Trying to write an interdisciplinary PhD thesis is great – really, it is exciting and you never get bored – but as I suggested in my previous post, it is also confusing and demoralising a lot of the time.   The problem is that, however much you enjoy your research, eventually you want to run away from your computer screaming.

So, I’d got as far as breaking writing block, and getting (many) words down onto paper.  The problem that remained was how to get those words into the correct order!  I was still procrastinating, and feeling afraid of “chapter documents”.

Enter the Radical Chop-up Über Document (RCUD).

My supervisor asked my what my strategy was in writing my chapters, and I said “err”.  As I clearly had no strategy she suggested the RCUD.  I am still working with this technique, but the bare bones are:

• Create a new document
• Save it, and make sure the name contains the word “radical” somewhere.  Note that this is essential, it may sound silly, but you need to be reminded that what you are doing is “radical” otherwise you’re never going to chop it all up.
• Now open up your other documents in turn and cut and paste the best bits from them into your new document.
• But, as you do this you must be radical.
• Don’t take pieces that you don’t think are good enough
• Feel free to write yourself notes in capitals
• Put subtitles in for the sections as you add them
• Reorder sections at will
• Cut bits when you find you’ve written a better version elsewhere

(And I’ll have to add other instructions as I work out what they are!)

I find that this is helping me to put together my chapters.  Previously, when I have tried to write a chapter from beginning to end I have become paralysed.  I have constantly felt that I’m forgetting important stuff, and I have ended up writing loads of detail on areas outside my main focus of interest.

The radical document works for me because I have lots of documents where I’ve written some good bits and some bad bits, and I also have notes from many presentations and even a couple of lectures that are also relevant.  My brain is too small to hold all the ideas I have for my chapters at once, and by using this technique I don’t feel that I’m leaving things out all the time.

I wonder if that’ll help anyone else.  At least by writing it down here I’m going to remember to use it again!

I have decided to write a bit about writing.

The title says “challenges and opportunities” rather than problems or issues, or even impossibilities, simply because that’s what we used to say when working in Information Technology.  There were never problems, and even the word issue went out of fashion, but there were always challenges, and sometimes opportunities.  There are a number of IT people out there who would smile to read that heading, and immediately know what I was about to discuss!

So, what’s my “problem” with writing?  Well, I just think that it’s really difficult.  In fact, I’m having so many “issues” writing my PhD thesis that I’m currently taking part in a seminar series called “Moving Forward”, designed to help me work more productively and optimistically.  Someone pointed out that the title, “Moving Forward”, made them think about personal relationship advice, and when I thought about this I realised that it is about a form of relationship, the one between me and my thesis.

So, before I talk more about the seminars and the writing ideas that they have sparked off for me, here is a summary of a few of the problems I’ve been wrestling with recently:

• Panic over too many resources
• Writing block
• Structuring, both the whole thesis and individual chapters
• Fear of failure
• Procrastination

I expect there are more, but that’ll do for now (and just writing these ones down makes my heart race.)

And here are some of the strategies I’ve already tried to improve the situation (and turn those challenges into opportunities)!

• Free writing each and every day – just 15 minutes a day, about anything at all to start with, and then gradually working down to more thesis related ideas.

  This really does work to break writing blocks.  You must remember to write constantly, don’t stop to think, and even just write nonsense words if you get stuck.  The idea is to write slightly ahead of your detailed thinking, and therefore to avoid listening to negative thoughts (“You can’t do this”, “You can’t say that” etc.) and also positive, but tangential, thoughts (“I need to check that reference”, “Didn’t I see something about that on a web page”, immediately followed by going to check the reference, or looking up the web page etc. and therefore a complete stop in writing).

• Planning, replanning and planning again

  I find it hard to break up my topic in a way that supports what I (think I) want to say.  I’m getting used to the idea that each of my thesis plans is a positive step, but that things may still change in the future.  I still haven’t cracked the structuring challenges within each chapter.

• Using spreadsheets to plan and record chapter word counts and progress

  This method got me to write in bulk, and therefore made me realise that I can do this, I can write that many words.  However, the chapter I produced didn’t say what I wanted it to say.  I let myself go off on tangents, and lost my focus.

• Using a timesheet

  This does help me to prevent my procrastination time overtaking my working time, although I’m not using my timesheet at present (not sure why, maybe it got too depressing).

For me, procrastination is all about fear of failure, so getting myself to write (at all) and planning what I’m doing so that I feel it’s under some level of control all helps.  Even though that chapter I wrote under pressure of weekly deadlines and keeping a progress spreadsheet was pretty crap it did prove to me that I could produce words on paper!

But, where has this left me?  Well, I have a new challenge, just how do I go about making two coherent chapters out of all that free writing and attempted chapter writing (and presentations and lectures) that I have in files on my computer?  Because, just trying to start at the beginning and work to the end certainly isn’t getting the sort of results I want…