In my doctoral program, those of us who are in “dissertation writing mode” meet once a week for a few hours of working time and forced accountability. I’m not sure I’m very good at this accountability thing. If my psyche responded to accountability as a motivating factor, all those years of Weight Watchers would have worked. So, in all honesty, even though I usually get something done, my evening accountability class is probably the least productive time of my week when it comes to working on my dissertation. Despite that, the one thing that I enjoy about those evenings is entering into a community of other doctoral students and interacting with them — because when one is in the midst of writing a dissertation, it’s easy to feel isolated in that pursuit — and that isolation can be paralyzing.
I imagine that in most disciplines, research fellowships and graduate teaching assistance opportunities are par for the course when pursuing graduate studies. At least, that was the case when I pursued my Master’s-level degree. Everything I did during that program was in pursuit of the main goal — completing the coursework and writing my professional paper. My doctoral pursuits have been a much different road. While one of the perks of my full time higher ed job is a tuition waiver, my graduate studies are done outside of and in addition to my 40-50 hour work week. Institutional hiring freezes, in reaction to the COVID-era, have greatly increased my workload for the time being. Doing my part to keep things going on my campus is a part of being a team player, but the intensity of navigating this weird time in history, has put a damper on the pacing and rhythm of my dissertation writing. It’s discouraging, for sure, because even those of us who love academia, researching, and writing, need downtime that is less cerebral than always having our head buried in books. Finding my balance has been hard.
The deceleration of my writing output this semester has led to some suggestions by well-meaning folks, that I am “afraid to write a messy draft.” As a former writing instructor, I’m not afraid of diving into writing a messy draft nor am I afraid of people reading my stuff when it is messy. I do find it unproductive, however, to seek feedback on a messy draft if I already have a sense of where I’m going with it and just need time to think, edit, and rewrite before seeking feedback that supports a stronger piece of writing. Time to think deeply seems to be at a premium these days, though, and I’m not ashamed to say I’m a thinker first and a writer second.
“Dissertating” has been a challenging endeavor thus far. Mixing qualitative methods isn’t “a thing” for most researchers, but it’s what I’m doing, because for my project it continues to make sense to me. I’m coming to accept that even as my inner critic undermines my confidence with it’s constant warning that breaking the rules and straying outside the lines of conformity will label my research unacceptable, or unsuccessful, or even worse unpublishable (gasp!), I am still stubbornly reluctant to listen. I look at my Cresswell-approach to qualitative methodology textbook, and while it is a sensible foundation for what I will probably end up relying on as I move into data analysis, it doesn’t fire my cylinders the way reading about the speculative and experimental methods of Norman Denzin or Mirka Koro does.
In a recent dissertation class meetup, one of my colleagues, who is about ready to defend their dissertation, shared a poem that has been inspirational to keep pushing through the dissertation writing phase: Alumnus Football by Grantland Rice. Everyone knows the final lines of the poem: It’s “not that you won or lost – but how you played the Game.” Win or lose – I’m still playing my game. It’s just a longer game than I anticipated when I began.
Pivotal Passages 