#AcWriMo: Overcoming Academic Writing Blocks

In the second of our academic writing-themed posts during #AcWriMo this year, Dr Lizzie O’Connor, Postgraduate Community Engagement Manager in the University Graduate School, acknowledges that we all struggle to write at times, and suggests some strategies to overcome this.

Writing is one of the most important parts of our academic lives, but it can also be one of the most fraught. Dorothy Parker’s words that joy comes not in writing, but in having written, can ring very true as we stare at a blank screen or an unedited paper for hours on end, waiting for the motivation to start, continue, or finish our writing.

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Many of us have an ‘ideal’ writing practice in our mind, such as daily writing targets, a fluent style, or time spent writing, and many of us see this ideal defeated by procrastination, lack of confidence, distraction. It can leave us feeling disappointed, frustrated, and even ashamed, which feeds into a cycle of worrying about our writing and – crucially – not fully engaging with our writing practice. What techniques can we employ to overcome these blocks, and build good writing habits? What stops us from writing in the way we’d really like to?

Silencing Our Inner Critic

We all have an inner critic, and for many of us this critic comes out most fiercely when we are trying to write. The inner critic will tell you that your writing is terrible, that none of it is good enough in quality or quantity, and becomes the main culprit for our procrastination. Even great writers struggle with this: when Marlon James won the Booker prize, he attributed his success to getting up earlier than his inner critic.

One of the most powerful techniques to manage the inner critic is to confront and recognise this sabotaging voice, rather than following the impulse to ignore it or stop writing altogether. I like the following suggestion from best-selling author Cathy Rentzenbrink to talk to your inner critic in order to disarm it:

Being curious about it or getting to know it can help. […] Put ‘What do you want?’ at the top of the page and just let your hand move. If you find out the motivation you can offer some reassurance. If we know its intention, we can say, ‘Thank you. My today self no longer needs you to protect me.’ Or you can say, ‘I know you are trying to help, but when you hit me over the head with a stick and tell me I’m rubbish, it paralyses me and then I can’t get stuff done, so could you be a bit nicer?’ Or you can imagine yourself locating the volume switch in your head and turning it down.

Target-setting and Procrastination

We often accuse ourselves of laziness when we procrastinate, but like the inner-critic, procrastination is more often an anxiety-based response: your brain shying away from a task that feels frightening, is overwhelming, or that has high stakes.

You’ve probably heard of target-setting as a technique to overcome procrastination. It’s something the Research Skills Team use in their in-person Shut Up and Work sessions, and that we use in the University Graduate School’s online version.

A method I used in writing my own PhD thesis was setting anti-targets: writing targets so low in effort and ambition they scraped the bare minimum of what I could write each day, such as, say, writing 300 words. It worked because it was so unintimidating: I could write freely, and in my busiest days could always squeeze it in, keeping up a momentum of daily writing. There was no voice in my head berating me for taking a lunch break, or daydreaming, or worrying. It set a positive pattern of self-worth: instead of starting the next day feeling like a failure because I didn’t meet my targets or wasn’t productive enough the day before, I could start it positively, feeling like a success. Feeling as though I could write and could accomplish, I did. And those 300 words added up more than you would think!

Ultimately, the only way to build a writing practice is to write. It’s a vital part of our work as academics, but also a lifelong skill in expression and the process of drafting. The tips above rely wholly on self-compassion: take the pressure off, be kind to yourself, get words (any words! Terrible words!) on the page, and join Dorothy Parker in the joy of having written.

#AcWriMo: Critical Engagement with the Literature

November is #AcWriMo! In the first of our academic writing-themed posts this month, Dr Kate Spencer-Bennett, Academic Skills Advisor in the Academic Skills Centre, considers how we might approach the literature in our field in a critical way.

You’ll often hear it said that good academic writing involves a ‘critical engagement’ with the literature. And you probably know that an effective literature review involves something more than a summary of everything that has been said on the topic. So, if Academic Writing Month (or #AcWriMo) is inspiring you to settle down to your desk, then you might be asking how you can comment on your reading in critical ways.

There are, of course, many ways to talk about your reading, but I often think that comments fall into one of three broad groups – the evaluative comment, the analytical comment, and the connection-making comment. Let’s consider each.

Evaluative comment

This type of comment reveals a critical engagement with the literature because it assesses the value of a piece of research. It asks, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the work? What is interesting, useful, or valuable about this article, book, or report? Where are its limitations? Thinking and reading in these ways might lead you to a more critical approach with your writing.

This kind of comment might begin, ‘This work is valuable because …’

Analytical comment

This type of comment seeks to look carefully at something and offer an interpretation. You might pick out one element of a text for close inspection. Is there an interesting argument being made? Is there a particular point, statistic, or telling phrase which you can point to? What does it suggest about the writer’s position?

This kind of comment might begin, ‘The use of the phrase x suggests …’

Connection-making comment

This type of comment aims to draw connections between different texts. Rather than summarising the research piece by piece, connection-making comments find agreements and disagreements in the literature. When you are reading, you could ask yourself how a particular journal article, for example, responds to what has been said on the topic before. What has been said since?

Or, alternatively, you might look at broader patterns within the research in your field. Can you begin to group what you have read by theme? Where do you see harmony in approach or viewpoint? Where are the tensions? These kinds of questions can lead you to synthesis in your writing. You bring different elements together to make something new.

This kind of comment might begin, ‘This work aligns with …’

When evaluating, analysing, and making connections you demonstrate a close reading of the literature and, in subtle ways, reveal your own perspective. Whether you feel that you are sometimes too descriptive, or just want to make sure that your own voice comes through as you discuss the existing research, perhaps these ideas could get you started next time you sit down to write.

Helen writes: cut to the chase

Writing Skills Advisor Helen Williams continues her occasional series with this post on editing your writing to keep within the word count.

In the Academic Skills Centre the bulk of our work involves supporting taught students, and with the academic year drawing to a close the most pressing task for students currently is finishing dissertations. Many of my conversations with students inevitably circle back to the topic of editing and an issue that crops up repeatedly is how to meet the word count. Despite doctoral theses usually having a word count many times higher than the average Masters dissertation, keeping within the word count – either for a chapter, or the entire thesis – is still a challenge. No matter how many words are permitted, or how huge that number initially feels, somehow everyone (including me!) always ends up writing too much.

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Whilst it’s important to have some practical ways of tackling this (more on that later) I think first it’s helpful to try to reframe how we think about writing, and specifically editing or cutting content. It always feels painful to have to cut words, particularly if whole paragraphs or sections need to be axed. This is most likely content that you spent a considerable amount of time on, and sometimes the temptation is to leave words in simply because of the effort involved in churning them out. The process of ‘writing up’ is also positioned as an end-point, where we write with certainty about what we have done or found. However, it might be more helpful to think of writing, cutting, re-writing and editing as an extension of our thinking or learning about a topic. We constantly reformulate and refine ideas in our mind as we move through the research process, so why not try to view your writing as part of this? Accepting that your writing might keep changing and developing, even into the very final stages prior to submission – and trying to view this as a positive thing – can feel quite liberating. Plus, it will almost always leave you with a superior final product. Whilst re-writing a section over and over might not feel productive, in the long-run it most certainly is. Leaving sub-standard text in because it took you ages to write is not.   

If trying to alter your whole mindset around the writing process feels a bit much right now, here are some more manageable steps to cutting words whilst improving content:

1. Remember your reader(s)
   This should be a straightforward one – your most important readers are the people who will be examining your thesis, as well as your supervisors. Bear them in mind when you are considering what to cut or include. What will they already know, or be familiar with? Every subject has content that is considered ‘common knowledge’, which you shouldn’t need to use up masses of words to explain. Have you included lengthy explanations that you could reduce, for example?
2. What is adding value?
   Think about the balance between descriptive content and that which is more critical. Whilst you always need a bit of description to provide context and background, it’s important that this doesn’t crowd out the space for the more valuable analytical or critical discussion. Read through your chapters with this in mind and try to limit descriptive waffle where possible.  
3. Be brutal
   It seems intuitive to chop words and sentences here and there whilst editing for word count, but this can leave you with lots of different snippets of writing that feel disjointed. Sometimes it’s much easier to identify a paragraph that doesn’t quite work and delete the whole thing. You might be surprised how little difference this can make – especially if it wasn’t great content to begin with. If this cut-throat approach feels a bit too bold, just save all your offcuts in a separate document.

For more word-cutting tips, see the excellent ‘5 Way to Kill your Darlings’ blogpost by the Thesis Whisperer.

Writing is part of the adventure

Amica Liburd, a PGR in the Department of Theology and Religion, attended many of the workshops as part of the Postgraduate Researcher Online Writing Summer School 2023, held 10-14 July. Here, she reflects on what she gained. To access recordings of all the workshops, enrol on the Canvas module.

Amica’s work desk

What if there is more to the PhD journey than simply writing a thesis? Participating in PROWSS2023 online workshops helped me to appreciate the value nurturing the skill of writing so that after years of “writing towards a thesis”, I can emerge as someone who can effectively communicate to others about the ideas that I am passionate about. Since starting the PhD journey in September 2020, I’ve wanted to dedicate a week to attending this annual workshop. Back then it seemed like the ideal way to start the journey. Unfortunately, it took three years to attend and even then, I still had to negotiate attending some sessions alongside a Conference that was being held simultaneously. Fortunately, both events were online and all the resources for PROWSS2023 are also now available online so if I missed a session, I could easily access it later. Prioritizing the sessions which were relevant to my stage in the PhD journey was an excellent decision and at the end of the week there were at least three sessions I was glad that I didn’t miss. The perfect conditions for attending this year’s PROWSS did not come, however two of the sessions I attended and found most helpful were Managing Writing Momentum and Shut up and Work!!

Managing Writing Momentum

Point me to the PhD student who has perfectly mastered the art of maintaining writing momentum! The week was certainly off to a great start with this topic. We were reminded by the Dr Emma Foster that writing momentum is something that can be cultivated and thereafter maintained with practice. To cultivate such momentum, writing must become part of one’s daily routine. Writing every day can help me professionalize something that I already enjoy doing. And if I’m not enjoying it on any given day, … I’ll just have to try pretending that I do. Alternatively, I can imagine that I am a renowned author/academic with an readership who is eager to read my next publication. This session reinforced just how closely related the researcher’s holistic wellbeing is to maintain sustainable patterns for engaging with research and writing well. The image of writing as a muscle that must be strengthened was insightful. But even more sobering was the caution that unhappy writers often lack inspiration, are melancholy, aren’t as creative as they can be and are starved of determination. Prioritizing breaks so that the subconscious can creatively blend ideas is imperative, unless of course you fancy a quick burn out. Not only do regular breaks replenish creativity but it goes a long way to keeping the writer happy to produce quality work. A bit of light yet meaningful humour … “Don’t stop unless your rear end falls off. And if it does fall off, put it in a paper bag and take it with you. Stopping is what kills momentum!” Perseverance is key.

Shut up and work!!

The Online Shut-up and Work Sessions organised by the Graduate School have over the past three years been quite helpful. No surprise then that the day of focused work with other researchers who were determined to accomplish some set tasks was equally valuable. Using the Pomodoro technique with regular intervals helped me to catch up on work that I needed to get done, after a week of online conference and workshops. Being able to identify key areas for follow up the next week gave me a plan for my next workday.

Interestingly the two sessions I reflected on were the start and the end of PROWSS2023. This is not to say that what happened in between was not pertinent to the overall experience. The online resources state otherwise. The start and the end of PROWSS2023 reflect what holds the PhD experience together if we choose to persevere in what could be an edifying adventure.

AI: what are the risks?

Continuing our mini-theme on artificial intelligence, Alex Fenlon, Head of Copyright and Licensing in Library Services, addresses some of the concerns around these new and emerging tools in this in depth post. He highlights some of the issues that users need to be aware of when trialling these new tools in research.

New AI tools, including those mentioned in our previous post on this topic, are an exciting new development in research and present us with some fantastic opportunities. However, there are a few caveats which researchers need to be aware of before AI tools are included as a central part of a researchers’ toolkit.

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Reproducibility

Reproducibility, replicability, stability, validity, and consistency of results are a key part of research across all disciplines. Researchers must be able to repeat their research to ensure their results are valid and stand up to the scrutiny and rigour that peer review requires. Anything that leads to an inability to repeat a method or replicate results will undermine any findings and outcomes.

The use of some AI tools in research today raises precisely these concerns: whether the consistency of results will be maintained over time and whether identical inputs will lead to identical outputs. If you ask a question today, will you get the same result tomorrow, next week, in a couple of years time, or when you’re thinking about publishing your research?

AI tools are developing at a rapid pace, with enhancements to functionality and quality being released at breath-taking speed. Researchers will need to ensure that the precise version of a tool used is communicated and potentially remains available for interrogation as research progresses. Along with these enhancements, some tools learn and evolve over time and this too will potentially impact on the reproducibility of research. This shifting and uncertainty in responses could have significant impact, and it’s key that researchers do not forget their literacy skills and become overly reliant on these tools.

Exploring AI Tools for Researchers

Following on from our last post on Potential Uses of ChatGPT in Research, this in depth post by James Barnett, Research Skills Advisor from the Research Skills Team in Library Services, covers wider emerging AI tools for research.

What did you make of our previous post, written by ChatGPT in response to a couple of prompts? Did you think the response was thorough and authentic? Did you feel that points being made about the potential uses for ChatGPT were backed up by enough detail for you to be convinced?

How do you feel about content that is in any way intended as being advisory to the research community being generated by an AI tool – uneasy, or just a logical technological progression?

An image of a fantasy world generated by DeepAI.

Whatever your answers to these questions, there can be no doubt that the release of ChatGPT in November 2022 has heralded a sharp focus on the role that generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools – and developments in AI more broadly – will have in the way we live our personal and professional lives going forward. In some ways, it’s easy for us all to get wrapped up in the narrative that these developments should be seen as at best mildly concerning and at worst downright frightening – particularly when news breaks that leading scientists and technologists are signatories to an open letter calling for the further development in advanced AI tools to be paused, or that the so-called “godfather of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, has resigned from Google in order to warn of the dangers of further developments in the field.

While wrestling with profound questions around the role and risks of recent developments in AI are undoubtedly necessary as we adapt to them at a societal level (and the case has already been made for the significant role the academic research community should play in this), we should also balance this up with taking account of the wonderful opportunities these developments might bestow – in the context of academic research generally, and the workflows and processes associated with the research cycle in particular. For example, one of the frustrations about the scholarly communications landscape that we frequently hear in the Research Skills Team is that everything moves too slowly – that the time gap between generating findings and getting them published can take years. There is the great potential to use AI to cut these inefficiencies. Using AI to speed up peer review is one area that has already been identified from the publisher perspective, but there are many ways that AI tools can be useful to researchers to augment their existing processes in a way that saves the researcher time.

Potential Uses of ChatGPT in Research

This post (except for this editor’s note) was written entirely by ChatGPT, in response to a couple of prompts about the potential and appropriate use of ChatGPT in research. The text is presented unedited (except for removing sub-headings and combining responses to two separate prompts). Note that it proved to be non-trivial to get ChatGPT to produce suitable text – there were a number of network errors which interrupted some responses, and ChatGPT wasn’t great at working to suggested word counts.

As a postgraduate researcher, you’re always looking for ways to streamline your work, increase your productivity, and produce high-quality research outcomes. One tool that may help you achieve these goals is ChatGPT, a language model based on GPT-3.5 architecture.

The ChatGPT logo

ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can assist you in a variety of research tasks, from generating ideas and hypotheses to performing complex analyses and interpreting data. In this blog post, we’ll explore some of the potential uses of ChatGPT in research and explain how it can benefit postgraduate researchers.

One of the most challenging aspects of research is coming up with new ideas and hypotheses. With ChatGPT, you can generate a wide range of ideas and hypotheses based on the topic of your research. By inputting a brief summary of your research area or question, ChatGPT can generate several ideas that you can explore further. You can also use ChatGPT to refine your research question or problem statement, making it more specific and focused.

Writing a research proposal can be a daunting task, especially if you’re not sure where to start. ChatGPT can help you write a compelling and well-structured research proposal by providing you with relevant information, suggestions, and tips. You can input your research question, methodology, and desired outcomes, and ChatGPT will generate a proposal outline that you can use as a starting point.

Once you’ve collected data, you need to analyze it to draw meaningful conclusions. ChatGPT can help you analyze your data by suggesting statistical tests, visualizations, and other methods to explore your data. By inputting your data and research question, ChatGPT can help you identify patterns, trends, and relationships in your data, allowing you to make evidence-based conclusions.

Interpreting research results can be challenging, especially if you’re dealing with complex data or statistics. ChatGPT can help you interpret your results by providing you with explanations, definitions, and examples of statistical concepts and methods. By inputting your results and research question, ChatGPT can help you understand the implications of your research findings and draw meaningful conclusions.

Finally, ChatGPT can assist you in writing research papers by providing you with suggestions for sentence structure, grammar, and syntax. You can input your research question, methodology, and findings, and ChatGPT will generate a draft paper that you can revise and edit. This can help you save time and effort in writing a high-quality research paper.

In conclusion, the use of ChatGPT can greatly benefit postgraduate researchers in various stages of their research projects, from generating ideas to writing research papers. However, it is important to acknowledge the ethical implications and appropriate use of this technology. Researchers must ensure that they are not plagiarizing or relying too heavily on ChatGPT-generated content. Additionally, researchers must take responsibility for ensuring that the data they input into ChatGPT is accurate and ethical, and that the outputs generated align with the values of scientific research. As with any tool, it is important to use ChatGPT in a responsible and ethical manner, and to ensure that it supports, rather than replaces, the skills and expertise of the researcher.

Your Research data is your craft

All PGRs at the University of Birmingham are required to have a data management plan in place as part of their first Annual Progress Review. In this post, Angeliki Andrikopoulou, Research Data Librarian in Scholarly Communication Services in Library Services, explains why they are important and where you can get support.

Research data management (RDM) is a crucial element of the research lifecycle as it consists of activities related to creating, collecting and reusing research data during a research project. Data governance skills and knowledge are required from all researchers, either creating new data or reusing data.

Angeliki set up for her RDM drop-in, in the Researcher Suite on the first floor of the Main Library.

In this digital era, research is data-centric. Research data is a significant output that has become increasingly important and equally valuable over the last years equal to journal articles, books, and other research outputs. Consequently, data management planning is the first and most appropriate step to undertake at the beginning of the project to ensure data quality.

A helpful way to visualise the data management plan is as a path you must step on throughout your research project. A data management plan will allow you to plan and make decisions about all the critical research data lifecycle stages beforehand and save you valuable time and effort. For this reason, writing and updating this important document should be a meticulously performed act.

Furthermore, data management planning will guide you in making your data open, if appropriate, and FAIR. To make your data FAIR, you must follow four principles: Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reusability. FAIRness ensures that your research outputs are valid, reusable and reproducible, increasing the impact of your research, the quality and the resilience of your data. Data management planning and FAIR are unique tools that will guide you in organising, publishing and possibly sharing data in appropriate formats and manner that others can understand. Your data is your craft, the result of your hard work and should be considered a valuable asset and looked after accordingly. Adopting those tools will ensure that you and others and society in general can benefit from your research outputs.

Library Services provide various support dedicated to your research data journey. Recently, a new facility was added to this support. Scholarly Communications Services have launched a weekly RDM Drop-in session. It takes place in person every Friday 1-2 pm in the Researcher Suite on the Main Library’s First Floor, and no booking is required. We anticipate that this relatively new drop-in session will help to increase researchers’ awareness and improve their skills related to RDM. Thus, if you have queries or wish to discuss your research’s particularities concerning research data, grab your coffee or tea and join a research data librarian every Friday after lunch -no pre-booking is required. Dates can be found on the library website, or you can contact us if you require further information.

The BEAR Necessities of Research Computing

In this post, Debbie Carter, Research Training and Engagement Officer in IT Services, summarises how the Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) can support PGRs at the University of Birmingham.

When I started writing this blog post, I wanted to address the most common questions we are asked by PGRs about BEAR (Birmingham Environment for Academic Research).

Debbie (left) and Aslam at the BEAR drop-in session, Main Library, April 2022

Let’s start with data, as this is the fundamental starting point for any PGR. You’re going to be managing data of some sort, whether you have produced it yourself, or are re-using existing data. Depending on the type of data, you might also need to use software to process it. BEAR services are designed to help researchers with managing these processes, supported by a team of software engineers and data experts.

We often meet PGRs who store data on their laptop, USB stick, or Dropbox-style storage, but this is not recommended by the University, and we definitely don’t want to risk anyone losing their precious resource! See “Where should I store my research data?” or our information on storing sensitive data. Whether you have a large or small amount of working research data to store, the BEAR Research Data Store (RDS) offers secure storage, backed up each night to two data centres on campus, so you can be confident that your data is safe. Ask your supervisor to fill in our project request form to get access. If your research is in Life Sciences, we have dedicated CaStLeS resources available.

When you leave UoB, data will remain in the RDS under the authority of the project PI. If after 5 years the project has ended, the data will be archived for a short period of time before being removed. Make sure you copy any data off that you will need for writing up papers after your thesis is complete, as you will not be able to access data on the RDS once your PhD is marked as complete – this depends on your School/Institute and could be as soon as you hand in your thesis.

Our Linux-based High Performance Computing (HPC)/High-Throughput Computing (HTC) supercomputer, BlueBEAR, can be used to process data faster than on your own computer. There are over 1000 software applications installed, from ABAQUS to zstd (see BEAR Applications), and you can ask us to install other software too. Our website explains how to activate your BEAR Linux account – this is needed to log in to BlueBEAR. We also provide web-based access to selected applications via the BlueBEAR Portal.

Often researchers need to use BEAR systems but are not experts in software and programming. We offer Software Carpentry workshops in Git, MATLAB, Python, R, and Linux courses, starting from the basics to prepare you for using BlueBEAR. Information and dates for courses are on our training webpages.

One of our main methods to assist researchers is via the IT ServiceDesk. Regular drop-in sessions are held both online and in-person to give you access to the BEAR team and ask questions. From tricky software problems to sensitive data, come along and we can help! BEAR Software offers a range of support and advice on the use of research software including how to optimise BlueBEAR jobs to get the most from our facilities, provided by a rapidly expanding team of Research Software Engineers. Or you can email us and we are happy to help!

#AcWriMo: The Big Conversation

In our final blog post for #AcWriMo 2022, Kate Spencer-Bennett, an Academic Writing Advisor in the Academic Skills Centre, thinks about how writing fits into the landscape of the literature.

Becoming familiar with the literature in your field can be a daunting task. Where should you begin with your reading? Where should you end? How can you make sense of the connections between the different pieces of research?

I believe that it’s useful to think of the literature on a topic as a big conversation. With #AcWriMo upon us, I’ve been thinking about how this analogy could help us to think about our writing.

‘The Big Conversation’ goes like this. The scholars working in a particular field are sitting around a table having a conversation about a topic. Somebody says something – they write an academic article, a book chapter, or a report. Somebody else hears what they say and joins the conversation to say, ‘yes, good point,’ or, ‘that’s interesting and also…,’ or, ‘but have you thought about?’ In this vein, the conversation continues with a bit of back and forth between the people at the table. People arrive at the table and listen for a while and have a say. And, as in any conversation, there is agreement, disagreement, and everything in between.

Viewed in this way, the literature is a series of ‘turns’, and each new piece of research published represents a new ‘turn’ in the conversation. This has consequences for how we view our own writing. Our thesis chapter, conference presentation, or academic article becomes a response to what we have heard in the conversation. And, like any other scholar, when we plan our writing, we are planning our own turn. If what we are saying is a response to what has come before then some important questions emerge:

• What has been said already?
• What hasn’t been said?

And perhaps most importantly:

• What would I like my turn to be?

So next time you sit down to write, think about what you want to say at the table. How are you responding to what has come before? Which contributions do you want to highlight? What gaps in the conversation are you trying to fill? What do you want others to take from your contribution? Perhaps you’ve heard the debate at another table and want to bring different conversations together.

And, if nothing else, thinking of your writing as a turn in the big conversation means you’ll be ready for that classic viva question – ‘What is your unique contribution?’