I'm now in my 3rd year of MA, done with all the courses for a year now. I was supposed to be working on my thesis for the past 10 months, but I can't even say I've done 2 months' worth of work. I don't even have side hustles like you do, so it makes me feel so feckless. This guilt, in turn, is wearing me down and making it even more difficult to get anything done. If I want to graduate this semester, I need to finish my thesis in 2 months. I could postpone the graduation to 10 months later, but I know my thesis does not require more than 2 months of work, and I'd waste so much time if I extended my deadline. I mentioned all this to say I was not in a good place when I started watching your video, but now I feel way better. I'm hoping to get a clearer head after restarting my writing routine. Thank you 🤍
On balancing writing and reading: I think it's important to start writing relatively early on, not necessarily to abandon reading. You're not immediately ready for a full draft, but you can start outlining so you know what you're working on. This will then allow you to focus your reading as you know why you're reading what, which can help you with framing and drafting. After that it's probably going to be a back and forth between reading and writing. Like you said: there's always more to read. To me it's about doing less and less general reading and more and more reading with clear goals in mind as the project goes on. And to start writing something beyond reading notes as soon as possible, even if that's just a list of questions you want to answer.
A list of questions is a great thing to start writing early on... Also, I guess it depends on the project, like if you're studying a single text, then WHAT you should be reading might be quite limited (although, I'm sure there's tons of secondary sources to read!)
Hello Morgan, I just found your channel via your Obsidian content and I immediately felt connected. I myself completed a PhD-Dissertation this summer after twelve years. It has always been a struggle of balancing either being not funded or having not enough time. I too have struggled with writing itself until I found a book by Peg B. Single „Demystifying Dissertation writing“. Having past the defense now a huge burden has fallen of me, but I still have to revise some parts before I can publish the book. Being a working new single mum it still is a big challenge to me to find the time. I feel like sticking around to your channel, could help me to stay produktive. So thanks for your output!
I would have been better served to figure out what parts of my academic life were tiring me out, as you do here. I ended up very run-down after my masters and required a lot of medical intervention to get me back into some sort of shape that can focus and communicate clearly. When I cannot communicate, I find TV shows a good alternative to reading too. The Morning Show on Apple TV is very good. I have not watched the newest season yet, but the first two seasons tackle very current news topics for the years they were made--all the while telling engaging character story arcs. When I first watched this, I was a little surprise that your committee has allowed you to progress to this point without knowing your thesis statement. I had to think about it a bit, and I have no idea if this is true, but I suppose the art of being a Doctor of Philosophy is having the ability to self-motivate. As you eloquently mention, once people have PhDs, they are responsible for making new knowledge. As well, very few if any other people, will have a strong grasp of a new PhD's work. Part of that work is communicating the ideas to other people, so there is really no way anyone can know what a PhD is doing. This increases the importance of self-motivation because there are very few ways for any administration to truly gage if a researcher is making progress. Peer review, conferences, papers, and all the other aspects of academia help. Bibliometrics are a manager friendly way to try and help guide researchers. But, it would be very difficult, as someone directing a faculty, to truly grasp the progress of everyone they are working with. From watching your previous videos, I get the sense that you are an excellent communicator (especially with students), prize academic integrity, and are fully invested in researching your field. I'd guess from the process you outlined, that your committee is attempting to help you get to a thesis from a bottom up approach. With the intense amount of knowledge you have gathered and your manifest inspiration, I imagine you could pick many things to write your dissertation about. Earning the credentials to write upon any of those topics for a living is a worthy goal.
Thank you for your comment :) I guess my committee did require a thesis statement at the proposal stage, and my overarching topic hasn't changed, but the core argument changes a little bit with every bit of research I do. And I constantly need to remind myself of the overarching thesis because I get so caught up in the little details, I forget to take a step back. I'm finding my level of "zoom" difficult to manage!
The best way to balance the read-write cycle I have found is to create a segmented outline and then focus your cycle on one at the time until you feel done. How big a theme is a personal calibration- some can do a segment that is one chapter. Others need to do one subsection at a time and yet others need to go more granular. The key is to keep yourself from looking back until the entire piece (usually chapter) is done and then merge - some use the program scribe to keep them on line - especially if you are a divergent thinker. Best of luck-
Yay! So glad to see you back. I cannot imagine how busy you’ve been. You’re doing great though, it’s cool to go at your own pace for your degree. I’ve been working towards my bachelors for a GOOD minute. You’re going at your pace, and nobody’s opinion on that matters!! I’ve been procrastinating writing for a good minute now. Even though it’s something I totally enjoy. I haven’t even opened up obsidian in a month probably. Why do we procrastinate things we enjoy??? Anyway, glad you’re back and doing well. Loved the vlog with the voice over ❤️
Yes, right?? I love writing. It's one of my favourite things to do. But it takes so much focus and time, so it's often the last thing I let myself do, because it means dedicating many uninterupted hours, which feels hard sometimes.
I keep thinking that the Zettelkasten method, as prescribed by an insane amount of videos and blog posts, is actually not helpful in completing a structured piece of writing. It tends to encourage what M. Boyd (in her recent and marvelous book, “Becoming the writer you already are”) calls “side writing”: one elaborates in notes, but that elaboration doesn't always serve a purpose. It really depends on the kind of writing you envision at the end. In my case, for a lit review, (a highly structured writing task), I find that all I need to extract from the source I am reading are some well-formulated claims (acting as note titles), the quotes that provide context for those claims, and the various rhetorical moves through which each claim is introduced ( e.g., "referenced", "applied", "evidenced", "opposed", etc). Eventually, each note (claim) will become a synthesis of all the sources that refer to it in some way. And all I have to do as I keep reading is organize those claims in a linear outline. At some point, when I feel that the outline is complete, the lit review writes itself. In contrast, note elaboration is helpful when I want to generate new hypotheses or theoretical propositions. The claims, in those cases, are all mine: I am trying to make sense of various observations and I need to elaborate on them and articulate my thoughts. That’s not a structured writing task, but very unstructured: it is like writing field notes in grounded theory analysis. I am waiting for a worthy insight to emerge and writing gets me there. Once I feel that I landed on something that constitutes the beginning of an argument, I go through my graph to see how I can organize an outline that supports the argument. At that point, I can also see gaps in the outline, which is always helpful in suggesting new readings.
Yes, I would agree with you that a zettelkasten isn't all that useful for coming out with a structured piece of writing. It's a way to manage knowledge, but says nothing about how to USE/communicate that knowledge. :/
Thank you… I'm painfully aware that I over-edit first drafts, but you've given me a more productive way of looking at it: ‘It’s hard to rework already polished words.’ Having a highly edited first draft will make it harder for me to make cuts, move stuff around, and make things hang together in my second draft.
I found your channel this year and your videos helped me get back into the kind of deep reading mindset that, without realizing it, I have been missing so much since leaving uni. Thank you for all your videos! On Apple+ I'd definitely recommend Slow Horses, it's a wonderful take on modern spy fiction. I haven't yet seen the now-airing season 3 yet, but the first two are definitely a great watch. Also you have Netrunner on your shelf let's goooo such a great game
Not sure if it would be your thing, but Mythic Quest on Apple TV is really enjoyable (at least the first two seasons). There are some specific backstory episodes that are amazing and could be short films on their own.
Well, that's some real-real for sure: very brave. I was taken aback listening to your process and wondered what chapter you're writing for. And surely you're receiving lots of suggestions, so I withhold them and just say -- I'll keep checking back. But I don't feel that writing and reading are the correct polarities in play.
Curious about the courses you teach. What are they? Also would LOVE a video about your experiences starting out as an instructor. I’m going to be a GTA for the first time in the fall and I’m so nervous/ imposter syndrome and all of that.
This term I taught a 90 student intro to theatre class and next term I'm teaching a 40 student theatre history class! I would love to make a video about starting as a university course instructor, that's a great idea!!
In response to your comment about there not being a good measure of how much is enough reading and note-taking, I ran upon a rule of thumb in "Conceptual organization and retrieval of text by historians" (Donald Case, 1991) where one of the people the author talked to said you should read and take notes until you have two shoeboxes full of index card notes, then you'll be ready to write a dissertation. Although I imagine history is a relative note-heavy discipline with so many objects and artifacts to keep straight...
Apple TV recommendation: Home. I’m not one for renovation shows but this is different. So interesting to see how architects have chosen to get creative with their own homes around the world. Also was so inspired by the episode where a company in SF created a 3D printed home community in Mexico for families who needed homes. Wow. So cool.
Hi - long time no comment. Glad to see you are refocusing yourself back on your PhD. Small comment about the pushback on the suggestion to stop reading and just write the thing. Obviously, my personal experience is not yours. Yes, I agree with you that it is great to have more insight. Given there is a fixed amount of calories expendable for work - is the information gain more valuable than hunkering down for work? In programming - this can result to what is called an anti-pattern (an unacceptable work strategy) called analysis-paralysis. For my autistic kids - it is a form of task avoidance. And my kids are great at lying (to themselves). To be honest, it's a case of knowing when to context shift. In the beginning it's Read 80% and Write 20%, but towards the end it's Write 80% and Read 20%. This is the secret to how software is built - I'm sure it applies equally to a PhD Thesis.
Absolutely, I think "context shifting" is crucial. Today I got into a good rhythm of writing about what I was reading that felt productive. It's nicest when they can go directly hand in hand!
Morgan love your videos so much. I’m wondering if you can do a video/ or just answer in comments about how you decided to do a PhD. I’m on the brink of taking the leap into becoming a PhD candidate and I can use all the advice I can get about the big decision. Everything in my heart says to go for it but just hoping it’s the right thing for me.
Ah, great question. I actually interviewed a bunch of people on topics within doing a PhD, so I should definitely work on editing those interviews and publishing them as individual videos. For now... I'd say there are a lot of reasons people do a PhD, but I think it's easiest to achieve if you're really clear on your project and excited to complete it. I kind of just did a PhD to do it, rather than having a really clear research question/project outline in mind, and I kind of regret that.
Your videos are very interesting. I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for a PhD, but still interested in finding out more about them. May I ask how far into the PhD are you?
Yes and no. I have access online, and we have interlibrary loans, so if I wanted to, I could get a book sent to a university library closer to me. Also, grad students can take out books for like 6 months, I think, so I could travel to the university to collect the books I need for a while.
You look like an overwriter. Writing cause it feels good but at the end of the day, you should be able to boil it down to a few sentences that introduce someone to novel, revoutionary new ideas.
I'm now in my 3rd year of MA, done with all the courses for a year now. I was supposed to be working on my thesis for the past 10 months, but I can't even say I've done 2 months' worth of work. I don't even have side hustles like you do, so it makes me feel so feckless. This guilt, in turn, is wearing me down and making it even more difficult to get anything done. If I want to graduate this semester, I need to finish my thesis in 2 months. I could postpone the graduation to 10 months later, but I know my thesis does not require more than 2 months of work, and I'd waste so much time if I extended my deadline.
I mentioned all this to say I was not in a good place when I started watching your video, but now I feel way better. I'm hoping to get a clearer head after restarting my writing routine. Thank you 🤍
Best of luck with it! Allow yourself breaks when you need them and don't feel guilty for it! It's all a part of the process!
It's incredibly hard to share setbacks to the public, even though that's what everyone goes through.Beast it.
On balancing writing and reading: I think it's important to start writing relatively early on, not necessarily to abandon reading. You're not immediately ready for a full draft, but you can start outlining so you know what you're working on. This will then allow you to focus your reading as you know why you're reading what, which can help you with framing and drafting. After that it's probably going to be a back and forth between reading and writing.
Like you said: there's always more to read. To me it's about doing less and less general reading and more and more reading with clear goals in mind as the project goes on. And to start writing something beyond reading notes as soon as possible, even if that's just a list of questions you want to answer.
A list of questions is a great thing to start writing early on... Also, I guess it depends on the project, like if you're studying a single text, then WHAT you should be reading might be quite limited (although, I'm sure there's tons of secondary sources to read!)
Hello Morgan,
I just found your channel via your Obsidian content and I immediately felt connected. I myself completed a PhD-Dissertation this summer after twelve years. It has always been a struggle of balancing either being not funded or having not enough time. I too have struggled with writing itself until I found a book by Peg B. Single „Demystifying Dissertation writing“.
Having past the defense now a huge burden has fallen of me, but I still have to revise some parts before I can publish the book. Being a working new single mum it still is a big challenge to me to find the time. I feel like sticking around to your channel, could help me to stay produktive.
So thanks for your output!
Loved this and your discussion about reading v writing
I love your channel it's so inspiring! 😍 Thanks for watching and commenting, you're truly such an inspiration for being a PhD UA-camr in the Arts!!
I would have been better served to figure out what parts of my academic life were tiring me out, as you do here. I ended up very run-down after my masters and required a lot of medical intervention to get me back into some sort of shape that can focus and communicate clearly. When I cannot communicate, I find TV shows a good alternative to reading too. The Morning Show on Apple TV is very good. I have not watched the newest season yet, but the first two seasons tackle very current news topics for the years they were made--all the while telling engaging character story arcs. When I first watched this, I was a little surprise that your committee has allowed you to progress to this point without knowing your thesis statement. I had to think about it a bit, and I have no idea if this is true, but I suppose the art of being a Doctor of Philosophy is having the ability to self-motivate. As you eloquently mention, once people have PhDs, they are responsible for making new knowledge. As well, very few if any other people, will have a strong grasp of a new PhD's work. Part of that work is communicating the ideas to other people, so there is really no way anyone can know what a PhD is doing. This increases the importance of self-motivation because there are very few ways for any administration to truly gage if a researcher is making progress. Peer review, conferences, papers, and all the other aspects of academia help. Bibliometrics are a manager friendly way to try and help guide researchers. But, it would be very difficult, as someone directing a faculty, to truly grasp the progress of everyone they are working with. From watching your previous videos, I get the sense that you are an excellent communicator (especially with students), prize academic integrity, and are fully invested in researching your field. I'd guess from the process you outlined, that your committee is attempting to help you get to a thesis from a bottom up approach. With the intense amount of knowledge you have gathered and your manifest inspiration, I imagine you could pick many things to write your dissertation about. Earning the credentials to write upon any of those topics for a living is a worthy goal.
Thank you for your comment :) I guess my committee did require a thesis statement at the proposal stage, and my overarching topic hasn't changed, but the core argument changes a little bit with every bit of research I do. And I constantly need to remind myself of the overarching thesis because I get so caught up in the little details, I forget to take a step back. I'm finding my level of "zoom" difficult to manage!
The best way to balance the read-write cycle I have found is to create a segmented outline and then focus your cycle on one at the time until you feel done.
How big a theme is a personal calibration- some can do a segment that is one chapter. Others need to do one subsection at a time and yet others need to go more granular. The key is to keep yourself from looking back until the entire piece (usually chapter) is done and then merge - some use the program scribe to keep them on line - especially if you are a divergent thinker.
Best of luck-
Thank you 🙌
Yay! So glad to see you back. I cannot imagine how busy you’ve been. You’re doing great though, it’s cool to go at your own pace for your degree. I’ve been working towards my bachelors for a GOOD minute. You’re going at your pace, and nobody’s opinion on that matters!!
I’ve been procrastinating writing for a good minute now. Even though it’s something I totally enjoy. I haven’t even opened up obsidian in a month probably. Why do we procrastinate things we enjoy???
Anyway, glad you’re back and doing well. Loved the vlog with the voice over ❤️
Yes, right?? I love writing. It's one of my favourite things to do. But it takes so much focus and time, so it's often the last thing I let myself do, because it means dedicating many uninterupted hours, which feels hard sometimes.
I love this, Morgan. Thanks for sharing your journey with us. I appreciate your vulnerability, candor, and insights. 🙏
V
I keep thinking that the Zettelkasten method, as prescribed by an insane amount of videos and blog posts, is actually not helpful in completing a structured piece of writing. It tends to encourage what M. Boyd (in her recent and marvelous book, “Becoming the writer you already are”) calls “side writing”: one elaborates in notes, but that elaboration doesn't always serve a purpose. It really depends on the kind of writing you envision at the end. In my case, for a lit review, (a highly structured writing task), I find that all I need to extract from the source I am reading are some well-formulated claims (acting as note titles), the quotes that provide context for those claims, and the various rhetorical moves through which each claim is introduced ( e.g., "referenced", "applied", "evidenced", "opposed", etc). Eventually, each note (claim) will become a synthesis of all the sources that refer to it in some way. And all I have to do as I keep reading is organize those claims in a linear outline. At some point, when I feel that the outline is complete, the lit review writes itself.
In contrast, note elaboration is helpful when I want to generate new hypotheses or theoretical propositions. The claims, in those cases, are all mine: I am trying to make sense of various observations and I need to elaborate on them and articulate my thoughts. That’s not a structured writing task, but very unstructured: it is like writing field notes in grounded theory analysis. I am waiting for a worthy insight to emerge and writing gets me there. Once I feel that I landed on something that constitutes the beginning of an argument, I go through my graph to see how I can organize an outline that supports the argument. At that point, I can also see gaps in the outline, which is always helpful in suggesting new readings.
Yes, I would agree with you that a zettelkasten isn't all that useful for coming out with a structured piece of writing. It's a way to manage knowledge, but says nothing about how to USE/communicate that knowledge. :/
Thank you… I'm painfully aware that I over-edit first drafts, but you've given me a more productive way of looking at it: ‘It’s hard to rework already polished words.’ Having a highly edited first draft will make it harder for me to make cuts, move stuff around, and make things hang together in my second draft.
Yeah, that's definitely what I've realized for myself! It's made my process quicker, I think
I found your channel this year and your videos helped me get back into the kind of deep reading mindset that, without realizing it, I have been missing so much since leaving uni. Thank you for all your videos!
On Apple+ I'd definitely recommend Slow Horses, it's a wonderful take on modern spy fiction. I haven't yet seen the now-airing season 3 yet, but the first two are definitely a great watch.
Also you have Netrunner on your shelf let's goooo such a great game
Hahaha, yes, Netrunner is great! And I will check out Slow Horses!! I just started Truth Be Told at another commenter's recommendation
You are so amazing and inspiring!!
Not sure if it would be your thing, but Mythic Quest on Apple TV is really enjoyable (at least the first two seasons). There are some specific backstory episodes that are amazing and could be short films on their own.
Oh, I have WATCHED Mythic Quest. I totally forgot to mention it! I loved the back in time episodes with CW!!
Well, that's some real-real for sure: very brave. I was taken aback listening to your process and wondered what chapter you're writing for. And surely you're receiving lots of suggestions, so I withhold them and just say -- I'll keep checking back. But I don't feel that writing and reading are the correct polarities in play.
Curious about the courses you teach. What are they? Also would LOVE a video about your experiences starting out as an instructor. I’m going to be a GTA for the first time in the fall and I’m so nervous/ imposter syndrome and all of that.
This term I taught a 90 student intro to theatre class and next term I'm teaching a 40 student theatre history class! I would love to make a video about starting as a university course instructor, that's a great idea!!
In response to your comment about there not being a good measure of how much is enough reading and note-taking, I ran upon a rule of thumb in "Conceptual organization and retrieval of text by historians" (Donald Case, 1991) where one of the people the author talked to said you should read and take notes until you have two shoeboxes full of index card notes, then you'll be ready to write a dissertation. Although I imagine history is a relative note-heavy discipline with so many objects and artifacts to keep straight...
Honestly, I love this simple and quantitative guideline :P
Apple TV recommendation: Home.
I’m not one for renovation shows but this is different. So interesting to see how architects have chosen to get creative with their own homes around the world. Also was so inspired by the episode where a company in SF created a 3D printed home community in Mexico for families who needed homes. Wow. So cool.
Woah, that's cool. I'll check it out!
Hi - long time no comment. Glad to see you are refocusing yourself back on your PhD.
Small comment about the pushback on the suggestion to stop reading and just write the thing. Obviously, my personal experience is not yours.
Yes, I agree with you that it is great to have more insight. Given there is a fixed amount of calories expendable for work - is the information gain more valuable than hunkering down for work? In programming - this can result to what is called an anti-pattern (an unacceptable work strategy) called analysis-paralysis. For my autistic kids - it is a form of task avoidance. And my kids are great at lying (to themselves).
To be honest, it's a case of knowing when to context shift. In the beginning it's Read 80% and Write 20%, but towards the end it's Write 80% and Read 20%.
This is the secret to how software is built - I'm sure it applies equally to a PhD Thesis.
Absolutely, I think "context shifting" is crucial. Today I got into a good rhythm of writing about what I was reading that felt productive. It's nicest when they can go directly hand in hand!
Great video. I love board games. I love Acquire. I will check out the other games in your collection.
Powergrid is another one of my favourites!
@@morganeua I have heard of it I haven't played yet. I will try to make that happen.
Morgan love your videos so much. I’m wondering if you can do a video/ or just answer in comments about how you decided to do a PhD. I’m on the brink of taking the leap into becoming a PhD candidate and I can use all the advice I can get about the big decision. Everything in my heart says to go for it but just hoping it’s the right thing for me.
Ah, great question. I actually interviewed a bunch of people on topics within doing a PhD, so I should definitely work on editing those interviews and publishing them as individual videos. For now... I'd say there are a lot of reasons people do a PhD, but I think it's easiest to achieve if you're really clear on your project and excited to complete it. I kind of just did a PhD to do it, rather than having a really clear research question/project outline in mind, and I kind of regret that.
thank you for taking the time to respond. very helpful. @@morganeua
Have you played the game Costume Party Detective? Everyone I have shown it to loves it.
Woah, no, I've never heard of it! I bet I'd love it!
Your videos are very interesting. I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for a PhD, but still interested in finding out more about them. May I ask how far into the PhD are you?
Oh sorry just got to the point where you mentioned this and the commenters. Ignore me!
Yeah - although it definitely heavily depends on where you'd be getting the PhD. I'm in Canada, so I can only speak to that!
Love the coworking idea - me next!
Merry Christmas
And now Happy New Year!
PS: Apple TV - Truth be Told! I love Octavia Spencer!
Ooooooh, thank you!!
Does living far and working from home mean you don’t have access to the university library?
Yes and no. I have access online, and we have interlibrary loans, so if I wanted to, I could get a book sent to a university library closer to me. Also, grad students can take out books for like 6 months, I think, so I could travel to the university to collect the books I need for a while.
Sleep is realy important!
❤❤❤
Did you say that you are now in your 7th year working on your PHD
Yes, I did
You look like an overwriter. Writing cause it feels good but at the end of the day, you should be able to boil it down to a few sentences that introduce someone to novel, revoutionary new ideas.
Yes, absolutely! As I admit in the video, definitely an overwriter, and learning how to fix that :P Any advice is welcome!!
Hello Friend