a week, but I've been writing. I've rewritten all my case studies, and three of them I've sent to supervisors. Who've cancelled next Wednesday's supervision meeting. :(
So I'll have time to send them the last two before the rearranged meeting. :)

Rewriting each case study takes a long morning, with the computer off, a pencil in hand, scribbling over the last printed copy. Sometimes, when working at home I can stare down the garden, if the hop plant isn't dribbling over my window blocking the view.

I find as I write that some words leave me wondering, as if they're not quite right, not quite saying what I want them to say. Focusing on those niggles helps sort them out. Perhaps rewording or reordering helps, or finding a reference to support a point. In one case study, my interviewees knew their management theory and talked about it, so I'm looking up the relevant literature, and the less obviously relevant literature to turn the argument the way I want it. Looking up literature takes time, and means switching my computer back on. I try to delay that because the computer distracts me to email, or here blogging, so my time is less productive. The productive time leads to more than just rewriting, but to analysis too.

To check literature, I search my Endnote database to see I've already read and what notes I've added and occasionally I search this blog to find where I'd remarked on some literature or commented on analysis a year ago or more. I surprise myself that I'd thought that and find the blog more useful than I'd realised.

Now, no more blogging. Rewrite.

Cool opportunities

My fellow blogger, Minh, gave me some useful feedback on the blog I wrote for The Bottom Line last week, and asked,

How do you end up getting these cool publication opportunities?

I guess I'm lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and you make your own luck to be there by talking to the right people. I'd been on a media training course that I'd found out about through a routine circular email that went round the OU Business School. Later I'd discussed the experience with Les Budd, who usually does The Bottom Line blogs, and it went on from there.

They are cool opportunities, aren't they? Visiting the BBC, and watching a programme being recorded, listening to the experiences of people who do business is more interesting than getting some erudite paper into a learned journal that no-one reads, but that looks good on your CV, and gets you academic jobs because it'll improve the university research ratings.

Unfortunately, I haven't published anything erudite and learned and I don't know what sort of job I'll be doing when I finish my dissertation.

Video blog

The other day's drafting problem was because I was writing just a few words, enough to say in one minute, on a topic that would come up in this week's BBC business programme, The Bottom Line. I knew what two topics were required, one of which I know lots about and one I know very little about. Of course, when you know a lot, then you get stuck as to how to cut it down. And I got stuck.

"Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis"

was the brief. The best idea is to write the conclusion, then go back, and the drafts on the floor were variations of thesis and anti-thesis. The second topic was easier (but also my thanks to a PG colleague who's writing her PhD on it), and then I learned them by heart. That's easy enough. The difficult bit is saying them to camera, in Broadcasting House, not here on campus, but in a darkened room, with lights in your eyes, surrounded by real professionals.

The professionals are so professional. For example, Evan Davis also had to speak to camera, but unlike me, he hadn't prepared a script. While I was speaking, he thought about the topics and what his guests had just said, then he said his piece, starting with a great metaphor, the sort where you go, "why didn't I think of that!"

To see, hear or read the blogs, go to the open2.net web site here.

So watch the Bottom Line on World News at the weekend, or listen to it here on BBC Radio 4 on Friday. Great guests, great presenter, great programme.

Drafting

"Drafting problems?"

enquires my colleague eying the half dozen scraps of paper littered round my chair. Yes, I have drafting problems. Why is it when you want to write something short in a short time, you can’t get the best words? I keep finding useless words like, “stuff”, “people” and “communication” come to mind, so I get phrases like “people do stuff” and “people do communication” not words with content. And it’s content I want. So another sheet hits the floor.

Writing case studies

Writing isn't easy. Remember having to write an essay of two thousand words? It was hard to write those assignments three years ago as I studied my Masters in Research Methods. Then there was the thesis of 15,000 words for which we had about three months to do it.

Three weeks ago at a supervisory meeting I agreed with my supervisors that I needed to get them a write up of a case study, one that I'd written up against a framework of social capital, not against engagement. Each case study takes around three or four weeks to produce, and since I'd written up others, I thought I could do this last one in three weeks. At the same time, I have to start working on cross case comparison and analysis. Then I realised that I'd got two case studies to write up against engagement. Oh dear.

But hey! I've written them both in three weeks. I'm so pleased, and so surprised because that's something like 11,000 coherent words in three weeks. If I can write like that for the

• introduction (5000)
  
• literature review (12000)
  
• methodology (12000)
• cases (12000)
• cross case analysis (12000)
• findings (12000)
• contribution and conclusion (5000)
  

then may be I can write my dissertation by September, all 70-80,000 words of it.

Just don't expect me to blog at the same time.

Drafting

I'm excited and a bit nervous that my Phd supervisors have asked me to send them a map of the writing I'll produce for them between now and July. I have to write the first draft of my thesis, around 80,000 words, split up into around 7 plus or minus two chapters. As writing 2000 words was really hard three years ago when I started this degree, I'm surprised and pleased that I imagine ever writing so much. Sadly, not many people will read my work. For a PhD, perhaps three people will read the thesis, then it gets bound and put in a corner of the library to gather dust and no-one ever reads it again.

Generative writing

I need to plan and map how I'm going to get my draft thesis to my supervisors by July.

Will I?
Really?
Er how?

Murray advises moving on from generative writing. Generative writing which is one step further from free writing. It's writing without stopping, writing on a particular topic, writing for someone to read. And hurrah! Isn't that what I've been doing for this blog?

I don't know who you are reading it - only the occasional comment from readers who post, or perhaps in the OU who tell me they read it. Thank you because you being there has given me someone to generate writing for a la Rowena Murray. Last year my blog generated over 45,000 words. Now I have to generate enough writing for my thesis - around 80,000 words.

---

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

Reflecting on analysis

Drawing pictures helps to discover and analyse my thoughts on a situation.

Checkland's soft system analysis requires the drawing of a rich picture as the first stage of the analysis of a messy situation. For those who immediately say, "but I can't draw", it's the quality of the analysis that matters , not the quality of the artistry, which you don't have to show anyone anyhow. The pictures draw attention to features that you otherwise don't notice. Interviewees that use visual metaphors help me to draw such a picture. For example, they talk about

• the middle ground
• positions drawn
• adversaries

which gives a picture of a battlefield, and you have the start of a story you want to write.

Draw first, then check. If you check your picture includes:

1. facts
2. structure
   
3. process
4. climate
5. queries

you probably have done a lot of thought and analysis.

1. Facts include little charts of numbers, or graphs or percentages.
2. Structure can be of accountability, or hierarchy or informal structure, and again can be little charts - who needs drawing skill for those?
3. Process is the way that things get done.
4. Climate is the interesting one - not weather climate but the atmosphere in a work situation because it reveals issues and problem situations. I once had an interviewee that referred to someone being in the firing line, so my sketch had a blindfolded person facing a row of guns. Maybe the process create the climate or maybe new processes can change the climate - you can't tell until you notice them.
5. Queries is a kind of catch-all because it's the bits where you don't yet know something, but at least you know you don't know, so I tag them when I'm coding in Nvivo, in the hope that I can go back to a participant and ask for the missing information.

How do I do use these sketches for writing? I can take the features and pull stories from them, especially from the climate sketches. But by checking that I have something against each of those five headings, they're most useful for analysis.

I can't blog my pictures - initial analysis isn't sequential enough to write about. I draw the pictures by hand, sometimes left handed so I get both sides of my brain to tackle the problem, and a computer doesn't afford that kind of work.

Drawing pictures is about analysis, not about writing.

---

Checkland, P. (1981). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice.
Checkland, P. (1999). Systems Thinking, Systems Practice : With, Soft Systems Methodology ; a 30 Year Retrospective. Chichester, Wiley
Checkland, P. and J. Scholes (1990). Soft Systems Methodology in Action. Chichester, Wiley
Checkland's work is also referred to in Miles & Huberman in Miles, M. B. and A. M. Huberman (1994). Qualitative Data Analysis : An Expanded Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications.

Writing up

"Are you writing up now?"

is a typical question asked of a third year PhD student. The term "writing up" implies the research is done, collected, analysed and the student now knows the findings and needs only communicate them in writing.

But I don't know what the findings are until I write them. I don't know what I think until I write it. Writing itself is a form of analysing and finding what the findings are. I am therefore grateful to Laurel Richardson for pointing out:

"Writing is a way of 'knowing' - a method of discovery and analysis. By writing in different ways, we discover new aspects of our topic and our relationship to it.".

She argues that the "writing up" approach where you don't write until you know what you want to say is a static writing model that

1. "coheres with mechanistic scientism and quantitative research" and
2. is a " sociohistorical invention that reifies the static social world imagined by our nineteenth century fore parents".

There are some difficult long words in there - I had to read it twice - but it sounds wonderful when you read it aloud.

Writing about qualitative research is a method of discovery so must itself be research and therefore fun. Like research is fun, writing is fun.

Oh er! Until I wrote down my thoughts on Richardson's paper, I hadn't ever realised that writing is fun, let alone found an argument for it. thus does writing release discovery.

---

Richardson, L. 2005. Writing: a method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, Vol. 1370: 923-949. London: Sage Publications