Last week I wrote about how common it is for writers to experience, at one point or another, a sense of getting “stuck” in one’s writing. This week I share some strategies that emerged from my earlier research with doctoral students. If you’re stuck, I hope that something here spurs you onward! Don’t give up!

I imagine that you, reader, are a bit like me—surely, we’d both rather find our words and ideas are fluid, forthcoming, plentiful, as well as easily accessed and channelled into our writing. Yet perhaps you, like me, still find that there are moments when quite the opposite is true. We get stuck. The word “writing” becomes a misnomer (more like “muddling”, am I right?!). The good news is that it is more often the case that “stuckness” is temporary. Still, it can be handy to have some suggestions on standby for those times when we really can’t seem…to… make… any… headway(!). So, without further adieu, here are some suggestions from the doctoral students who participated in my small research project. I hope that you, dear stuck reader, might find something useful here.

Strategy 1: Take a break!

Some participants swear by taking a break from writing to do something else. These can be other things that you are good at, and things that make you feel better about yourself. One participant (Public Affairs, YR 5) suggested healthy activities like yoga or exercise, while another (Arts & Social Sciences, YR 3) suggested moving to a different paragraph or section. You might work on collecting your references, for instance, or even moving to a different task altogether.

If that fails, there’s always “soul food nourishment” and “one’s choice of binge-entertainment” (Arts & Social Sciences, YR 1). This student in particular swears by “mac and cheese…and Downton Abbey” as a way to “take one’s mind away from the ‘stump’ for a while” (Arts & Social Sciences, YR 1). They even go so far as to assert that “mac and cheese tastes so much better on a doily”!

Now there’s a research idea…

Strategy 2: Treat yo’self

Other participants suggest self-bribery as a method—which I can get behind. One participant (Science, YR 3) suggests we create short-term immediate rewards like “write a page, get a chocolate” rather than vague long-term rewards (“write a paper, maybe get published”).

Personally, I like the idea of minimal effort, maximum gains— “write a page, get a Ferrari”—but seeing as (a) I am a student on a limited income and (b) minimal effort has rarely (and only by a fluke) resulted in maximum gains, I think this student is on to something.

You could also be flexible with the sorts of rewards you imagine for yourself, as one fifth-year Arts and Social Sciences student does. For them, “rewards” might come in the form of attending fun social events and spending time with friends.

Whether you choose to attend a concert or enjoy a nice meal, participants find it useful to set clear, small, and achievable goals, as well as clear, accessible, and desirable rewards. This makes complete sense to me: if you make the goal achievable, you’ll be much more likely to reap the sweet reward!

Strategy 3: Put a ring(er) on it*

And by ringer, I mean the sweet tinny sound of your timer. (No, I will not apologize for my Dad jokes!)

Some participants swear by working in timed units. One student (Arts & Social Sciences, YR 4) suggests that working in units (“set chunks with a timer… sometimes as short as 10 minutes”) is very helpful, especially if you commit to “staying on task”.

You might find units can be an effective method for tackling larger projects. First, take the large project and divide it into smaller tasks. Next, estimate the time you think each task will take. Then, assign the smaller tasks to “discrete, easily-handled units” (Public Affairs, YR 4). Don’t be afraid to set your timer for 10 minutes if you think that is all you can handle.

Sometimes, when I have trouble staying focused, I take a sticky-note and write down the specific task I want to work on for the unit. I keep that note in an obvious place and only remove it when the timer is over, and/or I am finished. And if I have multiple tasks I need to focus on, I’ll write one per sticky-note and use them to help me stay organized as I move through my units.

Strategy 4: Create a map or outline

Feeling lost? Make a map! Some participants rely on “drawing out a mind map of ideas to attempt to isolate areas of uncertainty that may be the cause of the problem” (Public Affairs, YR 3). Others will use to map their “way out of feeling stuck” (Education, YR 8). Don’t draw? Try creating a collage of interesting words, phrases, or images.

You could also try freewriting on your plan for your piece or create an outline as one Engineering student (YR 4) does. And if you have several previous drafts, you could try creating a Arts & Social Sciences, YR 3).

Strategy 5: Persevere

I had a good, knowing chuckle at this suggestion from a participant: “Stare at the screen until the words are sweated out” (Arts & Social Sciences, YR 4). It’s a strategy that is rarely my favourite, but probably my most effective—that being the fact that a large portion of my writing happens when my bum is in my seat. That being said, there is something to say for those of us who can reframe how we are thinking about our writing, as one sixth-year Science student notes. They suggest we focus on writing “as much as possible…get anything down, without thinking of quality” because we can always “refine and reorganize later”.

Bonus Strategy: “Just write casually and hope something happens”

I tried not to play favourites with the suggestions that participants put forward in my study, but one student—a first-year in Arts and Social Sciences—gave one that sounded so much like a meme that I had to make one, and end with it. I hope you find it as hilarious as I do! And hey, if you have any suggestions, shoot me an email or Tweet me (@balloonleap)! I’d love to hear what you do to get “unstuck”.

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Last week I explored the use of metaphors as a tool for guiding how we orient ourselves and our research writing. This week is the first part of a two-part post on “feeling stuck”. Part 1 explores some experiences with feeling stuck, and Part 2 will outline some possible strategies for navigating stuckness.

In this post, I briefly explore a phenomenon that many graduate students are likely all too familiar with when it comes to their writing/research: feeling stuck—out of “flow”, paralysed, unable to continue or imagine a way forward, “stumped”, “stymied”, “blank”, desperate, blocked . . . however you describe it, you are not alone.

In fact, when I asked (via a survey) doctoral students across Canada whether they ever felt stuck in their writing/research, 78% of participants said “YES!”. Granted, this study was a small, exploratory study that consisted of a survey (N= 66), interviews (N=5), and focus groups (N=6), so it’s possible that I happened to meet the only doctoral students in Canada who experienced feeling stuck—but my practical experience with coaching doctoral students tells me otherwise.

Now, if I were you reading this, I’d have at least one response to this blog so far—something like, “Great, thanks. What does this tell me that I didn’t already know?” And, if I am being really honest, I’d probably click out of this window and return to finding that are “impossible to get through without smiling” (challenge accepted). So, before you hit CLOSE on this blog post, let me share a response to this question with the hope it will be of some help to you. And hey, if you’re feeling pretty stuck right now, hang in there.

Great, so other students experience feeling stuck. It’s normal. What does this tell me that I didn’t already know?

Nothing and a few things. One, how good are you at noticing when you are blocked or stuck? Do you notice immediately? Does it take a while? Do you know why you are stuck? Two, how are you with identifying possible pathways forward? Do you have a toolkit chock full of strategies that work? Have you tried everything and find nothing works? How long does it take you between (a) becoming aware that you are stuck, (b) identifying some possible pathways/strategies, and (c) actually doing the things you’ve identified? Three, do you tend to locate your experience of feeling stuck externally, meaning you see it as resulting from entirely outside forces? Or individually, meaning you see it as resulting from your own doing? Is it a combination of both?

Let me put it to you another way: so, you know you’re stuck. But how much do you actually know about how stuckness is showing up in your life right now?

There’s a lot we can learn from getting right up close to our experience(s) with stuckness and getting curious about them. We can pause to free-write for 10 minutes to reflect on some of the questions I’ve asked above, and perhaps even feel moved to respond to them. We can also learn from other student’s experiences—asking colleagues of ours and reading about what other doctoral students have to say. Like most things in life, there are many permutations and layers that can accompany feeling stuck. It’s good to get a sense of what dimension you’re experiencing (side note: and and and could be helpful). In the next section, I’ll share a few snippets from my previous research.

What do other doctoral students have to say?

When I asked participants about what stopped them from writing, many identified challenges with “self-consciousness and perfectionist voices in my head” (Public Affairs, Year 1); perfectionism (“Being a perfectionist can be a major roadblock”, Arts and Social Sciences, Year 2); as well as procrastination and a fear of failure:

“What always stops me from writing is the same thing that causes most procrastination, I think, which is an irrational fear of failure. It is hard to overcome this, especially when I have not been particularly successful in receiving awards” (Science, Year 3).

The presence of an internal censor, a fear of failure, perfectionism, and procrastination—these responses all correspond with literature on writing blocks (Boice, 1993). In a similar vein, Savin-Baden (2008) suggests that writers look more deeply into the obstacles they experienced, because they may find that the obstacles are located in graduate writers’ developing identities and in the concerns that relate to that. If this interests you, you can on writing as identity work. You might also from ’s fantastic book on academic writing to be useful.

And although Savin-Baden (2008) also argues against the tendency to locate writing blocks and feelings of stuckness “outside” of ourselves, my own tendency toward wearing “sociocultural” lenses leads me to wonder about what influence, if any, the world(s) and positionalities we occupy (and how they interrelate with broader, prevailing “cultural” patterns) might have on our experiences with stuckness. Interestingly, also present in the data from my study—though admittedly to a lesser extent—were mentions of these external forces, such as supervision, funding/finances, health, and major life events (such as a birth or death). Unfortunately, I was unable to dig into these responses further, but they do lead me to ask about the extent to which it might be the case that “feeling stuck” is actually related to broader questions that relate to higher education practices, such as who fits in, who gets to move forward, and what impact these practices have on our writing (Breeze, 2018).

References

Boice, R. (1993). Writing blocks and tacit knowledge. The Journal of Higher Education, 64(1), 19–54.

Breeze, M. (2017). Imposter syndrome as public feeling. In Y. Taylor & K. Lahad (Eds.), Feeling academic in the neoliberal university: Feminist flights, fights, and failures (pp. 191-219). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Savin-Baden, M. (2008). Learning spaces: Creating opportunities for knowledge creation in academic life. New York, NY: Open University Press.

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An AcWriMo blog post by Brittany Amell, third-year doctoral student in the School of Linguistics and Language Studies.

When you think about doing a literature review, what comes to mind?

I’ll go first: I have parallel and simultaneous feelings of panic and satisfaction. I have a vision of running to—and from—stacks of books, rows of bookshelves, and a huge pizza screaming “eat me, who cares!”

Two of my favourite authors on graduate writing, and Barbara Kamler, asked students in one of their literature review workshops to answer the following:

When you think about doing a literature review, what is it like for you? What image or metaphor comes to mind? (Kamler & Thomson, 2006, p. 32)

Students’ responses were as varied as they were the same: all in all, they conveyed a sense of feeling completely lost, overwhelmed, and confused.

This is completely natural, Thomson and Kamler soothe. Graduate students’ statuses as newcomers to the field, combined with a lack of clarity around purposes for reading and the sheer volume of literature available all contribute to feelings of being lost (Thomson & Kamler, 2016). Plus, “neat map[s]” that help us “navigate the landscape” of literature are hard, if impossible, to come by (Thomson & Kamler, 2016, p. 34-35). What to do?

Just kidding—unless “cat videos on Tumblr” is a metaphor. No, seriously. Metaphors can be our superpower: They can help us transform and reimagine how we think about and understand our research and writing (Hughes & Tight, 2013; Lakoff & Johnson, 2003; Thomson & Kamler, 2016).

“Metaphors” are the process of using one concept to understand another (Kövecses, 2002). Put another way, the “heart of metaphor is inference” (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003, p. 244). We use metaphors to help us reason, communicate, and understand the world.

Metaphors are so commonly found in our language that they are often taken for granted (Hughes & Tight, 2013). Metaphors might be spatial, orientational, linguistic, ontological, conceptual, as well as visual or embodied (Hughes & Tight, 2013; Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Reynolds, 1998). For example, if I say to you that the price of pencils dropped recently, you would likely understand that I am suggesting that the cost of pencils today is lesser than it was yesterday (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Similarly, if you asked me how I was feeling and if I replied that I was feeling down or blue, you would also likely understand that I am suggesting I am sad, assuming that I was in fact not literally the colour of blue or situated below you on the ground.

Thomson and Kamler (2016) suggest that metaphors offer powerful ways to tap “into [our] thoughts and feelings about research and how [we] might think – and act – differently” in terms of our writing and research (p. 41). In terms of literature reviews, the authors offer metaphors as a strategy that we graduate students can use to reframe how we conceptualise reviewing the literature. One metaphor that I have found useful in thinking about the literature review has been the idea of arranging a lunch or dinner. Here is Thomson and Kamler’s description of this metaphor:

The purpose . . . is to foster conversation. . . .You will invite to the table [selected] scholars you want to join you for a conversation about a particular topic. The emphasis is on the company and the conversation that happens over lunch. So the first decision is who’s coming to lunch? Who do you want to invite? Whose work do you use the most? Whose work is important in the field [or topic] and can’t be left out? The second decision is what you will serve your guests. You don’t want to offer bland, tired vegetables. . .the menu needs thought, preparation and attention to presentation. The third decision is how will you seat your guests. Who will sit with you at the head of the table? Who do you most want to engage in conversation? Whose work has most influenced you [your topic, or your decisions regarding your topic choice]? Who do you want to speak back to? Who are you happy to acknowledge and greet, but seat further away from you? Are there any guests who don’t get along and should not sit next to one another? . . . The lunch metaphor makes it clear that you cannot invite everyone; they will not all fit at your table. (Thomson & Kamler, 2016, pp. 42-43)

Using metaphors for other aspects of writing and research

If you are interested in learning more, you can check out . Kelly writes about using metaphors to conceptualise the thesis or dissertation project. Here’s another post on the same theme by .

(for the Thesis Whisperer) on using metaphors to describe research. You can also take a look at Barret and Hussey (2015—see references list below) for a discussion of using visual aids (including metaphors) to overcome writing challenges and blocks.

AcWriMo Week 1 Writing Challenge: Don’t use metaphors!

Just kidding! All this talk about metaphors, whether for the literature review or otherwise, leads me to challenge you to make metaphors work for you this week.

You could start by using the lunch/dinner party example mentioned earlier to work on your literature review. You could start by finding an entirely different metaphor for your writing and research purpose. Maybe by answering Kamler and Thomson’s (2006) question: When you think about doing (thesis/dissertation/section of paper/other), what is it like for you? What image or metaphor comes to mind? (p. 32). Finally, and more importantly, you could start by helping me edit a video of my cat: , and I’m thinking pizza overlays with some heavily synth-ed music, maybe laser beams.

References

Barrett, T.  & Hussey, J. (2015). Overcoming problems in doctoral writing through the use of visualisations: Telling our stories. Teaching in Higher Education, 20(1), 48-63.

Hughes, C., & Tight, M. (2013). The metaphors we study by: The doctorate as a journey and/or as work. Higher Education Research & Development, 32(5), 765–775.

Kamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2006). Helping doctoral students write: strategies for supervision. New York, NY: Routledge.

KĂśvecses, Z. (2002). Metaphor: A practical introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, Ill: University of Chicago.

Reynolds, N. (1998). Composition’s imagined geographies: The politics of space in the frontier, city, and cyberspace. College Composition and Communication, 50(1), 12–35.

Thomson, P., & Kamler, B. (2016). Detox your writing: Strategies for doctoral researchers. New York, NY: Routledge.

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Science and engineering programs often require grad students to produce technical documents including conference papers, journal papers, reports, a proposal and a thesis. These documents are all formal scholarly documents that have certain writing ‘rules’ to follow. This article summarizes some of the key rules to writing including connectivity, tense, tone, use of pronouns and vocabulary.

Connectivity

Any technical document must have a smooth flow of ideas. Each paragraph should contain one idea. If your paragraph is too long, it most likely contains more than one idea, so break it into shorter paragraphs. Each paragraph has to connect to the idea presented in the previous paragraph to make a smooth transition from one to another. There is a rule of thumb that, in each paragraph, the first sentence introduces the idea. The middle sentences describe and develop the idea, and the last sentence summarizes it. Keep in mind that every sentence in a paragraph should be connected to the previous one with a “visible connection” like a common word.

Tense

It is pretty common to write your thesis in either simple past or simple present tenses. But whatever you choose, stick to that tense throughout your thesis. There may be a preference within your discipline, so be sure to consult your supervisor.

Tone

Writing in an active tone is preferred to writing in a passive tone because it makes your text more engaging. For example, use: “This guide provides some general tips” instead of “Some general tips are provided by this guide.” Just use passive tone sentences when it is necessary or appropriate.

Pronouns

Using an active tone doesn’t necessarily imply the use of personal pronouns. Indeed, it is recommended not to use personal pronouns as much as you can. However, there is an exception – in introduction and conclusion parts. In these two parts, the personal pronoun “we” is appropriate. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t use the second pronoun, “you,” in the thesis.

Vocabulary

English may not be your first language. It is a very rich language with a lot of alternatives for each word. It is common to use these alternatives when you are writing a document. It is always good to use a thesaurus to find synonyms but make sure to look up their meaning in a dictionary. Keep in mind that it is always better to write short and simple sentences.

Here are some tips on how to choose your words:

• Do not begin a sentence with “This is.” Be more specific, this what?
• Never use words like “obviously” or “clearly,” as it can be an insult if the reader doesn’t get that point.
• Do not use superlatives in claims like “the best algorithm is” or “the perfect performance.” Instead, use comparatives like “algorithm x is better than algorithm y.”
• The phrase “in order to” can always be replaced by “to.”
• Do not make qualitative judgements like “good,” “bad” or “terrible.”
• Be careful about time adverbs. Using words like “today” or “soon” is inappropriate.
• Never use “kind of” or “something like” because they are informal and vague.
• Be careful of using “few, most, all, any, every.” Each has a different meaning and you should be able to justify it.
• Do not use contractions like “don’t” or “haven’t.” Instead, use them in their complete form like “do not” or “have not.”
• Use formal adjectives. For example, “big or huge” can be replaced with “large” or “wonderful, fantastic or amazing” can be replaced with “significant.”
• Be careful of using “very” before adjectives. For example, when you use “very large,” it should be understandable from your text about what is “large” and what is “very large.”
• Be careful of singular and plural words. For example “matrix, appendix, thesis, axis, index and radius” are singular words whereas “matrices, appendices, theses, axes, indices and radii” are the corresponding plural words.

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The dissertation process can be all-consuming. With constant deadlines, committee meetings, research, writing and endless hours of anxiety-ridden procrastination, tackling your dissertation can easily become the single most defining feature of your life. Do not let your dissertation define you. This article offers a few helpful insights on how to strike a sustainable work-life balance while getting through your dissertation. For the sake of full disclosure, the examples provided do have a Humanities/Social Science leaning, although I do think the tips and tactics discussed can prove useful across disciplines.

Manage your time so that your time doesn’t manage you

In a blog post, PhD graduate PhebeAnn Wolframe offers her take on how to get through the dissertation writing process in a timely fashion with, “some semblance of work-life balance.” Wolframe completed her entire PhD in four years, but didn’t let the process take over her life. Wolframe attributes her speedy completion time to setting deadlines that she was “hell bent on meeting.” She broke her time down quite deliberately, and while she is clear that time frames work differently for everyone, she ultimately ended up with a strict six-week deadline per chapter. Wolframe credits this stringent time management schedule to ensuring she completed x number of hours a day, ultimately confining her dissertation work to weekdays and freeing up her weekends for social activities.

Make time for other things

My next point goes hand-in-hand with good time management strategies: do things outside of academia! For Wolframe, reading, knitting, hiking, and studying music on weekends helped her feel more rested “and less reluctant to resume ‘thesising’ on Monday.” It is too easy to get stuck at home and your computer. Making time to see friends, going outside, and getting exercise can make thesis writing less alienating. Making room for what non-academics might refer to as “hobbies,” harkens back to a distant pre-PhD era, where we were free to define ourselves beyond the narrow purview of ‘research interests.’ Time management goes a long way in setting and achieving realistic goals surrounding your dissertation, with the added benefit of freeing up time for friends, family, relationships, attention to your physical and mental health – you know, the important things.

Write Something Else

Really? Is a good way to get away from writing… more writing? Blog writing for academics is increasingly championed as a useful means of both developing your writing skills, while also building international networks of like-minded research contacts and followers (Seriously! People will read blogs on just about anything!). The University of London’s online magazine London Connection suggests blogging as an excellent way to enhance your research profile or collaborate with fellow students. The blogosphere has the ability to get you away from the staunch framework of your dissertation, allowing you to explore your research more freely and in less formal ways while also having your research reach wider audiences. It allows you to approach your work with a little more personality and humour.

Publicly posting your thoughts and feelings, let alone exposing the fact that, at least half the time, you’re wondering if you know what you’re talking about may not be for everyone. Our good friend, Dr. Wolframe, offers an alternative method to help distance yourself from the sometimes-limiting dissertation writing process:

I found journaling really helped in this regard. Sometimes I would write a journal entry––stream of consciousness, and written in very colloquial language––trying to capture in my own words, however casually, what I was thinking about/noticing in my primary text(s), or what patterns I was seeing across text(s). From this rambling, I find a few key ideas tend to emerge.

Whether blogging, journaling or tweeting philosophical quotes, the trick is to free yourself from what can be a very regimented and stifling academic language. It is important to be reminded that you are a good writer with interesting ideas that other people beyond your committee want to hear about. Putting your ideas out there in other forms allows you to define yourself beyond the dissertation, while also remaining productive in ways that ultimately benefit your research in the long run.

These are just a few ideas of how you might break away from a dissertation-centered lifestyle. Remember, your dissertation will end – it must – and you will continue on as a diverse and well-rounded individual, academically, professionally and personally. The goal is to foster this approach throughout the entire process.

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