On reading about reading

Prior to starting my studies, I spent some time thinking about the issue of reading and note taking. I borrowed two study skills guides and spent some time online with the University’s library study skills resources.  It does sound (and feel) bizarre, to be reading about reading (and writing), but that’s what I’ve been doing.

What worried me about starting a PhD was the amount of reading I would need to get through into three years. While I do love to read, the amount of material intimidated me. I have a very thorough, methodical approach to note taking. In previous courses, I have read through a large amount of material, but have managed to produce quite a substantial pile of notes too. I was self aware enough to realise that this current note writing strategy was not a good strategy to take into a PhD, but was uncertain how to proceed, so I’ve also been exploring other ways of taking notes.

Reading about reading has been incredibly helpful. It is interesting that something we all take for granted as part of studying can also be part of the reflexive process, if we're careful. Some of the study skills strategies suggested different approaches. In some cases, it is clear that some dense material, like handbooks or core texts, just take a long time to read. It is not unreasonable to read books in chunks of six pages at a time, and that it may take a substantial length of time to read such a book in total. Some recommend developing a skim reading approach, along with the understanding that a book may have to be read several different times, with a different agenda in the readers mind on each reading. Yet others recommend my current approach, the making of copious notes at one reading, and so the book doesn't have to be read more than once.  Others suggest that you use several strategies, choosing which one is appropriate to the book or article you’re reading.  If it’s a key text, you’ll need to spend time poring through it in depth, while if you’re familiar with the content, you can dip in and pick out particular sections.  I think an ideal approach for me would be to keep a key text going, while reading articles at the same time.  It takes so long to get through a dense text that sometimes you look at it and think: ‘is this all I’ve achieved?’  If I can intersperse chapters of denser material with (shorter) articles, it should give me time to reflect on the text, but also make me feel I’ve achieved more.

I have experimented with new approaches to note taking also. While I have attended sessions on mind mapping training, recommended for essay planning and subject mapping, I have not previously used this as an approach for note taking. Yet this is what I am currently doing. I discussed this approach with someone who has a similar approach to me, and since this is the approach they used, I thought it might work from me too. So I have been trying this out. Still, while using my ‘new’ note taking strategies, I half expect someone to lean over my shoulder and tell me I'm doing it all wrong.

I didn't expect to find trying a new approach so difficult. The approach itself makes sense, and is quite easy to undertake (although my spider diagrams have a tendency to expand past the limit of a page). However, the problem I am finding is inside my head. I now realise my previous approach was conceived out of fear - a terror, actually - of missing something.

My extensive notes are created by worrying not only about being able to attribute information correctly but also about inadvertently plagiarising someone's material.  I worry that if I paraphrase the information during note taking (which is most people’s approach), and then later use my summary to add into an essay, I might inadvertently repeat some of the same words or phrases as the original text used. Because of this, my notes have tended to be entirely comprised of quotes.  Pages of them. 

Starting the literature review has meant changing my belief about myself in the process. I am forced to reconsider my role as a neophyte, a sponge to absorb the information around me, but to see myself as a critical reader. I must view the information presented as one side of an analysis. In order to do so, I must view my own opinion as worthwhile, and experience some confidence in this. As it turns out, this has been the hardest part of all.

Having just read the first few books in one section of the literature, I find myself re-evaluating the information, re-ordering differing versions in a way that makes sense to me, and questioning one view not only with the information presented in another, but with my own questions. Rather than worry about it, I'm trying to have confidence in myself and the process.  This process itself might seem obvious to many people, but I have never experienced that level of confidence in my own academic knowledge. While my school teachers could tell you that I was a child of 'strong opinions, who prefers the company of like minded others', it turns out that, after two postgraduate degrees, I don't see myself as a competent judge of academic merit. I'm glad I have learned this early on in my PhD journey, but I am still staggered by this new awareness of myself, and am not yet sure how to address this insecurity. I think (and hope) that practice will improve my confidence.  Either that, or my supervisors will tell me I'm wrong, and then I'll try something else ...

The absence of some routines, and a desk

Well, it's 10 October, and I’ve moved into my new flat. It has been incredibly dislocating. I have been trying to schedule my time at the new flat around my class schedule, which has been a bit of a problem, since I don't have a regular schedule. It has been a huge mistake, and has meant that my routines have been all over the place.

While I didn’t invest in broadband, I had a plan to use my phone as a ‘mobile hotspot’ for my laptop.  Sorted!  Or so I thought.  It turns out that my laptop is older than my phone, and doesn’t recognise my phone (‘is it a camera? Yes, it’s a camera.  You want to do what with it now? I don’t understand’).  I managed, through a convoluted process, to set both my phone and my laptop to Bluetooth and get them to talk to each other (yay!) but this meant I spent an hour trying to submit the four pages of a home insurance quote, after which my laptop informed me I had been timed out of the server and would have to try again later.  Brilliant.  Clearly, using Skype to speak to my husband wasn’t quite such an achievable plan after all.  Hence my blog entries are now being recorded on my phone to submit when I’m back at home with a good signal. 

It seems that I can't leave the house without bumping into someone I used to know. I have been extremely happy to become reacquainted with two or three people with whom I've lost contact over the years. I’ve also been glared at by someone who treated me really badly, and had an old acquaintance (who was always short of money) try and cadge a meal.  I do love this place (and its characters), and leaving the area two years ago was complex and required a lot of thought. Coming back seems to have reignited a whole lot of unresolved issues - which I don't have time to resolve.  I need to study!

It has been great running into old friends, but each time, I'm a little terrified. Do I have time to see them? My idea for the new flat was to have a purely ‘work’ space, which my husband, only half jokingly, refers to as my ‘monastic cell’. I intended to work solidly for the time I'm here, and then go home and have a weekend of gentle reading before coming back.  I haven't factored in issues like going for coffee with friends. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t settled into a good routine with work yet, and once this is in place, perhaps I’ll feel more relaxed about things.  Yet at the moment, I’m just anxious about work all the time.  My concentration isn’t up to the standard that it will be after three years, and I’m having trouble focusing without distractions (in an environment where everything is new).  I deliberately chose to move with some of our furniture, so at least I’d feel I was in familiar ground (another cunning plan), but even so the fridge is in a different place, and I haven’t got a desk or a table yet. 

Oh yes, the desk.  Yes; I had decided there would be no need to take a table with me, as I’d have a desk in the short term and could get a table at some point later.  What I didn’t think about was the difficulty the ‘man and van’ would have getting the desk out, and that I would be moving with neither.  It also turns out my ‘spare bed’ mattress is terrible, and gives me backache. So, I’ve tackled this in another cunning plan, and am using the futon mattress off my sofa bed until I can get a new mattress.  Unfortunately, this means now I also don’t have a sofa. 

Due to the absence of both any fixed writing surface or a sofa, I find I’m spending my days at the flat reading in a chair facing the window, writing on a notepad on my knee.  This was okay until I realised the house opposite wasn’t empty, but also occupied by students.  I found this out when they took a cigarette break, and hung out of the front windows smoking.  I realised that while I had been ‘staring into space’ thinking about the book, from their perspective I had in fact been staring in the direction of their rooms.  Lovely. 

Please let my second hand table arrive tomorrow as promised …

Finding a flat

3 October 2012

This week, I picked the keys up for my very own student flat.  For most renters, a flat is their sole residence, and so this decision is vital.  As I was lucky enough to be looking for a place to stay during the week only, I had a different perspective on the process. Despite this, the experience has been a visceral reminder of what it was like first time, when I was 18.   

I had searched a variety of estate agents online, and had tried to view a couple of places which, between the time I made the appointment and the time of the appointment, had been let. During the few weeks since I decided to rent a flat, it has been a process of continuously shortlisting and eliminating flats, only to come back and revisit the whole process again.

After a few of these rounds with cheaper properties aimed specifically at students, I decided to go back to a letting agent I had rented from previously. Having made this decision, I selected three flats aimed at ‘professionals’ which offered a good range of choice to show me what was available over a wide price range. Since my husband is also coming to stay with me upon part of the week, I couldn’t rent a traditional student room. While I'm sure I could have lived with younger people with different lifestyles, I'm not sure they would have coped with my husband appearing from time to time. I wanted an arrangement which would give us some privacy too.

So; viewing day arrived. Standing in front of house number one, subdivided into flats ‘for professionals’ and in what I would regard as a great location, this was the most expensive, and I was really excited. I had such high hopes, but it was surprisingly shabby. We went onto flat number two, middle price, in the same street that I had lived happily in for many years.  While the lovely estate agent was showing us around, I couldn’t evaluate it properly, for the pervading smell of mould. While this was due to a faulty window which had been replaced, I found I couldn’t see beyond the smell.  A third flat offered a mould free environment, but both the shower and the kitchen had been constructed underneath the sloping roof. For me, at 5’ 6”, this was not a problem, but I wasn’t sure how my 6’ 1” husband would deal with it.

The kitchen took me right back to a student house I had shared when I was 20. Being built under the stairwell in this case, the narrowness of the kitchen necessitated you “skipping” sideways while cooking. Making a cup of tea was complicated, as you had to go past the fridge in order to open it to get some milk out (blocking yourself in) and close it again to get past.  I soon learned not to put the mug too far down the counter, else each cup would necessitate two of these sideways journeys.

Still, it was the best one we had seen at that point, and I was ready to sign up.  The letting agent, noticing my husband’s lack of enthusiasm, had a quick think, and decided to show us a two bedroom flat which was cheaper than some of the ones we had seen but in far better condition. I'm still very grateful that he did. 

Now I'm finally settled into a relatively quiet, mould free environment, some questions remain. From previously living in a University town, I have heard much talk about students and how badly they treat properties. I do wonder though, how many 18 year olds would feel able or prepared to deal with mould? As an adult, I have a six foot ladder, some heavy duty mould remover, some tools and a breathing mask.  If I think back to my teenage self, I don’t think I’d have had a clue.  Even if I'd have been confident enough to tackle it (which I wasn't at that age), I would have been stumped at stage one, as I wouldn't have known anyone I could have borrowed a ladder from. 

While I am very happy with my letting agents, and don't feel that what they were showing me was out of the ordinary, I wonder how it is that landlords feel it is acceptable to offer a flat to rent which is in that state to begin with? Presumably, people are desperate enough to rent them in that state, so landlords don’t need to clean them up.  I only got to see those flats as someone who isn’t a traditional student (I’ve got a scholarship, and therefore have proof of income, and a good credit rating to match).  What chance would I have had to view these as a student, at 18 or even 21?  I think we got the opportunity to view my current, beautiful flat, as a result of spending some time with our estate agent, as we’re both mature and (hopefully) came over as fairly responsible tenants.  Thinking about my colleagues who are overseas students with families, I wonder how they have managed to get the lovely homes they live in, and how much hard work they have had to put in to make them so. 

It has only been two years since I dealt with the private rental sector, but it has been a shocking reminder of how powerless renters are.

On starting my PhD

Well, this is it: I'm finally doing a PhD.  I've always wanted to do one, and have thought about starting several times, but I've always been short of either time, or money, or both.  Now I'm finally here.  It's a very exciting time - I have found myself walking around campus grinning from ear to ear for no reason other than - here I am!  And yet, at the same time, it's also terrifying.  

I've been to the induction talks, and I know that for the next three years I'm expected to work constantly, and to build my knowledge up so that in three years' time, I'm an 'expert' in my field.  My work will constantly be under scrutiny and 'evaluated' (criticised?) by everyone I work with and for.  I must be ready to ditch topics close to my heart, or passages I've spent time and effort labouring over, without a second glance. I must produce an original piece of work, which needs to be distinct from the output of my peers (and my professors) and yet is achievable in three years and three months - the pressure to complete within the set time frame is on, already, and I haven't even started yet! 

Also, I'm a mature student.  At 41, I'm twenty years behind some of my peers.  I'm relieved to say, this isn't unusual among my colleagues, but in terms of building a career post-doc, I will be competing for jobs up against people who are 25.  This is more of an issue now, in the current economic climate, as academic jobs have become so scarce that lecturing staff on temporary contracts are applying for Research Assistant posts (which would usually go to someone finishing their PhD).  In three years time, I hope that the situation will have changed slightly, but this is a gamble.  Suffice it to say, I'll be hoping to get a job at the end of my three years, rather than hoping for an academic job.  

So, why start a blog?  Well, a PhD is a transformative process.  I start off as a tabula rasa (blank slate), and am expected to become an expert in my field.  I may have two postgraduate degrees under my belt, but at this stage, that is just evidence that I can work at this level, am a reflexive scholar, and open to learning.  I have changed fields for my PhD; so I'm not expected to have a full background in my new field yet, but to have the potential to be a learning machine.  For the next year, I am to absorb new ideas and theories; study different methodologies and research techniques; get to grips with a variety of new technologies and approaches; and to be able to (after long entrenched study) accept that something new has come along, and a section of my work is now irrelevant.  It requires intense self-discipline, concentration, and flexibility.  In year two, I take the frameworks I have developed, and go out into the field to gather data, testing my theories, throwing them out if needed, and developing new ones.  Finally, I write up two/three years of work, and have to defend every decision I've made against an external 'expert' in my field.  I expect the process itself will challenge me at every stage, and that in three years time I will be a very different person.  

In addition, taking a PhD at this point in my life will turn my life upside down.  To relocate as a student is tough.  As a mature student, to leave my settled, cosy home for several days each week, to live in a different city away from family and friends, immersing myself in new social environments, is going to present its own challenges.  Just thinking about this makes me shiver.  While I (feel I) have reasonably good people skills, I've chosen to research with young people.  I expect that my people skills are going to be tested to the limit, and I'm going to have to learn not only to swim but to thrive in these new waters, in order to collect my data. 

As a student, I'm expected to be reflexive; to examine my own feelings and thoughts through this process.  A blog seemed to be a useful way to evaluate my progress through these three years and, incidentally, to create a record of my development.  Some of the most interesting academic accounts I've read have been personal records of challenges in fieldwork or professional practice environments.  These have raised far more questions for me than just reading dry academic tomes on the same issues, and forced me to confront ethical challenges or technical points and really engage with them.  In this electronic world, it also seemed to me that other people (students or future students) might be interested in the process, and join in with their own experiences and thoughts.  If no-one reads it? Well; I'll have spent three years working on improving my writing skills (which is a Research Council target by itself).  Please feel free to comment, engage with issues I'm struggling with, and bring your own 'challenges'.  I will try to submit at least one blog entry per week, to keep some kind of overview on the process.