A palimpsest of practice-led inquiry: a conversation

Geof Hill (the Investigative Practitioner) and Ana Duffy

The publication of this blog coincides with the publication of a paper in the International Journal of Academic Writing (Coventry University)

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2023): Thinking outside the academic writing box | Journal of Academic Writing (coventry.ac.uk)

illuminating and exploring the nature of Provenance for practice-led inquiry, and applying it to a creative writer’s practices.

The paper is based on a conversation between a creative writer and a critical friend applying the process of Provenance to assist exploration of the foundations of the creative writer’s practice.

The abstract for the paper is …

This paper aims to interrogate a writer-researcher’s journey through practice-led inquiry (Gray, 1996) within a broader discourse that acknowledges academic writing as contested. Indeed, the quest of a migrant writer for recognition of their writing in another land requires a deep understanding of the many layers that make up the provenance of their writing practice: a second language, and both their cultural identity and literary background, provide layers of knowledge and experience that fuse to form a ‘style’ and ultimately a writing ‘niche’. The readership of their writing carries its own provenance and therefore the additional bias of ‘the home ground’.

As it reads in the title, palimpsest, in its figurative sense, is a notion that implies levels of meaning in a literary work. Although not the first writer to use the concept figuratively, it was Thomas De Quincey who wrote an essay entitled “The Palimpsests” (1845), which would inaugurate “the substantive concept of the palimpsest” (Dillon, 2005, p.243). Similarly, Barthes (1989, p.99) referred to a text as a layered discourse, “an onion, a superimposed construction of skins (of layers, of levels, of systems) whose volume contains, finally, no heart, no core, no secret, no irreducible principle, nothing but the very infinity of its envelopes — which envelop nothing other than the totality of its surfaces”. As a writer surfaces, discriminates and understands the different layers that fashion their writing, and wields their particular use of English as a second language, their practice becomes more authentic. That authenticity becomes a dual threshold element of an exegesis argument, representing faithfulness to the practitioner, and translating or bridging the gap between first language readers and second language voices.

If you would like a copy of this paper, please contact me on geof@bigpond.com

This paper provides an insight into how Provenance

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2019/10/16/practitioner-inquiry-and/)

can unlock a sense of feeling blocked in your inquiry. The setting for the paper is a coffee meeting with my colleague Ana Duffy over her Master’s in Creative Writing. What started out as a meeting to explore why she had writer’s block, revealed elements in her provenance that then fed into her identity as a writer,

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2023/05/21/developing-a-doctoral-candidates-academic-voice/)

and provided the substance for this paper.

We believe that the paper makes a contribution around new forms of academic writing, but equally, the backstory of getting this paper published is also important in terms of resilience and the ability to defend one’s argument.

The article was initially submitted to a Creative Writing journal and rejected because it was too academic. Undeterred, we chose a different journal and repositioned the paper. In this one we focused more on our writing representing a new form of academic writing. The paper was again rejected, but on the basis that academic writing did not include creative writing.

We decided to challenge this assumption and resubmitted the paper with a reworked introduction that explained how creative writing was being seen as academic writing in certain forms of practice-led inquiry.

We did this with the inclusion of two paragraphs:

Academic writing is a contested construct. What counts as academic writing has changed consistently since academics first wrote. One major change was in response to what is referred to as the ‘paradigm wars’ (Guba & Lincoln, 1982) in the wake of new ways of undertaking research. Specifically, new research practices that emerged following the paradigm wars, such as practitioner inquiry (Stenhouse, 1981), first person action inquiry (Reason & Marshall, 1987), autoethnography (Ellis & Bochner, 1996) and Practice-led inquiry (Gray, 1996) brought with them changes in the ways in which research was written. Some of these changes embraced alternate modes of writing – such as creative writing – as a way of giving voice to inquiry authors (Galvin & Prendergast, 2016).

This article is written from this new academic writing edge, presenting practice-led inquiry emerging from an academic’s reflection on her practice and consideration of the critical incidents that informed not only her practice, but the way in which she wrote about that practice. The article is presented as a conversation between the practitioner and her critical friend (Stieha in Coghlan & Brydon-Miller, 2014), as chapters in a larger narrative or creative non-fiction.

In resubmitting the article, we drew the editors’ attention to an Omundsen (2012, p. 4) citation in our paper that argued:

distant reading’—reading texts from cultural traditions very different from one’s own—calls on a certain openness, a willingness to suspend disbelief, to postpone judgement, and to acknowledge the limits to one’s own cultural literacy. Playing in the space between the familiar and the unfamiliar has its own rewards, and it is this space that many transnational writers have made their playground.

and suggested that the editors had reviewed our submission from this cultural limitation.

This challenge to the editor decision made all the difference in the world!

The editors not only accepted the paper but one suggested…

‘So glad your paper is in the issue, I really liked it and so did the editorial board. So many interesting points raised, I’ve thought about it quite a lot since reading it.’

The moral of the story is that argumentation is not only necessary to defend your dissertation

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/viva-centred-research-supervision-defending-the-thesis/)

but can be useful at any time. In fact, defending your argument is one of the competencies that arises from a doctoral investigation.

………………….

De Quincey, T. (1845,1998) ‘The Palimpsests’, in Thomas De Quincey: Confessions of An English Opium Eater And Other Writings, ed. Grevel Lindop (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 104. 14

Dillon, S. (2005). “Reinscribing De Quincey’s palimpsest: the significance of the palimpsest in contemporary literary and cultural studies”. Textual Practice, 19(3), 243– 263. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502360500196227

Galvin, K.T.  and Prendergast, M.  (Eds.) (2016). Poetic Inquiry II – Seeing, Caring, Understanding: Using Poetry as and for Inquiry. Sense Publishers: Rotterdam.

Gray, C. (1996). Inquiry through practice: Developing appropriate research strategies. No Guru, No Method? Discussions on Art and Design Research, Helsinki, Finland: UIAH.

Ommundsen, W. (2012). Transnational imaginaries: reading Asian Australian writing. Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 12 (2), 1-8.

Developing a doctoral candidate’s academic voice.

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner

What does it mean for an academic to have a ‘voice’?

The idea of ‘voice’ is more than an ability to speak. When used in an academic sense, it suggests substance of the content. This means that what a person is voicing takes the form of a thesis (a term drawn from Greek origins θέσις meaning ‘a proposition, a statement, a thing laid down’).

Another way of expressing this, is drawing attention to the overall argument – a topic discussed in a previous blog.

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2022/01/24/the-value-of-a-skeleton/).

Many academics reach their position of having a voice by following the career path of undertaking a research degree – usually a doctoral research degree. In this context, the ‘thesis’ they argue is the basis of their research dissertation. The dissertation articulates an extended argument, with each small part either laying out evidence or making a claim that will be backed by evidence. Over the course of their candidature, they build up their academic writing and academic speaking repertoire, and thus as they complete their dissertation it has evidence of being a coherent argument or thesis, and demonstrating their ‘voice’.

There has been some discussion in the higher education discourse about the nature of ‘voice’ and its association with academic identity. One strand of that discourse talks about doctoral candidates developing or acquiring ‘voice’. Geertz (1988, 8-9) speaking about anthropological writing, talks about ‘authorial presence’ in research writing.  Hyland (2005, 176) refers to a ‘writer stance’ as the voice they adopt when writing academic articles. Kamler & Thomson (2006) acknowledge the challenges for a doctoral candidate in establishing their stance. They illuminate the problem as both seeking entry to a community of scholars and challenging those same scholars. Carter, (2012, 406) further illuminates this problem by suggesting

‘The doctoral thesis is defensive, a performance seeking admittance into discipline scholarship. Yet in finding its scholarly voice, the Arts Humanities doctorate also constructs the academic identity of its author.‘

In many ways this discussion about voice resonates with ideas expressed about the pre-cursors to the initial or medieval universities – the monasteries – at which entrance or acceptance for new candidates  required them to ‘hold forth on some point of doctrine and defend their argument in interchange with their future colleagues’ (Engel, 1966, 781). Academic voice is aligned with the idea that the speaker or inquirer shares their findings and defends these against challenges.

One way to support a candidate developing their voice is to deconstruct the concept of a ‘voice’ it can help to look at the smaller elements of something complex – like an argument.

The Evidence

In writing a thesis or dissertation two types of evidence are utilised.

The first type is the evidence that comes from literature, and this represents what is already known about the issue being investigated, or more generally about research. In using literature as evidence in an argument, the author is demonstrating their familiarity with what is already known about the issue or practice they are investigating. This is important if later the author is claiming a contribution to knowledge arising out of their inquiry – a defining feature of doctoral investigation.

For example, if you were investigating an issue such as

the need for people to be vaccinated,

then you can strengthen your argument by looking at the recently undertaken research. This is one of the meanings of the term ‘literature review’, in that your argument uses a review of what has already been published in the literature to give a context for what is already known about the issue or practice you propose to investigate.

Alternately, your thesis might be examining a practice, such as

your higher education teaching.

You first type of evidence can be what is already known about this practice. What does the Higher Education literature have to say about teaching.

The role of framing the issue or practice in what is already known about the issue or practice is why undertaking a literature review is so important.

The second type of evidence is what is coming from you own investigation
When you analyse your data and make a proposition about the issue. The strength of this evidence rests in the transparency of the ways in which you have collected and analysed data.

Your writing

Articulating your argument is expressing an opinion, but the opinion is strengthened by the rigour of doing research and the rigour of the awareness of what else that has been said/written about this topic.

As your repertoire of language develops, you will find that part of developing a ‘voice’ is in changing the way in which you articulate your concerns. For example

In talking about the issue that you are investigating, you might say

‘I was worried about this issue’

To strengthen that sentence you could add an authority.

For example, if you were to write

‘I was ‘troubled’ (Schön, 1983, 50) about this issue’,

the addition of the authority of Donald Schön (1983) talking about how a professional becomes troubled about an issue and this leads them into reflective practice about that issue, gives strength to your own voice. It shifts your personal opinion to one which is supported with appropriate literature. The sentence indicates that the person saying this or writing this is familiar with that piece of literature that discusses how a professional might think about their practice.

There are other elements in a thesis in which you can build out or support what you are saying with authority.

Writing about an issue such as ‘trust’ you could say or write

There has been a lot written about ‘trust’

To strengthen this sentence, you could add the examples of what has been written. If these examples are provided in chronological order, they might also show that what has been written has changed over time.

A sentence in your literature review could say

‘I disagree with..’.

To build this out into an argument you need to lay out evidence. This evidence might establish that you not only hold a different view but that this alternative view is viable. In your argument you can either present an alternative or adopt a critical view that challenges something on its assumptions. This is what was achieved in the iconic argument that challenged the dominance of positivism in research and put forward an alternative in Naturalistic Inquiry (Guba and Lincoln, 1982).

A criticism about ‘voice’

A common criticism or deficit articulated about doctoral candidates is that they have not developed an ‘academic voice’. The criticism can be made by the potential examiner, but more often the criticism is made by supervisors as a comment about the candidate’s writing development.

It is one thing to identify a problem and another to have strategies to address the problem.

Just a comment on the candidates writing that ‘you don’t seem to have developed your academic voice’ may not be helpful for a candidate if they are unfamiliar with what having a voice in an investigation involves.

In thinking about how to support development of an academic voice I am reminded of an experience at the Artistry of Management and Organisation Conference in Brighton (U.K.) in 2018. Participants at the conference were invited to seat themselves in an orchestra while the orchestra played a familiar piece of music. I was seated next to the Viola, and while I was very familiar with the piece of music being performed, I had never focused on the viola’s part and so it could be said, that as a listener (reader) I could not (until now) heard the viola voice.

Sometimes a supervisor needs to listen (and move beyond their own assumptions) to hear their candidate’s emerging academic voice.

A supervision strategy with regard to developing ‘voice’ is to adopt a strengths-based approach to this issue and identify examples in the candidates writing where it is already evident that they are starting to have a voice. The reader/supervisor affirms examples in the candidates writing that show either a strong academic voice or a developing one.

A second strategy is to help the candidate build their vocabulary. The vocabulary used by a researcher/inquirer is an indication of their familiarity with the issue they are investigating. A good example of this are the terms epistemology and ontology, that as a candidate becomes familiar with these uncommon terms, they demonstrate their voice with regard to the methodology they have adopted.

A third strategy is related to those candidates who present for an oral examination – a viva. In meetings with supervisors, which in many ways is a rehearsal for an oral defence or viva

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2018/12/19/viva-centred-research-supervision-defending-the-thesis/)

the candidate learns to trust their own argument and to defend based on the questions asked.

In thinking about academic voice, we can also look to the creative agenda. Not all voices are presented in the same way. A good example of a creative (musical) voice is evident in Professor Deborah Cheetham commissioned work “Bungaree”, in which she used music to express an indigenous voice that works in parallel with her academic voice. Bungaree came to prominence because he accompanied the explorer Matthew Flinders on a journey between the Australian mainland and Tasmania on the Norfolk, and worked for the explorer as an interpreter and guide.

Deborah Cheetham Dec2019 — Flinders Quartet

…………..

Carter, S. (2012). Original knowledge, gender and the word’s mythology: Voicing the doctorate. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, v11, n4, p406-417.

Engel, M. (1966). Thesis-antithesis: some reflections on the education of researchers in Psychology. American Psychologists, 21, 781-787.

Geertz, C. (1988). Works and lives: The anthropologist as author. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Guba, E., and Lincoln, Y. (1982). Epistemological and Methodological bases of Naturalistic Inquiry. Education Communication and Technology Journal, 30(4), 233-252.

Hyland, K. (2005).  Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse studies, 7, 172. DOI: 10.1177/1461445605050365

Kamler, B. and Thompson, P. (April, 2006) Doctoral writing: pedagogies for work with literatures. AERA Conference presentation.

Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. U.S.A.: Basic Books.

Could a robot examine my doctoral dissertation?

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner

Jeff Sparrow, writing in the Guardian on November 19^th 2022, raised the issue of Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing university essays. On the same weekend I was asked by a relative (who knew of my reputation examining doctoral dissertations) whether I could be replaced by a robot. He had expounded the wonders of AI, effectively using it to construct an advertisement for a new product he was about to launch. His question echoed a conversation with a different colleague the previous week as to whether the role of academic writing tutors was at risk by the emerging AI trend.

Three seemingly unrelated comments/observations suggest to me both a conversation and an emerging discourse around the issue of Artificial Intelligence.

The fears expressed by my three colleagues were articulated in an article by Tredinnick (2017, 1) in which he wrote:

2017 promises to be the year when artificial intelligence (AI) moves out of film and fiction and into the workplace.

Supporting this dystopian position, Tredinnink (2017) cited Turing (1951, 475), the inventor of the first computer, saying…

‘we should expect the machines to take control’

The series of questions and thoughts impact on what counts as doctoral writing as well as

supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/how-can-you-tell-when-there-has-been-a-contribution-to-knowledge-in-a-doctoral-research-study/

(what has become the most popular page of this blog)

In the light of Turing’s (1951) prediction, it is important to note that at many, if not most universities, the process of dissertation examination already involves a form of artificial intelligence via the step in submission requirements, to process one’s dissertation through ‘Hand it in’. This submission trend began when the inclusion of uncited information from a range of blog and on-line sources were noticed in the text of several undergraduate assignment submissions. In the early days of using ‘Hand it in’, I realized that in its thoroughness to draw attention to any misuse of previous writing, it would list all the references. Thus, the computer assistance still required a degree of human intervention to make sense of what was a checking device. This reminded me of the much earlier emergence of the first programable calculators that some universities had to consider in the case of their examinations. Like many calculators, the user is advised to ask themselves (input human thinking) whether the answer given by the calculator seems reasonable!

One of the key features of the current trend in artificial intelligence is the presence of algorithms. There is also evidence of (something similar to) algorithms in academic writing. In my early days of learning about communication I learnt

‘Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them’

..and I am also mindful of the Rudyard Kipling poem

I keep six honest serving men (they taught me all I knew)

Their names are what and where and when

and How and Why and Who.

A doctoral dissertation is a very sophisticated and complex mode or genre of writing. Brown (1994, 96) advocated that the thesis (whether for a doctoral degree, a journal article or a book chapter) was an exercise in marketing, and thus posed seven questions that in his belief the writing needed to address

What did you do?

Why did you do it?

What happened?

What do the results mean in theory?

What do the results mean in practice?

What is the key benefit for the readers?

What remains unresolved?

Admittedly these seven questions are Brown’s (1994) formula for writing a punchy abstract, and once you have a punchy abstract, the remainder will follow. His suggestions signaled one of many approaches of attempting to deconstruct the nature of the dissertation as one genre of academic writing, bearing in mind that each discipline has its own view of what counts as a good thesis. The emergence of cross discipline studies have blurred many of these rules and guidelines for good writing. Browns (1994, 100) comment that

many examiner’s criticisms would not be made if the candidates took more care to ensure that the examiners knew exactly why each piece of evidence was being introduced at the point it was introduced.

draws attention to the examiner as reader of the dissertation and to the relationship between the dissertation and a complex argument that contains multiple pieces of evidence leading to a conclusion.

The question begs a further question about the role of readers.

What or who is a reader?

I spent four years at a U.K. university undertaking this very role. I was expected to read doctoral dissertation submissions prior to them being sent to the examiners. The intent was to pre-empt examiner evaluation by second guessing what an examiner might say about a given dissertation. The experience led to a specific research supervision blog about how a doctoral supervisor can take on this role in the end times (leading up to submission) of a candidate’s journey.

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/supporting-the-final-dissertation-chapter/)

Over the same period of time, with multiple dissertation examinations under my belt, I also came to realize the importance of making the examination criteria explicit. In the instance of a candidate having to resubmit their dissertation, the examiners need to detail what needs to be corrected or reworked in order for the dissertation to meet the expectations (at least of those examiners). It is almost a contract of requirements. The experiences have helped me to clarify my own rubric about examining dissertations.

1. What is the question that you are asking?
2. How do you propose to investigate this?  (A question that invites articulation of beliefs related to truth and knowledge)
3. What is counting as data and how will you make sense of this?
4. Conclusion, implications and contributions to the discourse.

Over time I have seen these criteria change, at least from the initial rubric I published as an agenda to Sankaran, Swepson and Hill (2005). The value of provenance. One of the areas of increased expectation is around my own theorizing with regard to Provenance of a Practice. Does the dissertation adequately explore the history related to this topic that the candidate carries with them?

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2019/10/16/practitioner-inquiry-and/)

How has the candidate searched for their literature or their relevant discourses?

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2022/05/)

What contribution does the candidate propose have been made by the inquiry?

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/how-can-you-tell-when-there-has-been-a-contribution-to-knowledge-in-a-doctoral-research-study/)

… and yes a sophisticated computer could probably explore a written submission of whether you have addressed these.

Some of the key additions that have come from my examining and viva experiences are

(supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2018/12/)

1. How did the study impact the writing and their own practice? This is often an overlooked part of the contributions that the candidates own practice has changed as a result of investigating something.
2. How consistent a candidate is with their terms.

These changes in my own agenda of what I look for as a non artificial intelligence examiner speak to the thesis of the whole blog, that while computers may be able to do a lot of checking, you still need a lot of human discernment in examining a dissertation.

……….

Brown, R. (1994). The “big picture” about managing writing. In O. Zuber-Skerritt, & Y. Ryan (Eds.). Quality in postgraduate education (chapter 8). London: Kogan Page.

Hill, G. (2021). Benchmarking practice with affirming and disconfirming evidence. In Hill, G. and Rixon, A. (Eds) Making Sense of Stories: an Inquirer’s compendium. (pp 49-52).  Cambridge University Publication, Cambridge: U.K. https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6587-6/

Kelly, G. A. (2017). A brief introduction to personal construct theory. Costruttivismi, 4: 3-25 DOI: 10.23826/2017.01.003.025

Sankaran, S., Swepson, P. and Hill, G. (2005). Do Research Thesis Examiners need training? Practitioner stories. The Qualitative Report, 10 (4), 817-835. https://opus.lib.uts.edu.au/bitstream/10453/9893/1/2006009093OK.pdf

Tredinnick, L. (2017) Artificial intelligence and professional roles. Business Information Review, 34(1), 37–41.  DOI: 10.1177/026638211769262

Turing A (1951) Intelligent machinery: a heretical theory. In: Copeland J (ed), The Essential Turing. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 472–475.

View from the top of the world: Acknowledging success!

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner

With Dr Sarya Begum (newly graduated Ed.D.)

Since the first explorer conquered Everest, and with the technological breakthroughs of photography, we are now blessed with multiple images of what the view is (or appears to be) from the top of the world’s tallest mountain. The parallel is not lost on each new doctoral candidate who is advised by their examining body that their dissertation has been accepted and they will be awarded the doctoral degree by their auspicing body.

This blog has consistently drawn attention to the emotional journey associated with undertaking a doctoral degree.

      Talking about the resilient researcher in the blog on ‘Resilience in the face of adversity’ in the very early articles on the blog

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/resilience-in-the-face-of-adversity/]

Talking about thesis depression….

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/recognising-and-empathising-with-thesis-depression/]

… and the expectations on research supervisors to provide emotional support along with all the other forms of support they offer

[ supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2014/03/06/seeking-emotional-support/]

The conferring of the doctoral degree does not always indicate the end of the supervisory relationship, and even as it is happening, the emotional needs of the person with whom you have had a long standing supervisory relationship can open new agendas of support.

From my own experience of graduating with doctoral degrees, I know full well that it does not end there. In some ways, the conferring of the doctoral degree can be seen as the beginning of one’s time as a researcher. Whether there is continued research or not, the conferring of the degree signals a shift in the relationship between the student and their supervisor as the student becomes a researcher in their own right.

Recently, a doctoral candidate with whom I have had a supervisory relationship, was advised that her most recent submission had been deemed by the examiners to constitute a doctoral degree.

She advised me in an email

“I have fabulous news!!!!

I have finally achieved my degree for doctorate of Education.“

This has been a long haul and involved the usual stages of progression as well as a submission and resubmission. It takes particular resilience to maintain the enthusiasm and determination through this.

My immediate response was…

‘Congratulations Dr Begum,

I am so pleased that you have achieved this result after a long and arduous effort.

I hope your family and school see the benefits in this both for your career and for your contribution as a teacher.

All the best’

And later in the day, as I had constantly reflected on her achievement, I followed up my initial congratulations with an invitation to write (more)!

‘It would be good to know from you

1. What is the cluster of emotions that you are experiencing knowing that you have achieved your doctoral degree?
2. What would you consider were the most difficult
   parts of your climb?
3. What would be your advice to other candidates finding
   the doctoral process challenging and time consuming?’

Recognising that even the completion of the doctoral degree can signal the beginning of something else, and for some candidates this can be a first research publication; whereas for others, due to the popularity of understanding doctoral candidate’s stories [see for example Deconstructing Doctoral Discourses: Stories and Strategies for Success edited by Mulligan, Ryan and Danaher, 2022] the milestone might involve documenting their story for the benefits of others who may be interested in the process or even the methodologies used.

My colleague’s answers were as follows:

Cluster of emotions:

At the moment I do feel on top of the world. I am still processing my achievement. However, I have not forgot the challenges that I confronted on a daily basis. The passion that I needed to continue and not give up. 

Challenges:

There were many a moment, when I thought of giving up; however, the hunger for achieving that goal was too great, which encouraged me to continue and not give up. The Covid period took its toll, as I was working from home and was spending far more time on the computer which created numerous challenges and impacted my mental well-being. 

There are many steep mountains which numerous climbers want to climb. However, the mountain that I climbed was far steeper, which meant that I slipped constantly. The passion to achieve encouraged me to pick myself up and have another go. While my supervisors at one point encouraged me to think about going for a MPhil, your support and encouragement. allowed me to focus on the EdD. 

Over the past few days, I have felt numerous emotions, from sheer disbelief. to feelings of excitement, joy and empowerment. 

My advice to other candidates:

If you want to achieve your goal then passion, dedication and sincere commitment is needed.  If your goal is your dream, then continue to persevere irrespective of the challenges that come your way. 

There were occasions when even my family felt that I should not continue. However, I strongly believed that if I was to give up, it needed to come from me. I needed to do a lot of soul searching and because my heart and mind did not to give up despite the struggles, I persevered. This perseverance enabled me to achieve my lifelong goal, and today, I stand tall, proud and grateful for what I have achieved.

The encouragement to write more is part of a broader agenda as a research supervisor to continue the journey that has only begun with the doctoral degree. For different doctoral candidates this can mean different things:

A journal article taking part of the dissertation and using it to elaborate a methodology [you can see an example of this in supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2020/11/06/feedback-to-doctoral-candidates-about-signposting-in-their-academic-writing/ a doctoral dissertation by Jo Trelfa I had the fortune to examine]

A book chapter that shares elements of the inquiry – such as the analysis methods.

A conference presentation that with others helps to build the discourse surrounding completing doctoral candidates.

Mulligan, D., Ryan, N. and Danaher, P. (Eds) (2022) Deconstructing Doctoral Discourses: Stories and Strategies for Success. Palgrave, MacMillan: Switzerland.

[This blog has been inspired by the completion of a doctoral degree in Education by Sarya Begum at Birmingham City University. I was her supervisor in the beginning period of her candidature and shifted to a critical friend role when I ceased to work for that university]

Senso Unico:

Verifying your claims.

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner

Undertaking or doing research involves consideration of truth and knowledge. Both concepts are disputed!

Some researchers hold the view that their research involves searching for a single truth – for example Positivism (Comte, 1957/1848). Others in their practice of research hold a view of multiple truths – for example Constructivism (Kelly, 2017).

The same varied positions apply to views about knowledge.

Some hold a view that knowledge is found through scientific method, a process with its roots in Aristotle’s philosophy. An alternate view, often common with practice-led inquiry, is that knowledge about professional practice is uncovered and illuminated through reflecting on that practice

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2022/07/25/supporting-a-doctoral-candidate-as-they-swap-modes-helping-to-bat-for-the-other-team/]

When a researcher illuminates their position in both these aspects, it is often referred to as illuminating their inquiry paradigm.

Often when a doctoral candidate embarks on their inquiry, they have a view of the world and particularly the situation or practice that they are proposing to investigate. They may be tempted to prove what they already believe about the issue or practice they are investigating rather than actively seeking affirming and disaffirming evidence about their topic (Hill, 2021).

It is not just the topic they are investigating. The same thinking can also apply to what counts as ‘good’ research practice. As I immerse myself in my own research practice, seeking both affirming and disaffirming evidence for every aspect of research practice, I can realise that ‘good’ research practice, and indeed ‘good’ research supervision practices depend on many different factors.

A story to embellish the point!

In my early and initial travels away from Australia, I, like many of my counterparts, travelled from Greece to Italy within a broader European tour. Unlike my fellow travellers, when I arrived in Brindisi (Italy), noting a rush to catch the train to Rome, I decided that I would walk a different path and spend some time in discovering Brindisi.

While I had strong schoolboy French, my Italian was limited to fettucine, ciao and gracias, and so, when in Brindisi I saw a sign that indicated ‘senso unico’, I surmised (my truth) that this was directing me to something interesting or unique. I followed the sign and sure enough (affirming) I discovered a little monastery with a delightful herb garden. It was not until some days later as I continued my Italian tour that I realised that ‘senso unico’ did not always lead to something interesting, but with this additional evidence I also hypothesised that I may have read an old sign and things may have changed.

Finally, and fortunately before I had dwelt for too long on this misconception for too, I realised that ‘senso unico’ indicated a oneway street!

Recently, an inquiry into ‘genre’ helped me to discover that I needed to broaden my initial thoughts.

I was first exposed to the term ‘genre’ in Film and Television studies that talked about film genres – such as ‘the Western’ or ‘Film Noir’. I understood the term as a descriptor for similarly presented or themed movies, and that while genre described Film Noir, there were many different examples of what constituted a Film Noir movie.

Later as I moved into teaching Education, I saw the term ‘genre’ being used to talk about different types of school student writing. In particular I noted Grade 4 children were often introduced to the literature genre of ‘ballad’, and with my music knowledge I understood that this type or genre of writing or literature had some rules or guidelines about how one might both recognize and write a ballad. Understanding these rules or the defining features of a ‘ballad’, helped the student and the ‘ballad’ writer.

More recently, as my career shifted into Academic Writing, I have become aware of increased usage of the term ‘genre’, particularly in the fields of Higher Education academic writing where it is frequently used to talk about different student assignments as genres of academic writing and different academic conference presentations are representing different genres. In these explorations I discovered an early French usage of the term ‘genre’ , the language in which the term originated, in Dubos’ (1719) French 18^th century aesthetics book ‘Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture’ (Sofio, 2015). Locating this book, and relying on my schoolboy French, I could see that Dubos (1719) devoted a whole chapter to ‘Des differens genres de la pœsie & de la Peinteire’ (different types of poetry and painting) and also referred to different (theatre) genres of Tragedy and Comedy in her discussion of French playwright Moliere. Dubos’ references to aesthetic distinctions or genres of theatre and literature was common to other literary writers, and these sorts of discussion were often inspired by   Aristotle’s (330 BC) own categorization of Poetics into drama, lyric poetry and epics (Golban and Ciabanu, 2007).

There were also English language literary criticism that provided evidence of migration of the term ‘genre’ into English language books – For example, Frye’s (1957) four essays on Anatomy of (Literary) Criticism uses genre extensively. Frye (1957) illuminated Aristotle’s discussions of different types of Poetics (Aristotle, ca. 330 BC), and in his own writing used the term ‘genre’ as an alternative to ‘convention’. In the fourth of his essays, Frye (1957, 246) specifically addressed genre, positing a definition of sorts by describing genre as ‘a specific kind of verbal structure’.

By the 1990s, Hyon (1996) was suggesting multiple traditions of ‘genre’ in English as Second Language (ESL) studies:

1. The English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Tradition in which scholars detailed formal characteristics of genres.
2. North American New Rhetoric Tradition which illuminated the situational contexts in which genres occur. And 
3. the Australian Systemic-Functional Tradition in which genre is presented as one element in a complex social semiotic system.

Motta-Roth and Herberle (2014, 22) increased this discourse framework to four conversations, proposing a tradition emerging from Geneva Switzerland as a fourth potential tradition of genre usage.

By 2000, Swales (2004) declared a ‘genre movement’ in academic writing beginning in the 1980s. He (2004, 3) described genre as  “rhetorical consciousness-raising”, suggesting that using the term ‘genres’ was not an attempt to define or limit types of rhetoric but to raise awareness of the differences between types.

Such a position of variation is valuable for someone teaching academic writing. For a supervisor supporting a candidate as they learn one of the highly discussed genres of Higher Education writing, the dissertation, the idea that it is a genre is an important stance for both guiding towards the recognizable features of a dissertation as well as encouraging challenge to the traditions by way of chosen paradigm, topic or research question and indeed the general doctoral sense of wanting to do something different.

The thought that use of ‘genre’ is not to specify each different type of academic writing but to highlight how the different types are different, reinforces that in academic writing there are not formulas or restrictions about how academic writing is achieved-

See for example

supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2022/06/10/supporting-a-doctoral-candidate-to-work-out-of-the-box/

it is very much a case of not a single way!

………………………………..

Comte, A. (1957/1848). A General view of Positivism Official centenary edition of the International Auguste Comte Centenary Committee [Translated from the French by J. H. Bridges in 1957]. Speller: New York. U.S.A.

Dubos, A. (1719). Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture.

Frye, N. (1957). Anatomy of Criticism. Four essays. Princeton University:  Princeton, U.S.A.

Golban, P. and Ciobanu, E. (2008) A Short History of Literary Criticism. Üç Mart Press: Kütahya: Turkey. ISBN 978-975-01663-3-4

Hill, G. (2021). Benchmarking practice with affirming and disconfirming evidence. In Hill, G. and Rixon, A. (Eds) Making Sense of Stories: an Inquirer’s compendium. (pp 49-52).  Cambridge University Publication, Cambridge: U.K. https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-6587-6/

Hyon, S (1996). Genre in Three Traditions: Implications for ESL. Tesol Quarterly, 30 (4), 693-722. https://doi.org/10.2307/3587930

Kelly, G. A. (2017). A brief introduction to personal construct theory. Costruttivismi, 4: 3-25.  doi 10.23826/2017.01.003.025

Motta-Roth, D.  and Heberle, V. (2015) A short cartography of genre studies in Brazil, Journal of English for Academic purposes. 19, 22-31.

Sofio. S. (2015). Gendering the history of art criticism in France, 1750-1850. Gender in Arts Criticism International Conference. Paris, France. ffhal-02874125f

Swales, J. (2004). Research Genres: Explorations and Applications. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge: U.K. 10.1017/CBO9781139524827

A sense of goodness: making the quality discourse explicit.

Geof Hill – the Investigative Practitioner

One of the challenges in working with doctoral candidates is helping them to understand implicit quality criteria for various issues or practices they are investigating, while at the same time alerting them to the nature of quality in the whole investigation practice. Teasing out these innate or embedded rubrics of quality can create a start to helping them to understand issues of analysis and evaluation.

A case in point is the crepe dessert!

Recently my wife commented on crepes which we had ordered for dessert at a restaurant. ‘These are not as good as the crepes we had in Barcelona!’ she replied, inadvertently opening up a pandora’s box of comments about crepes and their varying quality.

At a first level in this conversation, we remembered that we had ordered crepes at several different places both in our (adopted) home city Birmingham U.K. and other cities which we visited over the previous months. There were the crepes purchased at Birmingham’s Canon Hill Garden’s markets that had delicious taste but were take-away crepes and a little difficult to eat. These crepes could be compared to crepes purchased at the Kew Garden (London) Christmas light show, that were also take away crepes but were not as well cooked as the Canon Hill markets crepes. As the conversation progressed, we began to draw distinctions between two similar products and make/construct comparative analysis based on the criteria of well-cookedness.

The mere thought of crepes brought to our minds the Barcelona Creperie where we enjoyed crepe dessert each night of our four night Barcelona stay. In this context of international crepe experiences we could compare the very positive Barcelona experience with those provided in a street café in Como (Italy) which were really pizza bread/pitta bread disguised to resemble a crepe, and added only to our conversation as an example of the worst.

Such a conversation about crepes also usually drew in reminiscences, such as the crepes at the Boulevard Hotel in Sydney (Australia) that still rated as a significant benchmark, bearing in mind that these older memories are sometimes biased with the reminiscence of positive and distant memories.

Such conversations bring into play that almost every issue will have a discourse that represents and discusses that issue. Part of the agenda for a doctoral candidate it to show through their writing their awareness of this discourse and how it contributes to notions or constructs of ‘goodness’. Often a doctoral dissertation is exploring some essence of what counts as good [or the absence of which counts as not good] for the issue at the heart of the investigation. With such literature, a doctoral candidate can then progress to explore elements of analysis and evaluation of the issue they are investigating.

In addition to the conversations of quality that exist for almost any topic, there is also a well-documented discourse surrounding quality of a  dissertation or a thesis. Early examples of this writing are evident in books [for example Phillips and Pugh (1987)] and, because there is a vibrant conversation about the doctoral dissertation as an higher education genre of academic writing, there are also more recent examples [such as Pare, A., Starke-Meyerring, D and McAlpine, L (2009)] that not only speak to quality but illuminates the contested nature of what counts as a ‘good’ doctoral dissertation. This blog (Hill, 2011) is also a contributor to the discourse with what is perhaps its’ most accessed page written about making explicit assessment criteria from the perspective of being a doctoral dissertation examiner.

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/how-can-you-tell-when-there-has-been-a-contribution-to-knowledge-in-a-doctoral-research-study/]

At the outset of their doctoral candidature, a researcher may not be aware of what counts as a good dissertation, and as they progress their understanding of what it means to investigate an issue, their very language begins to identify not only what is ‘good’ around the issue they are investigating, but what might be ‘good’ in terms of a doctoral dissertation. Particularly as they explore the discourse pertinent to the issue they are investigating, they discover articles about what is ‘good’, or more often what is ‘not good’, and thus develop both the agendas associated with the discourse and awareness of contestation. As is the case wherever ‘goodness’ appears, the term is contested, and particularly in the context of the paradigm revolution there are many discussions about what counts as ‘good’ in a doctoral dissertation.

One classic example of ‘good’ research writing for me was Somekh’s (1995) paper on using first person writing in an action research doctoral inquiry.

By the time a reader of a dissertation is reaching the end of the document they need to see evidence in the inquirer’s writing about why they have adopted certain writing devices and how these devices align with the paradigm they hold about inquiry – how this reflects their beliefs about truth and knowledge. These forms of writing contribute to the transparency of their argument. While a reader may not agree with a particular selection, or jar at the use of a certain term, they can also see the awareness and choice that the writer/inquirer is making so that their dissertation reflects their many different positions related to inquiry.

It is often on the basis of these sometimes hidden criteria that a reader/examiner makes their conclusion that a dissertation is ‘good’ or ‘passable’.

………………………………………….

• Hill,  G. (2011) How can you tell when there has been a contribution to knowledge in a doctoral dissertation? [supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/how-can-you-tell-when-there-has-been-a-contribution-to-knowledge-in-a-doctoral-research-study/]
• Phillips, E. and Pugh D. (1987). How To Get a Ph.D.: Managing the Peaks and Troughs of Research. Taylor and Francis: Bristol, U.K.
• Pare, A., Starke-Meyerring, D and McAlpine, L ( The dissertation as multi-genre: many readers, many readings. In Bazerman, C., Bonini, A. and Figueiredo, D.  (Eds.). (2009). Genre in a Changing World. The WAC Clearinghouse; Parlor Press. https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2009.2324. Pp 179-193.
• Somekh, B. (1995). The Contribution of Action Research to Development in Social Endeavours: A Position Paper on Action Research Methodology. British Educational Research Journal, 21 (3), 339-355

Supporting a doctoral candidate to write a research proposal – encasing the research question.

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner

Writing or identifying a research question is foundational to undertaking research or investigating. The specificity of the question varies in relation to the paradigm or belief system that underpins the ways in which an inquirer/investigator practices research, but without a question to focus an inquiry, a researcher/investigator may flounder! Any research or inquiry involves searching for some new knowledge – although what counts as new knowledge is a contested space

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/how-can-you-tell-when-there-has-been-a-contribution-to-knowledge-in-a-doctoral-research-study/]

The research question could be quite general, particularly if the area of investigation is poorly known; a broad question enables an inquirer to look at what is known to help focus on what might not be known. The research question could be quite specific, recognizing what is already known about an issue from other published research, and identifying elements of those inquiries in which there is still space for additional or more focused inquiry.

There are two elements to formulating a research/inquiry question:

The first is a thinking process that involves reflection, not only on your topic but on how you became interested in this topic. An inquirer may often experience a period of ‘troubling’ (Schön, 1983, 50) around the issue they are intending to investigate that leads them into a desire to undertake a more formal inquiry. Sometimes this ‘troubling’ can involve traumatic events associated with the issue, that in the inquirer’s lived experience warrant not only their resolving their dilemma, but of making that exploration available to the wide community. One such example that comes to mind is Howard Brown’s experiences of witnessing a friend’s murder that led into his victim advocacy.

High profile Aussie victim advocate Howard Brown is now the one who needs support through his health battle (nine.com.au)

The second element is a writing one in which an inquirer/investigator writes or presents an argument for undertaking an inquiry. This written argument is an opportunity to demonstrate to a reader what you know about what is known about the topic. Often this declaration is referred to as a literature review. Sometimes a broader term of discourse review is used to describe a literature review …

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2022/05/09/what-fruit-goes-with-gin/]

…as this term acknowledges that discussion or discourse about the topic being investigated exists in media other than print, such as the social media.

If very little appears to be known about the issue you propose to investigate, not only would you need to demonstrate to a potential reader of your proposal that there is limited knowledge about the topic, you may also need to explain how you have come to ‘know’ that there is limited knowledge published about this issue, thus discussing the ways in which you searched for literature about your topic. The expansiveness of your search can support your claims that

1. Nothing is known about a topic.

2. There are contested areas in discussing a topic.

3. There are some gaps in the literature about a topic which make it worthwhile pursuing an investigation.

An alternate extreme is that there is a lot known and published about the topic you propose to investigate, so the challenge in arguing for yet another investigation, is to show how what is currently known frames a potential area of something unknown. In this case, your research question and indeed your research proposal, need to show firstly that you are aware of what is known and secondly, that you can organise and arrange that knowledge to show that there is something still not known.

In some instances, what is currently written about an issue not only explores the issue, but proposes a way to classify and categorise what is currently known. These elements of the discourse show chronologically how a topic has been investigated and then adds an additional framework to help new researchers manage the large amount of information. A good example of this is Dirks and de Jong’s (2022) review of the organisational literature about ‘trust’ that they have organised into ‘waves’ of literature.

In other instances, particularly with practices, it can be shown that chronologically there is a sequence of policies that have informed how a practice is articulated in print and delivered in practice. Such a situation might call for a look at how the policy discussions shaped the practice that is being investigated. Elsewhere in this blog I have referred to this as policy provenance

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2021/07/18/supervising-a-policy-provenance/]

For example, a practice may be under investigation and, in discussing the way in which policy has shaped the practice, it becomes evident that this may have been at the expense or the deficit of individual power in that individuals were disempowered through some of the policies being focussed on this practice – such a discussion would set the scene for a space for exploring not only the lack of power, but the ways in which stakeholders could be empowered or have been empowered.

The act of framing a research question also provides an opportunity for venturing into academic writing. The research proposal is a genre of academic writing and acts as a springboard for an inquiry. I define the research proposal as an extended argument that addresses how a proposed topic can be understood in the context of available literature, and, given this understanding of the focus issue or practice, how the particular topic can be investigated. It identifies

1. The issue or practice that is being investigated;
2. What is known about this issue such that a viable space for what is not known or researchable can be identified;
3. A proposal for a way of investigating it.

It is often the initial writing requirement in a potential research candidate’s journey and is usually submitted within the first year of full-time candidature.

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/analysing-the-research-proposal/]

On the strength of a research proposal, a candidate is often given the go ahead to undertake the proposed inquiry.

Sometimes an issue or practice that is the focus of an inquiry has emerged from an individual’s ‘troubling’, and so a research proposal might rightfully include a provenance document (Hill and Lloyd, 2018) that details this engagement with a problem. Similarly, when an issue or practice has been influenced by policy, there may be a call to include a policy provenance (Davies, 2008).

A good contemporary example of a topic inviting a provenance document would ‘gender equality issues in U.S.A.’ which has been shaped in part by the Roe vs Wade US Supreme Court decision about abortion rights, a decision recently  overturned in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court ruling. The example might draw reference to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, one of the US Supreme Court judges whose legacy is linked to gender equality.

Two additional sections are becoming evident in more contemporary examples of research proposals.

The first addresses the ‘so what?’ question – why is research into something that has been argued researchable, relevant or worthwhile? (Selwyn, 2014). The second is the inclusion of a project plan which details how a researcher will undertake their proposed plan of action.

[supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/analysing-the-project-plan-within-a-research-proposal/]

One of the job expectations in supervising a candidate in their early stages might be to support a candidate in the venture of writing a research proposal, and the more you understand about the role and purpose of the research question within the academic writing genre of a research proposal, the more you are able to support a candidate as they undertake both the reflective and the writing elements of the endeavour.

Not every proposed research question gets answered. Sometimes the process of undertaking an investigation changes the very question that is being explored.

Davies, C. (2008) Understanding the Policy Process. In Fraser, S. and Matthews, S. (Eds) The Critical Practitioner in Social Work and Health Care. London, U.K.: Sage.

Dirks, K. T., & de Jong, B. A. (2022). Trust Within the Workplace: A Review of Two Waves of Research and a Glimpse of the Third. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 9(1), 247-276. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012420-083025

Hill, G. and Lloyd, C. (2018). Articulating practice throughprovenance. Action Research. http://arj.sagepub.com/  

Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. U.S.A.: Basic Books.

Neil Selwyn (2014) ‘So What?’ …a question that every journal article needs to answer, Learning, Media and Technology, 39:1, 1-5, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2013.848454

Supporting a doctoral candidate as they swap ‘modes’: ‘helping to bat for the other team’

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner

At the outset of a candidate embarking on their research journey, they may not be aware of some of their perceptions of research.  This issue was raised in an earlier blog about exploring a candidate’s expectations about research [supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2012/03/13/looking-at-the-expectations-a-tool-for-starting-out-the-candidature/]. As with any practice, a new practitioner carries into their experience often unilluminated beliefs and expectations – for example, researchers embarking on their first research degree may believe that all research involves statistical data or that all of the discoveries must be able to be generalised.

Sometimes, a research supervisor may need to intervene to facilitate a candidates’ progress and expand their understanding of research. One of the effective strategies they can utilise is to expose the candidate to different types of literature – not only literature about the topic or issue they are investigating. This ‘education’ might involve contemplating a shift in their mode of research from quantitative to qualitative when they may not have even realised that their perception of research is dominated by a quantitative view or a positivist view of research. Given views held by some researchers about the ‘correctness’ of scientific method, this shift may also entail dealing with the idea that their colleagues and peers feel that they are ‘batting for the opposing team’.

These experiences of differences were what I experienced as I embarked on my research journey. I had been introduced to research via the discipline of Psychology, and through that lens saw research as mostly statistical thinking. I was not even aware then that what I had was a positivist view on research. As I undertook my first research degree, I learned not only about a revolution in research (Guba and Lincoln, 1982) that generated a whole range of alternative ways of undertaking research, but I found that the alternate ways I had chosen were not always well regarded. Action Research (Reason, 1988) the basis for my first research study into practice, was in the 90s seen as a minority alternative. Years later in my career, and now established both as a researcher and a journal editor, I recognised these same issues in a paper submitted to the journal for consideration, in which the authors articulated their move away from the positivist dominance in Engineering into a way of looking at practice that had them embracing a pilot study in an Engineering investigation. My answers and comments to their writing took me back to my own first research experiences and some of the literature to which I was exposed in those early years exploring Action Research.

1. Illuminate the paradigm wars. In order to understand how one can shift in their practice, it is important to understand the dominant ways of any practice, as well as the revolutions that changed or challenged that dominance. For me, the iconic writing is Guba and Lincoln (1982) in which they illuminate the dominance of a positivist paradigm underpinning research practice and argue for an alternative in naturalistic inquiry. A similar argument for adopting reflective practice as an inquiry paradigm is presented in Donald Schön’s (1983) The Reflective Practitioner where he argues for a shift from ‘technical rationality’ (his term for positivism) to reflection-in-action.
2. Illuminate the writing opportunities that are associated with ‘new’ paradigms. Once the flood gate of my mind and understanding about research had been opened to alternative ways of undertaking research or inquiry, I recognised that many of the traditional practices associated with academic writing could also shift. One strong example was the argument to write about one’s research in the first person; an argument that Brigit Somekh (1995) presented in the early years of emergence of Action Research. There are many more examples of challenges to the traditions of writing about research, such as using poetry (Galvin and Prendergast, 2016) and writing in graphic drawing mode (Carruthers Thomas, 2019).
3. Respect for the alternate as a ‘different’ mode rather than a ‘right and wrong’ mode. There can be a tendency in the post positivism literature to be over critical of positivism, rather than see the alternatives simply as research practices ruled by different paradigms. It is why raising consciousness about one’s belief system underpinning research practice can help to draw attention to practices and the related beliefs about truth and knowledge.
4. Emphasise rigour. Sometimes, a move into what appears to be a more liberal way of writing can inadvertently bring with it a belief that the mode is less rigorous.Helping a researcher recognise that with different paradigms there are different ways of working with both reliability and validity of research (for example Kvale, 1995) and different paradigms invite not only different methods of demonstrating reliability or validity, but sometimes different concepts – such as authenticity (for example Winter,2002) and transparency.
5. One of the capabilities of traditional research is the potential to generalise the findings. Qualitative research is not usually associated with this potential, but Jean McNiff (1984) is describing the ability of action research to generate new possibilities talked about research being Generative rather than generalising. In so doing she invoked the philosophy of Karl Popper (1972) who suggested ‘(each) step will create new unintended facts; new unexpected problems; and often also new refutations.’ This often refers to the potential of qualitative inquiry to generate new ways of thinking or new ways of addressing established problems.

Having now identified what I would call my library of citations about research, I also recognise the presence of many of these citations in my own writing, suggesting to me the power that some of these early iconic works held in shaping my understanding of research practice.

In choosing a label such as ‘batting for the other team’ I was mindful of the overlap that this phrase has with LGBTR literature and similarly with adopting LGBTR ways of undertaking research. This was intentional, and the same guidelines apply to this variation as to any variation or alternate way of approaching a practice.

……………………………………

Carruthers Thomas, K. (2019). Redrawing research methods and rewriting data

Galvin, K.T.  and Prendergast, M.  (Eds.) (2016). Poetic Inquiry II – Seeing, Caring, Understanding: Using Poetry as and for Inquiry. Sense Publishers: Rotterdam.

Guba, E., and Lincoln, Y. (1982). Epistemological and Methodological bases of Naturalistic Inquiry. Education Communication and Technology Journal, 30(4), 233-252.

Kvale, S. (1995).The Social Construction of Validity. Qualitative Inquiry 1 (1), 19-40

Jean McNiff (1984) Action Research: A Generative Model for In‐Service Support, Journal of In-Service Education, 10:3, 40-46, DOI: 10.1080/0305763840100307

Popper, K. (1972) Objective Knowledge. O.U.P.

Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. U.S.A.: Basic Books.

Somekh, B. (1995) The Contribution of Action Research to Development in Social Endeavours: A Position Paper on Action Research Methodology, British Educational Research Journal, 21 (3) 339-355. 

Winter, R. (2002). Truth or Fiction: Problems of validity and authenticity in narratives of action research. Educational Action Research, 10, 143-154.

Supporting a doctoral candidate to work out of the box.

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner citing the work of

Kate Carruthers Thomas

One of the great contradictions in doctoral work is that, while candidates are encouraged to make contributions to knowledge, innovations in either the way a doctoral dissertation is ‘written’ or how the inquiry is undertaken can be suffocated by reliance on tried and true methods.

Previously in this blog I have talked about new and creative ways of disseminating research:

1. The use of practice-led inquiry [ supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2017/07/21/supervising-practice-based-doctorates/]
2. Different arguments for difference [supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2013/09/20/arguing-philosophically-for-something-different-in-the-dissertation/]
3. Drawing on data from lived experience [ supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/problematising-knowledge-which-has-been-drawn-from-experience/]
4.  Working with creative modes [supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/provisioning-the-research-environment-for-creativity-a-research-supervision-pedagogy/]

Linearity is one of the strongly held assumptions in doctoral research writing and is linked to the expectation that a doctoral dissertation is written. As such, the reader works through a series of sections of inquiry guided by the pages of the book. Pre technology revolution this was a sound assumption. Post and continuing technology revolution there are constantly new technologies that can be used to document and disseminate a doctoral inquiry.

What if linearity is not a requirement? What happens when the long- established expectation of a linear dissertation is replaced with sharing of the research using a non-linear approach.

I recall in my own supervision experience, a doctoral candidate asking to submit her work as a virtual page with multiple portals. The mode of delivery she suggested was very similar to the output of her inquiry which took the form of an on-line resource. She was encouraged to submit a traditional linear dissertation because the administration feared that examiners may not have the skills or technology to examine her doctoral dissertation.

This was early 2000s and technology has shot ahead. With two years of various pandemic lock down experiences, examiners and candidates have learned to work with the notion, not only of on-line resources, but of non linearity.

It is with this context in mind that through this blog I want to share the resources developed by Dr. Kate Carruthers Thomas at Birmingham City University U.K. who has disseminated a collaborative post-doctoral inquiry into multiple accounts of female UK academics living and working through 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic using an interactive space designed like a building with different rooms for the reader/viewer to walk through and experience the inquiry. The project used a hybrid research methodology of Zimmerman and Weider’s (1977) anthropological tool, the diary, diary-interview method or DDIM.  The combined methods enabled collection of rich, subjective data.  The creation of this illustrated digital archive then used techniques of graphic social science to present and commentate on the findings.

Dear Diary Project (deardiaryresearch.co.uk)

It is not a doctoral inquiry. But! It offers the possibility of what can be done in terms of challenging the hegemony of the doctoral dissertation, and more generally reflects many initiatives around the world of people exploring alternative modes of research dissemination. In particular, this example is a good model of how to address a problem of linearity. It also represents a case for the reader being empowered to explore a research project report in ways that excite them rather than being guided through it in the mode of the author/inquirer.

What fruit goes with gin?

Geof Hill – The Investigative Practitioner

For regular gin drinkers, a common bar question is ‘what fruit goes with this gin?’ ! Observation and experience have alerted me to the expectation that a gin is often served with some sort of vegetable or fruit.

‘What fruit goes with this gin?’ is thus a viable ‘research’ question.

When posed by a ‘researcher’ on the most utilised search engine – Google – with the brand name Mayfair specified, as I did, one learns that apple is the accompanying fruit for this brand. In the course of this ‘inquiry’, I also discovered that the more pertinent question to enter into Google search is ‘what garnish goes with Mayfair gin?’.

What may seem an intriguing introduction to a blog ostensibly about research supervision, is actually a lived experience drawing attention to the importance of a well stated research or inquiry question. This issue that has been brought to my mind in three recent and separate research supervision or critical friend projects all linked to the challenge…

Why is exploring the discourse an important part of framing the question that is being asked in the research or inquiry?

The three independent projects were: Firstly supporting a new doctoral candidate developing a research proposal; secondly reviewing an article for journal publication; and thirdly,  identifying potential examiner questions for a near to submission candidate to support their viva training. All three authors/candidates shared a common struggle to understand the relationship between the literature about the practice or issue they were investigating and the research or inquiry question that was the foundation for the research or inquiry.

Part of their confusion may be in the way this common challenge is articulated – referring to it as a ‘writing a literature review’. The title gives the impression that all a researcher needs to do is to list the literature that is related to their topic. When this challenge is changed to ‘writing a review of the literature’ it has the potential to conjure up a slightly different version of what this common part of a doctoral dissertation is doing.

Reviewing the literature helps to frame the question being posed by the researcher/inquirer in the conversations or discourses that are already taking place about this issue and can be found in a host of literature. It also helps clarify the confusion if the phrase is changed from a

‘review of the literature’

to a

‘review of the discourses’

as this expands the scope idea of where one is searching to include things other than literature – such as web pages, policies, or comments made in a myriad of sources by practitioners living and breathing this issue!

(this issue was explored in a previous blog about the research proposal supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/analysing-the-research-proposal/)

The consideration of writing a review of literature/discourse can accentuate some important threshold ideas of doctoral inquiry.

1. When one is doing research, discussion of the question being asked by the inquiry is required. Sometimes the question may not be clearly formulated in the early stages of an inquiry, it may thus be expressed as ‘troubling’ (Schön, 1983, 50)

[ Donald Schön in his iconic Reflective Practitioner raised the issue that a practitioner investigating their own professional practice may go through a period of worrying about something or ‘troubling’ over an aspect of the practice, and this initiates and leads into a full- scale investigation. The value of such reflective practice for the profession of a research supervisor was explored in a blog on October 21^st 2015 supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/597/]

2.By exploring how this issue is articulated in a range of different conversation media, an inquirer can ascertain what language is used to explore this question and the search for comments about this issue and can also begin to identify what is currently known and what is potentially not known about this issue, thus making clear the viability of an inquiry to contribute to the knowledge about the issue.

Like many forms of academic writing, the role of a supervisor/critical friend is often in providing feedback on iterative drafts of the academic writing.

When I reviewed the comments I made in reading and commenting on the three different projects, I was reminded of some of the ‘reader’ issues that I experienced as a supervisor or critical friend in reading presentations of the review of literature in different academic texts.

Three major themes emerge from my own practices as a reader.

1. The chronology. When using literature or discourse examples to shed light on a practice or issue that is being investigated, it helps to consider the order in which the literature or discourses have been published. This chronological order might show the development of a way of thinking about that practice or issue.

For example, as is evident in several of the blogs for this collection, the idea of discussing research supervision was not always aligned with a pedagogy argument, and over time different conversations developed around research supervision practices.  

(This theme is explored in the blog about Pedagogy at

supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2013/12/10/reviewing-research-supervisionadvising-pedagogy/)

2.The language (and images). When someone is investigating a practice or issue, they often draw on a vocabulary of language.

In the same way as in the anecdote that initiated this blog, I looked at the difference between a search question using the word ‘garnish’ rather than ‘fruit or vegetable’, reading what else has been said about a practice or issue can reveal this language. This agenda also extends to the use of any of the words being used in the overall argument.

The issue of language begins with the words in the research question and/or the inquiry title, and how these words are established as the language for discussing this practice or issue.

A reader could ask

• How are the words used in the title or the research question positioned within the overall discourse?
• Does the language of the discourse include metaphors related to how the literature or discourses could be understood?

For example, in one of the articles I reviewed, one pair of authors proposed that the literature was evident in ‘waves’. How are these waves defined? Are the waves chronological or are they representing lenses for thinking about the practice or issue?

What models are already evident in the literature?

For example, sometimes in the literature on a practice or issue there are articles that summarise the literature and propose a diagrammatic form through which the collection of literature/discourses can be understood. A simple diagrammatic form is evident in writing about special needs education where the literature can be divided as pre and post The Salamanca Agreement (UNESCO, 1994).

How robust is this model? What literature do they cite within their model? Does other literature that they have not cited fit comfortably within the model they have proposed.

3. The argument. In order to word a research question and position that question within a broader conversation or discussion about an issue or practice, the writer needs to argue.

An argument is all about presenting data and reaching conclusions

(This theme was explored in the previous blog about the argument skeleton supervisorsfriend.wordpress.com/2022/01/24/the-value-of-a-skeleton/)

So, a reader can ask the questions:

• Does the presentation of different literature allow for the reader to compare and contrast the literature around identified criteria?
• Do the conclusions reached about the literature or discourses cited contribute to an overall argument about the literature/discourses and what is known or not known about the issue?

Most importantly, one of the conclusions reached after looking at literature/discourses goes beyond the research question and focuses on how this question might be explored – the methodology.

• Has the cited literature/discourses identified the ways in which this issue has been investigated as compared to what is known/non known about the issue?

For example, early inquiry into practice was often undertaken as statistical inquiry and later, as researchers realised the value of individual stories, shifted to using stories as the data. Literature about studies of practice will often make the distinction whether the data is statistical or based on stories or narratives.  

[ this is an issue I have explored in a previous blog Considering Narrative – Stories of research practice

October 5^th 2011]

Schön, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How professionals think in action. U.S.A.: Basic Books.

UNESCO (1994) The Salamanca Statement And Framework For Action On Special Needs Education: Adopted By The World Conference On Special Needs Education: Access And Quality, Salamanca, 7-10 June.