#1 Mechanics of Research

Welcome to the Mechanics of Research. I’m so pleased that you’re one of the first subscribers and I promise to keep this letter short, focused, and hopefully useful to your research, PhD, career, and academic publishing/outputs.

I’ll aim for one update every fortnight - we all get too many emails so I’m determined to make this one count.

Why am I doing this?

When I first started posting on Linkedin at the end of 2022 about PhD research and supervision - I was shocked at the interest my posts were receiving. It turns out that the problems my own students were encountering were not unique to them. Many others were facing similar challenges and were eagerly seeking help, advice, and support. Many are not receiving this guidance from their host institutions.

I’m not claiming special expertise or wisdom here - but I have over twenty years experience as a researcher and author, and have supervised and examined many PhD theses at institutions in the UK, Australia, Ghana, and Pakistan. I want the best for my students - I see it as a personal success when they do well. A lot of my linkedin posts are simply summaries of the topics we discuss together - expressed simply and to the point.

I’d always thought of Linkedin as a jobs-board or place to share new publications and events, but it has quickly become a place to discuss research matters and build meaningful networks. I’d encourage you to start writing on there - it’s daunting at first and there can be some backlash - but it’s a great arena to share your work and processes.

Mechanics of Research

It’s not possible to give meaningful advice on specific research topics or disciplines beyond our own expertise - but I was finding that many students and researchers were not necessarily finding their research topic and project problematic. The areas that they struggled with the most are what I’ve called the ‘mechanics of research’ - that is:

• project management [delivering an outcome on time and budget]

• funding [everything from fees to field work]

• writing [procrastination to over producing]

• editing [effective communication]

• relationships [supervisors and family]

• vivas [pressure and preparation]

• conferences [networking and sharing]

• impact [moving beyond the journal article to the real world]

• and all the other parts of life that impact our practice

I’ll focus on these ‘research project management’ issues here.

It’s possible to express and discuss these ideas on linkedin, and I’ll continue to do so, but a letter, or digest like this one, offers more space and nuance away from the doom-scrolling and kaleidoscope of the social media world.

Please do let me know if there are particular topics you’d like me to focus on.

New Years New Starts

It’s cliched. But if not now, when?

Whatever you do, the key is always consistency, closely followed by accountability.

• Be consistent: tick off your achievements on the calendar

• Be accountable: join a group / make an agreement / have someone check you’re doing what you said you would.

I’m a big fan of the 500 word writing challenge.

The aim is to write 500 words per working day. It might be a reflection on progress, goals for the future, or something specific on your phd chapters / research paper.

It’s easy to write 500 words. No much more than a page.

The difficulty is doing it daily. If you can - I’m confident you’ll rapidly progress and complete your work more quickly and to a higher standard. I’ve set my self this challenge too - so feel free to check how I’m doing.

Don’t leave it to chance - allocate a slot in your calendar that is non-negotiable. It might be a different time each day, or just 30 minutes - it doesn’t really matter - the point is to sit down, remove distractions and write. Ideas will form, new concepts will emerge, thoughts will clarify, and you’ll complete your chapters/papers.

It’s a great feeling to generate 2500 words per week that you can then edit and refine. When we write ideas flow.

Action: 500 words. Go.

Mentor

We spend a lot of time working on our research - less on our own development. This needs to be accompanied with how we work - our systems and processes. The 500 word challenge is a component of the process. The way we structure, organise, and simplify our working methods is part of the system.

We can quickly become absorbed in our research work to the detriment of developing new networks, supporting others, and setting a destination for our own careers and next steps.

A mentor can certainly help with this. It doesn’t need to be an intense or formal encounter - a friendly discussion a couple of times per year could be ideal. The point is to reflect, discuss, plan, and then execute.

Action: Get a date in the diary with a mentor (or someone further down a similar path to you). Pay for the lunch/coffee.

Tangent: How much does Human Input Matter in AI Creativity.

But more than this, the study shows there needs to be an iterative approach to improving the quality of the outputs.

This seems sensible - creativity is all about small advances, refinements, adjustments, tweaks. AI can likely help to speed this up, but it won’t create a useful solution on the fist attempt with poor inputs….

Thanks for reading.

If you’ve been forwarded this mail please subscribe here https://iain-jackson.beehiiv.com/subscribe