The angst of the long-distance scholar

Many scholars face pressure from their academic employers to conduct and publish research. Is the pressure of publishing getting to you? If so, you aren’t alone. Writing and publishing is hard work. It’s like running a marathon, all alone, with no map. The task requires time, energy, and concentration, things many of us don’t have a lot of right now when the world seems so precarious. It’s no wonder sometimes people look for the easier softer way.

Last week I received an email. This exchange ensued. (“Sir” refers to me.)

Dear Sir. I hope you are all right. I just got my M.Phil and would like to convert it to a research article and get it published. Please guide. Regards.

My first thought was, oh, great! Here is a young scholar (I presume the scholar is young; I think it is a safe bet; anyone under sixty is young to me) who wants career advancement and needs my help. Possibly English is not this person’s first language. I need to pull out my culturally sensitive hat. It’s around here somewhere. As I’m rummaging in my mental closet, in a back corner I’m thinking, I wonder how this person found me? I’m definitely not at the top of a Google search. Still, wanting to be helpful, I shoot back a perky reply with some questions to prompt more information and establish a rapport:

Dear Regards. Congratulations on your academic accomplishment. Turning a dissertation or thesis into a journal article is a logical next step. Would you like to share some more about your project? I’m wondering a few things. Where are you? Where did you study? What was your thesis topic? What aspects of the thesis do you think would make good articles? What do you want from me? How can I help? If you can respond with answers to those questions, then we can talk about what to do next. Thanks, Dr. Carol

Almost immediately, I receive the following response:

Dear Sir. Salaam. I am from Pakistan. I did my M.Phil in [Interesting Education Field] at [Name of University]. My topic was [Interesting Topic Related to Students] of [College] in Pakistan. Regards.

Ooh, fun, I think to myself. Something interesting to read and discuss. I wonder how I can help. But I need more information to really get my head around this project. It’s possible that . . . no, I don’t want to think that thought yet. We’ll see what happens. I send off the following somewhat lengthy, totally nosy reply:

Dear Regards. Thank you for sharing a bit about you and your project. A few more questions: Do you have some ideas about what direction an article might take? Journal articles usually take just one aspect of the thesis. Have you worked with an editor before? What is your expectation? What do you specifically need to do next? Do you have something to edit? Have you written an outline of a possible article? Are you looking for coaching? How do you think I could help? Are you comfortable working with someone who is in a different country, with different time zone and currency? Are you comfortable with PayPal? The more specific you are on what you need, the better I can assess if I am able to help you. Thanks, Dr. Carol

Within hours, I receive this:

Dear Sir. I want to convert my thesis into publishable article. I will attach my thesis. Regards.

It’s not surprising the scholar took one look at my barrage of questions, which Google Translate probably butchered, and now can’t think of anything to say except to reiterate the goal, attach the paper, and hope for the best. However, I’m seeing red flags a-rising. Now the hazy edges are starting to come clear. Instead of answering my many valuable and pertinent questions, the scholar is laser-focused on the mission: getting that thing published. I begin to see the true nature of the “project.” Perfectly willing to be smacked down via email, I grit my teeth and send the following:

Dear Regards. Please help me get some clarity on your objective. Do you want me to write an article, based on your thesis? Thanks, Dr. Carol

The answer couldn’t be more clear:

Dear Sir. Yes sir. Regards.

Some hours elapse as I plan my approach. As you can imagine, I have a range of feelings now that I have learned the scholar wants me as a partner in a nefarious cheating scheme. First, I’m outraged, shocked, I tell you, shocked. The nerve! It’s not like I’m a saint, but I was seven and it was arithmetic, I mean, I ask you. However, as an adult scholar with a published dissertation, I certainly did not cheat, obfuscate, plagiarize, fabricate, falsify, or otherwise avoid doing the often-tedious chore of conducting original research, no matter how tired and defeated I felt. Somewhere during my life, I developed integrity.

After enjoying my righteous outrage, my next reaction was compassion. Oh, the poor scholar. I know how hard it is to write. Even for me, except for blogposts, most writing assignments don’t come easy. Let’s see, how can I weasel out of this situation without causing harm or insult? I wrote,

Dear Regards. Thank you. Now I understand. Thank you for clarifying your objective. I’m sorry to say, I would not be capable of writing an article for you. I am not that kind of writer. I don’t write content, I only edit content. That means I edit papers that other people write. I’m sorry it took so long for me to understand. Good luck to you. I hope you find a good writer for your project. Take care, be safe. Thanks, Dr. Carol

Fingers crossed, I say a prayer to Dr. Diss, the patron saint of scholars (just made that up). Let’s hope my scholar friend gets the hint and lets this conversation fade. Nope. One more email:

Dear Sir. Thank you for your response. Is there any one in your contacts to do it for me. Regards.

Okay. Now I need to come clean with my correspondent. I don’t want to give this person the impression that (a) it’s okay to ask editors to write scholarly content, (b) that people do this all the time, (c) that I have friends who will ghostwrite an article, and (d) probably most important, that I won’t write the article because I’m not competent enough to do it. Sadly, I suspect this kind of scholarly cheating happens frequently. Most of us have our price. I’ve never done it. I wonder how much it would take to motivate me to cheat. Hmm. Let me give that some thought.

Blogpost on cheating

I pull up my big dissertator britches, limber up my digits, and let my correspondent have it:

Dear Regards. I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone who would write an article for you. You are the expert on your topic so you are the one best able to choose what angle of your thesis topic would make a good article. I would imagine several topics could come out of your thesis. Think about your long-term career direction when you consider which topics to focus on. I’m going to be honest with you. Paying someone else to do your writing for you is not good scholarship. I could not in good conscience help you with that. As scholars, we succeed on our own merits. Editing is different from writing. Writing is tough sometimes. But that is the job of being a scholar. I encourage you to write an outline and a draft of an article and THEN send it to someone to edit. I’m semi-retired, so I’m not doing much editing these days. There are many editing companies that could help. Good luck to you. Thanks, Dr. Carol

And the final response:

Dear Sir. Thank you for your elaborate response. I will try but too much over work. Sir, from which you belong. Regards.

I could have added one last snarky parting shot: Hey, I took the trouble to look up your first name to discover your likely gender; did you do as much for me? No. Well, it’s not the first time I’ve been called “sir.”

So much for rapport. I get it. This poor scholar is probably dealing with COVID fears, homeschooling, and boredom—and now, the pressure of publishing! It’s too much. No argument from me. I am settling my compassion hat more firmly on my head. We all need more compassion right now.

Still, there’s no excuse for bad scholarship, cheating, or plagiarism. Giving in to those temptations might relieve short-term pressure but will not help anyone in the long run. Winning the long game of academia requires willingness, integrity, and grit. Yes, it’s hard during a pandemic, but writing is hard, pandemic or not. Don’t waste this terrible but uniquely precious creative time. The world needs your research!

February 3, 2020February 3, 2020

How to keep moving forward when you feel you can’t go on

Working on our dissertation requires meeting deadlines. However, life happens! What if something unexpected derails our plans? We all encounter unanticipated obstacles, events, or circumstances that stop us from making progress on our goals. Some events are worse than others—for example, getting sick, losing a job, or in my case, losing a beloved pet. My writing projects fell by the wayside as I tried to figure out how to get back on track. I describe some of my attempts to process the experience, including ignoring my pain, confronting my pain, and mourning my loss.

Option 1: Ignore the pain

Ignoring emotional pain for me means immersing myself in tasks to distract myself from feeling. As an avoider of feelings, I naturally tried this option first. Fortunately (I guess), the day after my cat died, I received a large editing project with a tight deadline. What a relief. While I was editing and writing, it was hard to think about anything but the work. I put my broken heart on hold. Nights were sleepless, but I got a lot done during the day, as long as I kept working and not feeling.

If you can maintain this level of compartmentalization, I applaud you. The only thing that kept me going was the deadline. After I submitted the paper, I put my writing projects on hold and embarked on Option 2—Confronting the pain.

Option 2: Confront the pain

Confronting the pain can take many forms. For me, it took the form of cleaning house. I was appalled to realize that I had “decorated” my apartment to suit my cat. Everywhere I looked were cat seats, cat beds, cat perches, cat water dishes . . . painful reminders of what I had lost. I felt compelled to start cleaning. I dismantled the cat seats and cat perches, washed the cat beds, and piled the cat dishes into a box to donate. I stacked up all the cat toys, cat food, and cat litter to donate to my brother who has five cats. I rearranged furniture to suit the human occupant. Gradually, I reclaimed my space.

However, while I was moving furniture, I wasn’t getting any work done on my writing projects. My projects hovered in my mind while I did mountains of laundry and swept up tumbleweeds of dust and cat hair. I told myself I would get back to the writing eventually. However, days turned into weeks while I distracted myself from the pain by cleaning things I hadn’t touched since I moved here sixteen years ago.

I recommend we all clean our spaces occasionally. However, if I were to give myself advice now, I would say clean a little a day if it makes you feel better, but don’t try to clean everything. Spend at least an hour per day writing so you don’t lose touch with your writing self.

Option 3: Take time to mourn

Any kind of loss can be devastating. Losing a job, losing a pet, losing a home—any loss can derail us from the path to our goals. Any loss needs to be acknowledged and mourned.

For example, a friend lost her home to a fire. She described months of disorientation. She would make a plan to write and then remember she no longer had a computer. Simple tasks became difficult and sometimes impossible, even after she replaced the essential household goods that she had lost. Losing her home affected everything, including her writing life.

Some losses are insurmountable. My loss was big (for me) but not as big as losing my home would have been. I can put my loss into perspective.

I didn’t want to write about this. It’s embarrassing to admit the death of my cat kept me from writing. For the past month, I wondered if I would write again. Nothing seemed interesting to me anymore. I’m still wondering what happened. I was on one track, chugging along toward my goals, and now I find myself alone on a different track, destination unknown.

Summary

All losses change us. All losses need to be grieved. If something bad happens to interrupt your writing plans, you’ll cope as best you can. You can try to ignore your pain. You can confront your pain head on. You can assimilate your pain and mourn. I hope you will keep writing. I hope you won’t give up your goal to finish your dissertation and earn your PhD. It might not seem interesting or useful now, in the midst of your sorrow, but the world needs your contribution, so please get back to it as soon as you can.

January 1, 2020January 1, 2020

Year-end reflections from a former dissertator

It’s that time of year. You know what time I mean: The time when desperate dissertators swill coffee, scarf down holiday cookies, and hunker over their computers, trying to write as much as they can on their dissertation proposals or manuscripts before it’s time to go back to work.

Are you in a reflective mood? Maybe you feel pensive, a little melancholy, about the progress you’ve made this year. Maybe you feel chipper and optimistic about the great things to come. The end of the year is a fitting time to reflect on progress made in our scholarly endeavors and set our intentions for the future. I’m doing a little reflecting myself as we welcome in a new year.

A time to reflect on our scholarly progress

Are you making progress on the milestones in your Ph.D. program? It can be slow-going, I know. During most of the eight years of graduate school, I taught at a career college. Monday through Thursday, I taught morning classes, drove home for lunch, and drove back to campus for night classes. Fridays were for grading and prepping. I spent the rest of the weekend writing.

Faculty and students had a week off during the summer and a week for the winter holidays. Often we worked on Christmas Eve, right up to 10:20 p.m.

With such a haphazard writing schedule, I struggled to finish my dissertation proposal. Sometimes I felt I was making progress; other times, I felt I was writing in circles. Each time I uploaded my latest debacle to the course room, I would have a couple weeks to pick up the pieces of the rest of my life while I waited for my Chair to rip my paper to shreds.

Gradually, I morphed from student to scholar. After eight long, painful years, I defended the dissertation and earned the Ph.D. In the process, I learned how to write a lot.

Now, six years later, my writing projects are different but my goals are similar. I still have a lot to do. However, without the structure and discipline of a Ph.D. program, I have to rely on myself for motivation.

Reflecting on the past year, I feel as though I’ve been busy. What was I working on all year? I’m sure I did something! New Year’s Eve is a good time to stop and write a list.

I published the second book in the Desperate Dissertator Series. Aligning the Elements, seems to be finding a following. I guess I’m not the only one confounded by this challenging topic.
The article about rich pictures I published with The Qualitative Report at the end of 2018 has had 434 downloads this year. People like anything with pictures.
I published two articles (rants, really) with Medium on my favorite topic of for-profit higher education.
I made time for nonscholarly writing as well. I wrote a novel and finished a memoir, both of which I hope to publish in 2020.
I dusted off my teaching persona. I taught business classes to artists to help them bring their art into the world.

A time to set intentions for the future

Speaking of hope, now is the time to set our intentions for the future. I resist this endeavor mightily. In the past, my intentions have rarely been fulfilled. Yipes, look how I just used passive voice to describe my failure, as if I had nothing to do with it, as if some external force has repeatedly failed to “fulfill” my intentions. That bit of writing points out the vagueness of passive voice, as well as the problem with my goal-setting.

I think my intentions evaporated by February every year for three reasons: my goals were too broad, I wanted to be perfect, and I let my thoughts and feelings get in my way.

My goals were too broad

I failed to identify specific actions I could take to achieve my goals. Now, instead of setting an intention to “write a journal article,” I break the goal into small actions and I put them on my calendar. To write a journal article is my overarching objective, but to achieve the objective, I define the steps I need to take to get there:

research journals
choose one journal
identify the journal guidelines
write my research questions
write an outline of the article
gather current research
prepare the list of references
identify data sources
conduct the analysis
write up the results
write the discussion
write the introduction
submit to the journal

I wanted to be perfect

I fell into the trap of perfectionism. Of course, we all want what we write to be perfect the moment it flows from our brain to the page. If only! Even on a good day (when I’m well-rested, alert, and enthusiastic about writing), I rarely get it right. Human endeavors are fraught with imperfections. I’m not exempt.

During the past year, I accepted the fact that perfection is unattainable. I stopped obsessing over every little thing and focused on getting things done. It worked!

If you find yourself repeatedly editing the same assignment, or not writing at all, stop for a moment and do an internal check to see if a desire for perfection might be part of the cause. Nobody expects dissertators to be perfect. Some Chairs and universities set stringent guidelines, rules, and expectations, which we do our best to meet. However, the truth is, the dissertation is the beginning of our research careers, not the culmination. Since I graduated, I’ve learned a lot about writing, editing, and conducting research. You will, too. In the meantime, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done.

I let thoughts and feelings hinder my progress

Like most humans, I have thoughts and feelings about many things. This past year, I have been honing the idea that my thoughts and feelings are superfluous to accomplishing my goals. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think it’s possible for us to suppress all thoughts and feelings, nor do I suggest we try. However, sometimes I let my thoughts and feelings hinder my ability and willingness to take action. Therein lies my downfall.

Do you get trapped in negative thoughts? Do you let your feelings overwhelm you? I have come to believe it doesn’t really matter what we think and feel. The Universe doesn’t respond to our thoughts and feelings. It only responds to what we do. Our actions move us closer to our goals.

It seems like a no-brainer, I know. I’m a slow learner. I’m also a moper and a complainer. Unfortunately, not much gets done when I mope or complain. I can waste a lot of time complaining: not enough time, not enough money, no one understands, oh woe is me.

This past year, I’ve been experimenting with a new approach. I write out my thoughts and feelings about my project before I sit down to work. I do my whining and ranting on paper. Then I set it aside and get busy. When thoughts and feelings interrupt me (e.g., this will never work, this is stupid, I’m such a terrible writer, I’m hungry, where’s my cat), I drop them into my mental “do later” bucket and carry on with my work. I won’t say I’m always successful. Sometimes I have to take a nap. However, this past year, I’ve accomplished much more than I thought I would. That’s progress.

My hope for you

I hope you find some good writing time this winter. If not, I hope you make some time to write, good or not. Writing a few paragraphs is better than writing zero paragraphs. Put your writing time on your calendar. Make a date with yourself. Remember, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be done. The world needs your contribution. Please don’t give up.

I wish you all the best for a happy, healthy, productive new year.

Sources

Booton, C. M. (2018). Using rich pictures to verify, contradict, or enhance verbal data. The Qualitative Report, 23(11), 2835-2849. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol23/iss11/13

Booton, C. M. (2019). Aligning the elements [Desperate Dissertator Series, No. 2]. Portland, OR: Crossline Press. ISBN 978-1099364761.

Booton, C. M. (2019, July 5). R.I.P. Gainful employment rule. Medium. https://medium.com/@carolbooton/r-i-p-gainful-employment-rule-11115f38f33f

Booton, C. M. (2019, March 16). Friends don’t let friends enroll at for-profit colleges. Medium. https://medium.com/@carolbooton/friends-dont-let-friends-enroll-at-for-profit-colleges-4445a70ca12b