A writer wrote to me:
> Ok, I'm tired and I'm probably being a little reckless here, but I ended
> up finishing some changes to ch3. Finished enough, that is. I cut out
> the entire section on the _______. It was a tough decision
> to do, but the chapter had already exceeded 31 pages...
> I went ahead and sent ch1 & ch3 to My chair.
I wrote back:
Hi Writer,
congratulations on sending off drafts!
Perhaps you were a little reckless, but we need to be able to take risks. There's no certainty in life.
What you have done is done. There is any range of possible outcomes. The thing to do now is to make plans for the future. Focus on what you can do.
In your case in particular, one set of plans that you may not be making is how to manage feedback. Of course making plans to manage feedback is difficult, because we don't know what the feedback will be. Still, there are things we can do to prepare ourselves. We can consider the range of possible responses and develop general plans depending of the rough outcome.
More importantly, we can step back and look at our work with a critical eye and say "what is a critical reader going to say, and do I think that response is important?" What are the different criticisms, and how can you plan to meet them?
Hypothetical responses:
1. You need to clean up your writing!
response to 1: I'm planning on hiring a proofreader.
2. Your argument is weak (generally).
response to 2: Could you give more detail on what you mean, and what kind of weakness?
3. Your argument is missing XYZ data.
response to 3: could you explain why you think that would further my general purpose of stating ABC?
There are any number of responses, of course, and it would be easy to get lost thinking about negative responses that you might get ("gee, you're stupid", "never talk to me again," or whatever insult), and get emotionally distraught from that process.
But if you think about the response that you would make, that can help defuse the emotion. On the one hand, what kind of response does one make to an insult? On the other, if you have planned a response--like #2 above--that places the onus of explaining the insult on the other person, you can turn the tables on them. Act as if it isn't an insult and ask for further definition and clarification.
Anyway, we've all _got_ to be a little reckless sometimes. Take the chance that the work that we could work on more is going to at least speak to the reader enough that they see the spark that makes it fly.
With your chair, stay on message: For your part, keep in mind the main point of the dissertation, and how it manifests in each piece. And in response to any comment of his, remember you can always say "how does that help me explain my main point? Can you clarify how you see that working?" This response should be practiced and used particularly in the context of any emotionally difficult response.
But most of all: remember to be kind to yourself. And celebrate getting two chapters sent out. No matter what the response, being able to write, wrap up and send off the two chapters (with all the flaws that every writer sees in the work going out), is a matter worthy of recognition and celebration.
Congratulations!
best,
Dave
Synopsis:
1. No guarantees exist. We always take a risk when we put ourselves out there--whether submitting a draft or looking for a job or asking for a date, we might get rejected. But the risk has to be taken because the paralysis is actually worse than the rejecion.
2. any rejection of our effort is evidence helping us refine our effort; if we cannot understand the rejection, it is worth our while to ask for additional clarification (especially in the context of dissertation advisors who have an actual responsibility to provide _useful_ feedback).
3. We can plan our responses to help focus our efforts and our energy during the periods of waiting for feedback. This helps us from being overtaken by anxiety.
$. It's hard to complete a draft! No matter what, that is worthy of acknowledgment--even if you have to go back and rewrite that draft (which is pretty much what an experienced writer expects to do with early drafts any way).
Showing posts with label emotional distance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotional distance. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Halloween Costumes
It's a little early for this post, perhaps. Having been invited to a party Halloween, it is necessary to consider a costume, and I was thinking of what I might do when it occurred to me that this is something to consider as a writer.
Not what I should wear for Halloween, but the whole concept of wearing a costume. What if you were to think of your dissertation as something of a costume? It is not you and yet it is. On Halloween you go out and your friends recognize you, and yet you're also someone else. It is easier to act the fool.
The Halloween costume is a celebration, and one on which many invest a great deal of energy. But because it is a celebration it does not seem onerous. So we might wonder whether, by looking at our writing as a sort of costume, we might be able to enjoy the exploration and even enjoy making a fool of ourselves.
It's crucial for the writer to be able to try on a costume and then just as quickly throw on another if the first didn't work. If you can write and rewrite, then you will be able to produce good work.
It's also crucial to be able to see the writing as separate from you. The costume hides the identity, and in so doing turns the criticism into an attack on something that is not you. Borges writes a little parable "Borges and I" in which he discusses the distance between himself and the figure that manifests on the paper.
We need not be too tied to our writing. We can it hold it in a gap between us and the world, and this gap--this distance between us and the work allows us to see what others think of the work without worrying that it is a reflection on us.
A final note: it seems to me that the costume and the writing are both a chance to celebrate your own voice and to celebrate your own imagination. Explore the possibilities; take chances. Being repressed doesn't make a better costume or a better piece of writing.
Not what I should wear for Halloween, but the whole concept of wearing a costume. What if you were to think of your dissertation as something of a costume? It is not you and yet it is. On Halloween you go out and your friends recognize you, and yet you're also someone else. It is easier to act the fool.
The Halloween costume is a celebration, and one on which many invest a great deal of energy. But because it is a celebration it does not seem onerous. So we might wonder whether, by looking at our writing as a sort of costume, we might be able to enjoy the exploration and even enjoy making a fool of ourselves.
It's crucial for the writer to be able to try on a costume and then just as quickly throw on another if the first didn't work. If you can write and rewrite, then you will be able to produce good work.
It's also crucial to be able to see the writing as separate from you. The costume hides the identity, and in so doing turns the criticism into an attack on something that is not you. Borges writes a little parable "Borges and I" in which he discusses the distance between himself and the figure that manifests on the paper.
We need not be too tied to our writing. We can it hold it in a gap between us and the world, and this gap--this distance between us and the work allows us to see what others think of the work without worrying that it is a reflection on us.
A final note: it seems to me that the costume and the writing are both a chance to celebrate your own voice and to celebrate your own imagination. Explore the possibilities; take chances. Being repressed doesn't make a better costume or a better piece of writing.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
George Lakoff's suggestions for finishing a dissertation
I take a lot of notes and write a lot in many different files that get put aside for one reason or another. I was going through old files recently, looking to see what had been forgotten. Among other things I found some notes that I made to a dissertation writer about four years ago. The notes reported a conversation I had had with George Lakoff, professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at Berkeley.
Lakoff makes six points. Following the six points are the notes that I wrote to the writer, who had written a complete draft that had been deemed unsatisfactory by her committee.
---------
(Aug. 2004) Yesterday afternoon I ran into a professor I used to work with.
He asked me what I was up to and I told him I was helping people who were trying to finish their dissertations.
He offered me his advice of what he tells his students: and here it is in a nutshell--three main points and three lesser points. I may have forgotten something, but most of what he said agreed with beliefs I held anyway (I was his student, after all).
Here are his recommendations:
1) It’s not you. It’s just a piece of work.
2) It’s just the first step.
3) Tell a story
Additional suggestions:
1) make it so it can be your book
2) make it 200 – 250 pages
3) avoid jargon
For a moment, I want to just focus on point 1 in the first list: It's not you. The dissertation is just a project you're working with. You've worked with it longer than any other project in your life, but it's just a project. If you wrote a five page paper and thought it needed to be rewritten, you'd rewrite it. But with the dissertation there's the thought "I spent four months writing that draft/section/chapter." The dissertation is still only a project. Suggestions about the dissertation are not a reflection on you, but rather on how to change your project, so that you can get it done.
You have grown and learned during the process of writing. The efforts that went into writing that draft have shaped you, have helped you grow. If all the copies of your dissertation were destroyed and you had to write it from the blank page, you still would not be working from scratch but from a wealth of knowledge gained through the project. And that wealth of knowledge would help you write a new version better.
Well, thankfully, you don't have to write from scratch, but still, don't let attachment to the products of your past labors stand in the way of taking advantage of what you learned from those labors.
------
That note only really addressed the first of the six points. But points two and three deserve equal discussion. The last three points--the lesser points--are mostly self-explanatory.
I don't want to get into too much writing here, since I want to go back to seeing what the excavation of the depths of my disk drive has to offer.
Briefly, then. Point 2: The dissertation is just a first step on a career. Whether you are writing to become an academic (as Lakoff assumed), or writing to gain a credential, the dissertation is only a step in a career path. Take the step quickly. Point 3: I don't know quite how to interpret this, or to paraphrase it quickly. This is probably a gross injustice, but: Give the work a sense of direction and flow; guide the reader through the discussion in a way that helps the reader see the scope of the work (just as in a story, we can follow the whole of the work).
Lakoff makes six points. Following the six points are the notes that I wrote to the writer, who had written a complete draft that had been deemed unsatisfactory by her committee.
---------
(Aug. 2004) Yesterday afternoon I ran into a professor I used to work with.
He asked me what I was up to and I told him I was helping people who were trying to finish their dissertations.
He offered me his advice of what he tells his students: and here it is in a nutshell--three main points and three lesser points. I may have forgotten something, but most of what he said agreed with beliefs I held anyway (I was his student, after all).
Here are his recommendations:
1) It’s not you. It’s just a piece of work.
2) It’s just the first step.
3) Tell a story
Additional suggestions:
1) make it so it can be your book
2) make it 200 – 250 pages
3) avoid jargon
For a moment, I want to just focus on point 1 in the first list: It's not you. The dissertation is just a project you're working with. You've worked with it longer than any other project in your life, but it's just a project. If you wrote a five page paper and thought it needed to be rewritten, you'd rewrite it. But with the dissertation there's the thought "I spent four months writing that draft/section/chapter." The dissertation is still only a project. Suggestions about the dissertation are not a reflection on you, but rather on how to change your project, so that you can get it done.
You have grown and learned during the process of writing. The efforts that went into writing that draft have shaped you, have helped you grow. If all the copies of your dissertation were destroyed and you had to write it from the blank page, you still would not be working from scratch but from a wealth of knowledge gained through the project. And that wealth of knowledge would help you write a new version better.
Well, thankfully, you don't have to write from scratch, but still, don't let attachment to the products of your past labors stand in the way of taking advantage of what you learned from those labors.
------
That note only really addressed the first of the six points. But points two and three deserve equal discussion. The last three points--the lesser points--are mostly self-explanatory.
I don't want to get into too much writing here, since I want to go back to seeing what the excavation of the depths of my disk drive has to offer.
Briefly, then. Point 2: The dissertation is just a first step on a career. Whether you are writing to become an academic (as Lakoff assumed), or writing to gain a credential, the dissertation is only a step in a career path. Take the step quickly. Point 3: I don't know quite how to interpret this, or to paraphrase it quickly. This is probably a gross injustice, but: Give the work a sense of direction and flow; guide the reader through the discussion in a way that helps the reader see the scope of the work (just as in a story, we can follow the whole of the work).
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Confessional
It's so easy to give advice; it's not as easy to live a practice as it is to preach it.
That is, I think, why the Catholic church has confession: we all have sins for which to be absolved, both the high and low; the Pope has a confessor.
Here's my confession: I feel unworthy. Please note: this is not about logic; it's about emotion. When I sit down to write my efforts are hindered by my feeling that I have nothing to say.
Left to itself, my intellectual mind is quite sure that I do have something worth saying. But bring emotions into the picture and things come to a quick halt.
Just a couple of days ago I wrote about not apologizing for your writing. But I have been struggling with a piece of writing that keeps coming out as an apology. It's easier to say "just write a draft and let it go," than it is to actually do it.
That being said, I am constantly working to improve my ability to manage this problem, and to work on my ability to move to a new place where I am working more effectively, and really living more effectively, because the same demon that hinders me in writing hinders me in other realms of my life.
What does this involve? A practice. A willingness to be wrong. A willingness to be seen being wrong. A willingness to recognize that a problem with work that I have done is not a problem with me, but rather indicates something I can learn. In a way it requires a completely new mindset--one that is not focused on perceived failings, but is instead focused on what can be created for the future.
The point of confession is that one no longer bears the burden of the sins; one is absolved. For the writer wouldn't it be nice to be absolved of the sins of sloth, of accidie, of not having done enough reading, so that we could move forward without carrying those burdens? Imagine confessing your sins and being free of them. Wouldn't it be wonderful to let go of the burden of having been lazy last week? Of having not finished that paper?
Bearing the burden of the sins you committed last week, last month, last year, doesn't help you move into the future. What good to spend three seconds lamenting the time you wasted yesterday? The cost of those three seconds of lamenting might be that you start to feel yourself unworthy. And does that help get started? Does that help get the project done?
We need to confess our writing sins. And then forgive ourselves for them. And then write some more. If we are going to move past them, we must recognize them and acknowledge them for what they are. If we take them to be signs of a deep internal character flaw, then we set up a situation in which we feel ourselves flawed--a classic set-up for writer's block.
So, what are your writing sins?
That is, I think, why the Catholic church has confession: we all have sins for which to be absolved, both the high and low; the Pope has a confessor.
Here's my confession: I feel unworthy. Please note: this is not about logic; it's about emotion. When I sit down to write my efforts are hindered by my feeling that I have nothing to say.
Left to itself, my intellectual mind is quite sure that I do have something worth saying. But bring emotions into the picture and things come to a quick halt.
Just a couple of days ago I wrote about not apologizing for your writing. But I have been struggling with a piece of writing that keeps coming out as an apology. It's easier to say "just write a draft and let it go," than it is to actually do it.
That being said, I am constantly working to improve my ability to manage this problem, and to work on my ability to move to a new place where I am working more effectively, and really living more effectively, because the same demon that hinders me in writing hinders me in other realms of my life.
What does this involve? A practice. A willingness to be wrong. A willingness to be seen being wrong. A willingness to recognize that a problem with work that I have done is not a problem with me, but rather indicates something I can learn. In a way it requires a completely new mindset--one that is not focused on perceived failings, but is instead focused on what can be created for the future.
The point of confession is that one no longer bears the burden of the sins; one is absolved. For the writer wouldn't it be nice to be absolved of the sins of sloth, of accidie, of not having done enough reading, so that we could move forward without carrying those burdens? Imagine confessing your sins and being free of them. Wouldn't it be wonderful to let go of the burden of having been lazy last week? Of having not finished that paper?
Bearing the burden of the sins you committed last week, last month, last year, doesn't help you move into the future. What good to spend three seconds lamenting the time you wasted yesterday? The cost of those three seconds of lamenting might be that you start to feel yourself unworthy. And does that help get started? Does that help get the project done?
We need to confess our writing sins. And then forgive ourselves for them. And then write some more. If we are going to move past them, we must recognize them and acknowledge them for what they are. If we take them to be signs of a deep internal character flaw, then we set up a situation in which we feel ourselves flawed--a classic set-up for writer's block.
So, what are your writing sins?
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Frustration
The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. Or something like that. I hope Robert Burns isn't rolling in his grave. Our best efforts often go for naught. Which may be an explanation for why Edison said that genius was 99% perspiration: he had to try and fail so many times before his success.
Some problems are just not going to work out, and that's a matter of trial and error. You may, for example, work hard for days or weeks over a draft that just doesn't work out and may not even give you a lot of help as to what could be done better. That's purely hypothetical, of course; I wouldn't want to suggest that I had ever experienced anything of the sort today.
You try and try and try again. Your patience is tested. You get frustrated. Angry. A sense of failure wells up in your stomach, and the bile in your throat like you ate something rotten that's about to very seriously disagree with you. All this, and it's not your doing anyway. It's not like you're not smart and hard working and honest and diligent; it's just that the chips haven't fallen into place. It's possible they never will, and you'll have to move on to a new project or a completely new approach. Some efforts you just have to abandon and stop throwing good money after bad. Some projects will wreak havoc on your emotions unless you can maintain a good emotional distance from the project.
If the project falls through, it falls through. Sometimes we're gonna be frustrated and we'll just have to pick ourselves up off the ground and stick at it. In such situations it is beneficial to keep emotionally distant from the event: a setback is not an indicator of a person's worth. A setback is better viewed as an opportunity to learn more about how to reach your goal.
Some problems are just not going to work out, and that's a matter of trial and error. You may, for example, work hard for days or weeks over a draft that just doesn't work out and may not even give you a lot of help as to what could be done better. That's purely hypothetical, of course; I wouldn't want to suggest that I had ever experienced anything of the sort today.
You try and try and try again. Your patience is tested. You get frustrated. Angry. A sense of failure wells up in your stomach, and the bile in your throat like you ate something rotten that's about to very seriously disagree with you. All this, and it's not your doing anyway. It's not like you're not smart and hard working and honest and diligent; it's just that the chips haven't fallen into place. It's possible they never will, and you'll have to move on to a new project or a completely new approach. Some efforts you just have to abandon and stop throwing good money after bad. Some projects will wreak havoc on your emotions unless you can maintain a good emotional distance from the project.
If the project falls through, it falls through. Sometimes we're gonna be frustrated and we'll just have to pick ourselves up off the ground and stick at it. In such situations it is beneficial to keep emotionally distant from the event: a setback is not an indicator of a person's worth. A setback is better viewed as an opportunity to learn more about how to reach your goal.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Preparing for feedback
Today's e-mail had the question: "I would really benefit from having some ideas on how to prepare myself for feedback (good & bad)."
It's a good question, and there's more than a little to be said. But preparation is only part. The picture is incomplete without receiving and processing the feedback well.
But preparation obviously comes first.
The first step is to want feedback--no matter what.
Feedback can be painful, but often painful feedback is necessary for our long-term good. An ugly parallel might be to suggest that feedback is akin to going to the doctor: you need to know if you're sick, even though you don't want to be sick. Fortunately, the consequences are far less severe.
What's a worst-case scenario with a dissertation? That a professor says that they will request your dismissal from the program? That would be pretty bad. So you need to be ready for the worst. But, it's also worth thinking about how likely that would be. It must have happened, but I have not ever met anyone to whom it happened. One would imagine it's even more unlikely to come out of the blue; one would expect such behavior to follow at least some warning.
I think it's pretty important to start by thinking about the worst-case scenario at least for a moment, partly to acknowledge the danger, and partly to recognize how unlikely that outcome would be. I would imagine that if you are really in danger of getting asked to leave your program, you're probably in equal danger for not producing any work at all, so eventually you have to risk turning something in.
But there are a whole gamut of possibilities for feedback. You can use what you know about the person you're working with to try to predict their response. Is your professor going to be harsh, insulting? Or supportive? Will the feedback be detailed? Or general? Copious or sparse? Which parts will they like and which parts will they dislike? Don't engage in doomsaying, but try to make a real assessment based on what you know of the person, of your interactions with them, their theoretical preferences, and so forth. It is an exercise in understanding your audience.
It's also useful to emotionally distance yourself from your work: you are not your work. The response you get--even if it is a personal attack--may not be due to what you actually believe, or the quality of your ideas, it may simply be that you did not succeed in communicating the ideas in your writing. Feedback based on what you've written is not about you; it's about what you submitted. Criticism does not indicate anything about your abilities or worth as a person.
You want your work to be accepted. You want it to be accepted by your committee, and ideally by a wider audience. Getting positive feedback is awful nice. In order for that to happen, you have to risk the negative feedback.
Negative feedback can be very instrumental in improving your work, so you want to be able to receive it. Any response teaches you about how your writing reaches your audience. If you can evaluate those responses as data to guide future efforts, then all feedback, even negative feedback, is an opportunity to learn about how your work is seen by others.
Be realistic in preparing for feedback. Try to understand the source of the feedback. Try to recognize the individuality of the response. Try to recognize that critical remarks can be used to indicate what needs to be improved.
I mostly talked about receiving negative feedback, because I don't think most of us sit around losing time and energy due to the prospect of getting good feedback. Getting good feedback doesn't require much preparation. But if you're waiting on feedback, it can be very useful to rehearse the reasons that feedback--even negative feedback--helps you learn and grow. If you fear the feedback, it's important to keep working on the ideas of valuing and being able to accept even negative feedback and use it productively. Attitude is crucial; if we remind ourselves of the positive value of even negative feedback (and make no mistake, negative feedback is always valuable in what it teaches about the person who gave us the feedback), then when the time comes that we get the feedback, we're already able to slip into the process of breaking down the feedback and using it to guide your efforts.
Some of this sounds simplistic. I think one reason it may sound simplistic is because it is basically simple. I like the ideas of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, which suggests that the stories we tell ourselves have a profound emotional impact, and that we can improve our mental health by telling stories that are accurate in their balancing of positive and negative possibilities (as many have a tendency to rely on exaggerated stories that emotionally distressful). CBT relies, among other things, on repeating and retelling accurate internal stories, so that those new stories replace the old. In the case of preparing for feedback, if we have negative stories about what feedback means, we need to start telling balanced stories that acknowledge the possibilities presented by feedback.
To awkwardly wrap this up: keep working on wanting the feedback no matter what.
It's a good question, and there's more than a little to be said. But preparation is only part. The picture is incomplete without receiving and processing the feedback well.
But preparation obviously comes first.
The first step is to want feedback--no matter what.
Feedback can be painful, but often painful feedback is necessary for our long-term good. An ugly parallel might be to suggest that feedback is akin to going to the doctor: you need to know if you're sick, even though you don't want to be sick. Fortunately, the consequences are far less severe.
What's a worst-case scenario with a dissertation? That a professor says that they will request your dismissal from the program? That would be pretty bad. So you need to be ready for the worst. But, it's also worth thinking about how likely that would be. It must have happened, but I have not ever met anyone to whom it happened. One would imagine it's even more unlikely to come out of the blue; one would expect such behavior to follow at least some warning.
I think it's pretty important to start by thinking about the worst-case scenario at least for a moment, partly to acknowledge the danger, and partly to recognize how unlikely that outcome would be. I would imagine that if you are really in danger of getting asked to leave your program, you're probably in equal danger for not producing any work at all, so eventually you have to risk turning something in.
But there are a whole gamut of possibilities for feedback. You can use what you know about the person you're working with to try to predict their response. Is your professor going to be harsh, insulting? Or supportive? Will the feedback be detailed? Or general? Copious or sparse? Which parts will they like and which parts will they dislike? Don't engage in doomsaying, but try to make a real assessment based on what you know of the person, of your interactions with them, their theoretical preferences, and so forth. It is an exercise in understanding your audience.
It's also useful to emotionally distance yourself from your work: you are not your work. The response you get--even if it is a personal attack--may not be due to what you actually believe, or the quality of your ideas, it may simply be that you did not succeed in communicating the ideas in your writing. Feedback based on what you've written is not about you; it's about what you submitted. Criticism does not indicate anything about your abilities or worth as a person.
You want your work to be accepted. You want it to be accepted by your committee, and ideally by a wider audience. Getting positive feedback is awful nice. In order for that to happen, you have to risk the negative feedback.
Negative feedback can be very instrumental in improving your work, so you want to be able to receive it. Any response teaches you about how your writing reaches your audience. If you can evaluate those responses as data to guide future efforts, then all feedback, even negative feedback, is an opportunity to learn about how your work is seen by others.
Be realistic in preparing for feedback. Try to understand the source of the feedback. Try to recognize the individuality of the response. Try to recognize that critical remarks can be used to indicate what needs to be improved.
I mostly talked about receiving negative feedback, because I don't think most of us sit around losing time and energy due to the prospect of getting good feedback. Getting good feedback doesn't require much preparation. But if you're waiting on feedback, it can be very useful to rehearse the reasons that feedback--even negative feedback--helps you learn and grow. If you fear the feedback, it's important to keep working on the ideas of valuing and being able to accept even negative feedback and use it productively. Attitude is crucial; if we remind ourselves of the positive value of even negative feedback (and make no mistake, negative feedback is always valuable in what it teaches about the person who gave us the feedback), then when the time comes that we get the feedback, we're already able to slip into the process of breaking down the feedback and using it to guide your efforts.
Some of this sounds simplistic. I think one reason it may sound simplistic is because it is basically simple. I like the ideas of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, which suggests that the stories we tell ourselves have a profound emotional impact, and that we can improve our mental health by telling stories that are accurate in their balancing of positive and negative possibilities (as many have a tendency to rely on exaggerated stories that emotionally distressful). CBT relies, among other things, on repeating and retelling accurate internal stories, so that those new stories replace the old. In the case of preparing for feedback, if we have negative stories about what feedback means, we need to start telling balanced stories that acknowledge the possibilities presented by feedback.
To awkwardly wrap this up: keep working on wanting the feedback no matter what.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
