Thesis Defense (Some Levity for Your Saturday)

Good thing our thesis and dissertation defenses aren't like this, right?  Hope you're having a great Saturday!

MORE PRODUCTIVITY, LESS PANIC - How to Make the Most of Your Summer

“Wait, what?  It’s July 30!  The summer is more than half over!  I didn't write at all in June and hardly anything in July!  Now I have so much work to do - - too much work!  How am I ever going to do it?"

You know that mid-summer panic?

Non-academic friends never understand.  “It’s still summer!  Why are you worrying now?” After all, "You have summers off, right?"  Riiiiiiight.

As you well know, while you may not have the same responsibilities during the summer that you have during the academic year, you still have a lot that you should be doing to keep your career moving forward.

But as much as you crave a more leisurely schedule, it’s actually difficult once you get what you wish for.  Your mind is used to deadlines, and a regimented schedule of classes, administrative work, and meetings.  It’s easy to get into the habit of procrastinating as the long days, weeks, and months stretch out in front of you.

After all, you earned it, right?  You need a rest. You’ll do it tomorrow.

Tips for a Panic-less Summer

Here are a few actions you can take to create more productivity and less panic:

1. Face the calendar.  Yes, it can be scary to do this, but it pays off to sit down as soon as you recover from this semester, and plan your writing for the summer.  Get out a calendar and enter any planned breaks, conferences, or vacations, so that you can get a sense of how many weeks you really have to work.  Plan prep time for teaching and note any administrative work or meetings.  Don’t be that person who is desperately creating their syllabi the day before they’re due.
2. Prioritize.  Write down your goals for each of your individual writing and research projects.  Then look at them and decide what is most important to finish this summer.  Of your projects, which ones do you absolutely have to do before the beginning of the fall term?  Which one can wait until later?  Which one could you decide not to do?
3.  Realize that if you write first thing each day, you can enjoy the rest of your summer day, feeling satisfied and guilt free.  The Academic Ladder method is to write a reasonable amount each day.  If you write early and then do any research later, it’s a relaxed schedule that doesn’t leave you procrastinating - with a sense of dread for the rest of the day.
4. Be realistic about what you can accomplish. I know this advice may seem obvious, but we all need reminders.  It’s exhilarating to set an ambitious goal, but it will cause you disappointment later if you don’t meet it.  It actually works better to promise yourself that you’ll do less, and surprise yourself if you do more. To avoid overestimating what you can do, list your goals and then break those goals into steps.  You can create larger milestones, then list smaller and smaller actions that you can take.  Take into account your general writing speed if you can.  Of course, it’s only an estimate at the beginning, and there are many twists in the road.  But you can re-evaluate every week and change your plans as you go.
5. Do take time off.  If possible, take a week off near the beginning and then again near the end of the summer.  Having the time and space to clear your head after a grueling semester is important, as is rewarding yourself before the fall term begins. Or take a vacation any time you can!  Between vacations make sure that you are intentional in creating daily space for quiet and silence, fun, and relaxation.
6. Keep in mind that the beginning of the academic year doesn't have to mean the end of your regular writing.  For those academics who write regularly throughout the year, there's less of a demarcation between the academic year and the summer. People who follow the Academic Ladder method are usually able to take afternoons, weekends, and holidays off without guilt, because they know they’ve been working according to plan. The summer gives additional time for writing projects, and also time for fun, friends, and family. Keeping a light-hearted, yet realistic perspective will help you avoid midsummer or end-of-summer panic and enjoy fruitful writing.

 We’d love to hear your comments – let us know how you get ready for summer.  Or maybe you have a story about your summer panics?

Make Them Birds

If you're on facebook or twitter, you may have seen the image to the right.  When I first saw it, I thought immediately of an artist friend of mine and her work with elementary school children.  Natalie would spread out large sheets of paper and an array of vibrant paints upon the floor, and the children would gather eagerly to work with them.  While classical music played softly, she and the children would paint--sometimes elephants, zebras, and giraffes, other times houses, balloons, clouds, and sky. Whatever they painted, they threw themselves into it, and I marveled at their energy.
But then one little boy made a mistake.  His nose wrinkled and his lip trembled.  He looked up apologetically.

"I messed up."  He pointed to a blotch of purple paint.  Natalie nodded.

"That's no problem."  Natalie picked up a clean brush. "We just learn to work with our mistakes."  As we watched, she took the brush and flicked it through the paint.  With her shaping, the blotch became a sphere, the sphere became the center of a ring, and soon we were all standing over her, watching a blotchy, purple Saturn whirl into the center of the child's painting.

"Now you try," Nat said, and dumped a blob of red paint on another piece of paper.  She picked up a clean brush and handed it to the boy.  "See what you can make out of it."

If you're sitting there right now in front of a messy glop of words, you may feel a lot like that boy did.  But remember, that big blotch isn't your final version.  You have errors?  Sure.  We all do.  So let's make them birds, let's make them planets, let's make them whatever we can.

3-second Writing Advice From Anne Lamott

Will getting a PhD in Literature really make you an emotional train wreck?

If you're an academic who spends any time at all on facebook, you've probably seen this essay by Rebecca Schuman.  In the essay, originally posted on slate.com, Schuman cautions students not to get a PhD in Literature "because the full-time, tenure-track literature professorship is extinct."  She claims that students don't listen to people like William Pannapacker because those people are tenured.  In short, people like Pannapacker managed to get to where everyone else wants to be.

What do you think?  Do you agree with Schuman's central argument?  Is the full-time, tenure-track literature professorship extinct?  It's certainly a rarity these days, but is Schuman correct?  And where do you think the humanities in general are going?  Might there be any light somewhere in this conversation?

Times Higher Education Article on Coaching Professors and Grad Students

Matthew Reisz, writing for the Times Higher Education journal in the UK, has written an excellent article on coaching for grad students and professors in higher education.  The best part of the article is that about one third of it is about me!  Well, that's the best part for me.

I like how he introduced the topic:

Corporate coaching has spread rapidly from the US across the world, with the business sector happy to buy in such support for employees they are grooming to be high flyers. The higher education sector, in contrast, would appear to offer a less obviously lucrative, and perhaps more sceptical, market. Yet coaches in the US, and to a lesser extent in the UK, are working with an increasing number of academics, helping them to confront not only the challenges they share with many other professionals (notably the sheer lack of hours in the day) but also the pressures specific to the sector.

I have to agree that academics are a skeptical and critical market.  I've noticed that they are skeptical of anyone who charges money for their services, for example.

As a matter of fact, one of the other two coaches featured in the article, Nathalie Houston, associate professor of English at the University of Houston,  observed that academics take their excellent critical skills and turn them against themselves.  There's no advantage to being a surgeon who goes home and cuts herself with her tools.

Susanne Simms,who is a senior lecturer in speech and language therapy at Birmingham City University, describes coaching as "a solution-focused style of talking that protects people from stress and overload. It's strength-based and not interested in problems. It tries to find out what is working and how to do more of that - it's an enabling conversation rather than talking about what's wrong."

I was surprised to read that the UK is behind the US in terms of offering coaching for academics such as grad students and professors. 

If you're interested in learning more about coaching for professors and grad students, then this article is well written and quotes some very intelligent people.

Advisor-advisee stress: It goes both ways

It's About Time:  Managing the Dissertation Advisor-Advisee Relationship During The Chaos of the End of the Semester
 

Grad student:  “I put so much work into this draft!  What does she want from me?”

Advisor:  “How many more times will I have to tell him before he gets it right?”

Grad student and advisor:  “Aaaaack!”

This is a stressful time of year for academics. A friend of mine used to say that we go from "Mad March,” to "Awful April," and then finally to "Mellow May," and “Joyous June.” 

What makes this season so difficult?

• Full drafts of theses and dissertations are coming in from this year's graduates
• Future graduates are preparing dissertation and thesis proposals and beginning to start their research
• Classes are at their most intense workload for both students and professors.
• Job talks are ongoing, as are hiring decisions
• For many, it’s nearing the end of two long semesters, so people are even more depleted than they were in December.

At times like this, it's important for both graduate students and professors to remember that the stress goes both ways.  This is a time when emotions are high, and there is a great deal of pressure on both sides of the advisor-advisee relationship. 

Students may be upset to learn that they still have more revisions to do to their drafts, and advisors may be frustrated when they get that second or third revision and they still find the work not ready.  These frustrations can mount and put strain on what can already be a tense relationship.

For students, remember that if your advisor is requiring another revision, is pushing you to reconsider your argument, or even, in the worst case scenario, is telling you to postpone your proposal or dissertation defense, that person is most likely not being mean.  She or he is trying to work with you to get your work to the next level, and that often means taking you through more drafts than you're used to and commenting on work in a way that may be very different from what you've previously experienced. 

This does not mean that you are a bad writer.  It just means that your work is not yet ready for moving forward. 

Here are some ways to make it easier for your advisor (and yourself):

• Respect your advisor's time and make sure that what you're submitting is ready for review.
• Don't ask for endless meetings
• Don't send numerous or lengthy email messages. 
• The best way to get on your advisor's good side is to take complete responsibility for your ideas, your prose, and your career. 
• Find out what you can on your own and work as hard as you can, and then approach your advisor with specific, carefully chosen questions.
• Don't disappear either; there's a midpoint between going AWOL as a student and being annoying. 
• Remember that your advisor is probably just as busy as you are, if not more so, because they're likely doing all the same things you're doing--and then some.

For advisors, here are ways to help your advisees (and yourself in the long run):

• Remember that your students are still learning.  Yes, you may sigh at the level of their writing and you may start to wonder how much they've written before, and what it was they wrote.  But remember that if the student has been accepted into the program, it's likely he or she has the potential to do the work, once expectations have been clearly communicated. 
• Try to give feedback that is concrete and specific and try not to characterize the student's work.
• Try to refrain from saying things like "this writing is atrocious!" or "I don't know how you've managed to get to this point with such substandard writing." 
• Calmly and directly communicate what is lacking in the prose and don’t forget to praise what is already working.
• There is a reason for this advice.  However well intentioned your harsh feedback is, psychologists know that bringing a person beyond the optimum (medium) level of anxiety causes lowered levels of performance.  Take it from me – most grad students meeting with their advisors are on the edge of the anxiety cliff.

• In some cases, it may be a good idea to recommend that the student seek outside help, such as editing or a consultation with the campus writing center.  I advise all foreign-born students to have a native English-speaking editor go over their work.  Such help will allow you to focus on content concerns and alleviate the stress of time-consuming sentence-level commenting. 
• It’s best if you're not always in the position of being the student's first reader.  Encourage your students to find at least one other set of eyes before they share their work with you. 
• Some of the best advisor-advisee relationships have developed when advisors created dissertation groups for reviewing the students' work, where students can work together to talk through ideas and give each other feedback on their written drafts.  This kind of peer-editing structure can reduce your workload and help students learn where the specific problems are with both their research and their writing.

Finally, both sides need to remember that some tension is inevitable, even at the best of times.  The advisor-advisee relationship can be a strange, uncomfortable dance, particularly if one party disappears or expects too much from the other.  So try to communicate respectfully and professionally, try to refrain from using emotional language, and be very specific and concrete about what you need from each other. 

In the end, the advisor is still in charge and still has the final say. But the more responsibility the student takes, the better the relationship will be.  And when that moment finally comes, when the advisor says, "Congratulations, Doctor," or hoods that master's student, both parties can take pride in the achievement.

And who knows?  Down the line, the two of you just might end up collaborating on a project together. So consider the possibilities that this relationship may be a temporary one, but in the best case scenario, could be an enduring and fruitful partnership.

"Do You Write Every Day?" Three Famous Playwrights Answer This Question

At Academic Ladder, we emphasize the importance of writing in brief, regular sessions. We encourage our clients to write every day, or at least almost every day, based on Robert Boice's theory that the most prolific writers and researchers are the ones who write the most regularly. But what about other types of writers? Does the same mantra hold? In this video, David Henry Hwang asks the question of his fellow playwrights, Lydia Diamond and Suzan Lori Parks. Hwang asks the question at 19:50, and the discussion lasts until roughly 26:00. If you're short on time, you may want to go right to 19:50 and just start with the question. The answers are interesting and somewhat surprising, but the best part is when Suzan Lori Parks starts discussing (at around 24:30) why we might be more likely to engage in daily writing if we lower our expectations of what daily writing actually means. Great stuff.