Typhoon Sendong hits Cagayan de Oro

Take a moment and watch this horrifying video that shows the power of the flooding Cagayan de Oro (CDO). For those of you unfamiliar with this part of the Philippines, it's in the north central section in a province called Misamis Oriental. While the RP is hit annually by a barrage of typhoons and heavy rain, CDO is generally spared due to geography and the jet stream. It's a port city--right on the water--and no one was prepared for this typhoon, which hit unsuspecting residents in the middle of the night. Those of you so inclined can donate to the Philippines Red Cross here: http://www.redcross.org.ph/donate. Please share this message far and wide.

How to Write a Dissertation

Hello everyone,

Recently, my friend Tony Normore and I facilitated a writing workshop for the UCEA Jackson Scholars Program in Pittsburgh. We crammed a lot into a relatively brief session and I think it went pretty well. Doing that session made me revisit a brief book chapter I wrote for Ray Calabrese and Page Smith's excellent book, The faculty mentor’s wisdom: Conceptualizing, writing and defending the dissertation. It's a quick little set of tips for writers written in a lighthearted way, but I think there is also some useful stuff in there that may apply to writers from many walks of life. In any event, here are the points from my chapter:

How to Write Your Dissertation: A Top Ten List!

I offer the following list having reflected on my own experience as a dissertation-writer and on my experiences chairing and serving students on dissertation committees. Admittedly (and unabashedly), I’m having a bit of fun with my charge of offering advice to students in the form of a top ten list. 

10. Know what a high-quality dissertation looks like. Before you begin, take the time to find several exemplars—examples of outstanding works you can use for inspiration and guidance. In particular, make sure to look for exemplars that (a) focus on a similar topic to the one you have chosen, (b) employ similar research methods to those you have chosen, and (c) are considered high-quality both in your department or at a national/international level. Points “a” and “b” will help inform the way you construct arguments, how you substantiate your claims, and how you understand how much detail to include in your work. Point “c” will help you understand what success looks like, both in your program area and on a national-international level. There are many dissertation awards that list outstanding works, but make sure you also ask your mentors and fellow students for good, close-to-home examples that don’t have a blue ribbon stuck on the cover. 

9. There must be synergy between all parts of your dissertation. One of the most common mistakes I see in dissertations is a disconnection between the various chapters and sections. For example, I read about teacher professional development in the literature review and then in the findings I find that all of the sudden I’m reading about gender dynamics of the superintendency. Not all are this dramatic, of course, but I find some level of this disconnection in nearly every supposedly final dissertation draft I’ve read. This is in part due to the fact that students are often encouraged to write chapters in isolation; they write one chapter and then move on to the next. To be sure, this is a completely appropriate and logical way to begin, but there is a crucial step missing if that is all you do—you must seek and create synergy between extant literature, methods, findings and the discussion—they must be in concert. To help ensure this synergy, after you have written a draft of all chapters, re-read them out of sequence; read chapter one and five together, read chapter two and four together, etc. Ask yourself—are there clear links here? Is it obviously part of same study? Am I introducing superfluous ideas that don’t have a logical place in the final manuscript? There should be an overall coherence and consistency throughout the work. 

8. Know yourself as a writer. As writers, we all have strengths and weaknesses and it is important to concretely assess what these are. Some of us are great technical writers, with a firm grasp of mechanics, grammar, and construction. Others are “big-idea” writers, able to synthesize a great deal of information, understand intricate theories, or see the broad implications of the work beyond what is readily apparent. Conversely, some of us are poor grammarians and some folks can write a part of the whole but have a tough time putting it all together. Of course, this list goes on and on—some people write quickly, some slowly; some write well in the morning and others past midnight; some do their best work when they receive constant feedback throughout the process and others need prolonged isolation; some write well with a good cup of coffee and others after a beer. Guess what? People with each of these styles are world-class writers. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing and it is important for you to find what works for you. You are unique, and regardless of your weaknesses, if you build on your strengths and find a rhythm that works, you can be a successful writer. 

7. Establish and cultivate a multi-tiered and a multi-purpose support network. It is important to take stock of the forms of support and resources available to you through your university and in your extant support network. Keep in mind that the person you meet over lunch to vent about the week’s frustrations may not be the best person to edit your manuscript. Take stock of your dissertation committee, fellow students and university/community resources. Is there a great editor in your network? Is there someone who understands the literature informing your study? Is there a competent and experienced methodologist at your disposal? Do you know the librarians at your university? Are there writing groups in your college? If you take stock of yourself as a writer (see #6, above) and then take stock of the support network around you, you will likely see strengths and weaknesses—do something about them! As a final note, don’t have the illusion that your dissertation chair is your one-stop-shop for dissertation maintenance and repair. Be clear and critical about that person’s strengths and weaknesses as well, and understand that they are only part of your network, not your entire universe. Can’t find some of these things at your university? Consider establishing them yourself or enlisting support from somewhere else—for example, the “outside” member of my dissertation committee was from another university.  

6. Get organized. This means something different to everyone, but broadly speaking, if you are unorganized you will take longer than you should to finish your dissertation and the quality of your work will suffer. Get a paper filing system, get your computer files into a system that makes sense, make sure your data are in a secure and ordered location, put the date in a header or footer on every draft of your manuscript. Notably, this means that you need to be organized with respect to the document itself and with all paperwork and deadlines for the university, college and department—those dates are your responsibility.  

5. Focus. Print off your research questions and tape them to the wall in full view so you can refer to them as you type. Every single word and sentence you type should ultimately contribute to answering those questions. If you find a section, paragraph, sentence, or word that does not make such a contribution, get rid of it—the delete button is your friend.

4. Don’t just be a scholar, be a productive scholar. Universities are full of smart people who are unable or unwilling to translate their brilliance into scholarly products. If you want to finish your dissertation, don’t work with those people and don’t be that person. Those folks are scholars, but you want to be a productive scholar, and a productive scholar produces. Every time you sit down to work, every time—whether you are reading an article or working on your methodology section, you should have something you can hold in your hand to show for that time. If you haven’t produced something—a paragraph, three pages, a set of notes that correspond to the article you just read, a rough draft, some free writing, etc. then you wasted your time. Sitting in a coffee shop and thinking deep thoughts may be a pleasant way to spend an afternoon, but it will not get your dissertation written. If you find you spend your time in an unproductive manner, change your routine, get new friends, write longhand instead of typing—you are in a rut! Do something to get out of it. 

3. Think about the impact of your dissertation on the rest of your life, now and in the future. Some of the best advice I received during my dissertation was from my committee member Bill Ayers, offered over an early-morning coffee in Chicago: “don’t make your family victims of the fact that you chose to be a qualitative researcher.” You can do scholarly work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you let it, this can take a toll on your health, your relationships and your general happiness. Don’t let the dissertation eat your soul or body! Go jogging, take a day off, eat healthful food, laugh, play, appreciate the people in your life, and pay attention to the world outside of those five chapters—these other things are more important than your dissertation. 

2. READ. You must make time to read throughout the dissertation-writing phase and approach that reading with a critical eye. This must be critical reading both of new literature and your own work. Pay attention not only to content, but also to the way in which other authors construct their arguments, support their claims, and make their recommendations. I guarantee you will learn something and you will be able to put it to good use!

1. WRITE. As a former language arts teacher, I’m biased, but I strongly believe that all of the things your elementary and middle school teachers taught you WORK. Use an outline, write a topic sentence and support it with evidence, write something in several ways, use synonyms and antonyms, vary your sentence structure, set deadlines to complete parts of the work and hit them. In part, a scholar’s life is a writer’s life, and there’s no better way to improve as a writer than by writing.

Poverty and Privilege

I'm currently in the Philippines. Malate, a section of Manila near Manila Bay to be precise. The purpose of the trip is business--I'm here to design a research project with Ian Sutherland, a friend of mine who's lived and worked in Manila for many years. What's the nature of the research? There is an (in)famous landfill in Manila called the Smokey Mountains. It's a huge garbage dump where people called "scavengers" pick through the rubbish looking for recyclables or anything else of value that can be used or sold. Here is a video some folks took a few years ago that gives you a sense of some of the basic issues and living conditions. It ends with a pretty moving musical montage:

So...Ian has been involved with some philanthropic organizations who have, over the years, provided aid in the form of various services. Some of the programs are educational, some are feeding programs, others are religious in nature and still others try to address infrastructure of the community. But Ian shared with me that he gets the sense that while the aid programs generally make a short-term difference, they rarely (if ever) facilitate sustainable improvement in the lives of Smokey Mountain's residents. There are of course many reasons this could be--poorly designed programs, programs that are well-designed but that run out of funding, etc. But Ian felt that one thing missing might be a deep understanding of the community's culture--their beliefs, values, norms, dreams, expectations, economic realities, histories and so on. Since these are some of the things I study he reached out to me through a mutual friend and now we're in the Smokey Mountains, trying to design a research project that helps us understand some of these issues.

Here are a few of the things we are trying to consider and that are framing our thinking as we move forward:

1. We recognize that these are a people who deserve to be regarded with the utmost respect and that the purpose of the "project" is not to advance our own careers. It is rather to provide a baseline of research that may help aid workers and policymakers perform their jobs with the utmost care and efficiency. 

2. We recognize that we are not here to "save" anyone, we are here to learn from people who know much more than we ever will about their own lives and to try and represent those perspectives and voices to people whose work should be informed by them, lest they do work AT people (which has been ineffective) and not WITH people (which has rarely been tried).

3. We recognize that we are studying an open glocal system--we are at once looking at a small community in the Philippines while simultaneously learning about larger social, cultural, legal, economic and policy systems that perpetuate inequity throughout the city, the Philippines, Southeast Asia and the world. By intentionally looking at the site through this glocal lens we are hoping to identify a great many points of influence in the multiple systems within the community and the multiple systems that flow into and out of the community in various ways. That is, we hope that this approach yields concrete and useful recommendations and analysis that illuminates some issues and approaches heretofore not explored.

4. People of the Smokey Mountain community (it's actually Smokey Mountain II, as the dump was relocated several years ago) are not the poorest-of-the-poor in the Philippines. They actually, on average, earn a bit more than the poorest people of the Philippines which is part of the dump's attraction for many who move to Manila or are looking to earn a living.

5. As expected, the people we have met are wonderful, optimistic folks. They are, in many respects, typical Filipinos--with an optimistic attitude and warm hearts. They are also people who deserve to live with dignity and in the most healthy conditions possible. There is a lot of work to be done here. 

6. Visiting Smokey Mountain II is a trip into a difficult living and working environment. It's also only a mile or so from the US Embassy and Malate, a modest but prosperous part of Manila. A mile further up the road and you are near Malacañang Palace (presidential palace) and Makati, the wealthiest district of the country full of the latest luxury cars and every creature comfort imaginable. It's difficult to understand why there such inequity...but it's also difficult to understand back home...and it's also difficult to understand back home in Iowa, where there is also tremendous inequity...and it is difficult to reflect on and understand the ways that I am complicit in this inequity, contributing to it...and to what extent we are able to understand these issue in a way that makes a difference.

I could go on an on...and I plan to in future posts.