The New Normal: Graduate Research in Testing Times
Susie West
Bemused, resigned, distressed? At any point in the current days, you might well be wondering how compatible a pandemic lock-down is with a ticking clock on your postgraduate research. And when I type ‘you’, I really mean: all of us. Full disclosure: I am well past the PhD years, and now have the pleasure of supporting new scholars on their PhD journeys. But am I freaked out now? Just a little bit. Hence this feature, because decades of applying bum to chair (the recommended technique for getting the writing done) do not always help in exceptional circumstances. But there are other things in life…
Are there, you may well query? I have to get my work done and it just isn’t happening. Yes, I fully acknowledge that even if your bum is planted on that chair, higher order research is not flowing. That. Is. Fine. Really.
Living in a pandemic is a fast moving experience, in some ways: keeping up with the news, making lifestyle adjustments, feeling isolated from your established habits, missing people and worrying about them. Yes, and your supervisors are certainly feeling that too. But we do know what we will be doing for the next month at least, and so there is some certainty there. External stresses like food sourcing seem to be calming down, and the mobilisation of grass-roots community support for anyone in practical need is real. It will not feel as disruptive every day, because it will become the new normal.
So it’s not a great ‘new normal’, but what about the day job, your research degree? If you are also teaching undergraduates, you will have plenty to do in fulfilling whatever your university wants you to do about online provision, and that’s inevitably going to knock out your personal resources for thinking about research. Let it. Quite a few of you are mature candidates with households to run, and now children to home school. Multi-tasking is a great life skill, but so is knowing when to put some things on hold.
When you feel that your schedule really ought to include some research, be kind to yourself. My own stress response has been about not sleeping well, and consequently I am kind to myself about my morning routine (you can tell I’m not home schooling). Here it is real privilege not to be in a keyworker role that requires a sharp brain at silly o’clock. As a result, I do my exercises, eat breakfast, avoid most of the news, and only after I’ve done a quick ‘walk to work’ around the block do I make coffee and sit down at this desk: these are slow-start mornings. Which brings me to my next point…
It is true that if you are on a full-time research degree programme of study, this is the greatest amount of dedicated time you will probably have for research for some time in your career. Most of us fit in short bursts of reading, thinking and writing, for years, until formal research leave gives us permission to try and remember how to do long-form work. Don’t feel sorry for us (well, ok, a bit then), but take two points away.
One is that the ability to switch on and off from immersive work is a real bonus, for any job; it takes a bit of practice, but you can reframe ‘I’ve only done 30 minutes’ to ‘I have got stuck in to something for 30 minutes’. I find one hour is a really powerful unit for me, if I can’t face the digital heaps of stuff stretching ahead of me. There are plenty of internet suggestions for packaging work into bite-sized chunks, using timers and study buddies; I just set a timer or tell myself what time I’m working through to. I suspect all these things work because it helps you externalise the challenge.
Secondly, yes, it is frustrating that you can only access research materials digitally, and you need to get out to handle archives, leaf through books and see some buildings. This is a pain, and one I hope to endure after Easter, when I won’t be snug in a major copyright library either. How much this matters in this short to mid-term for you depends on your timescale for research. In a three year project, there is a surprising amount of wriggle room. What you lose in one year, you can make up in the following. Planning is key; if Plan A isn’t working, make Plan B to suit the current circumstances. What can you bring forward? Can you deepen your understanding of the contexts of your topic through a reading programme you hadn’t previously thought of undertaking?
It is a truism that many PhD theses reveal great attention to the immediate topic, but are weaker on understanding the connections that topic has to themes, period or place. This is often why it feels quite hard to write the Conclusion; lifting your gaze up after all that immersion can be quite late when actually you need to get the thing submitted. So anticipate that now: follow up some trails in the literature, identify some parallels in other fields (what’s happening in literature/film/art at the same time?) or regions (is your British topic similar to the European/USA/global experience or not? Why? How?). Does this help you identify future research from questions arising? That becomes your squirrel store for when you do need to get that Conclusion written. Masters’ students with a dissertation to write might try the same approach, with a shorter time scale.
If you need to complete your research soon, say by September, then do remember that the people examining your work have lived through exactly the same disruption. You should have received helpful notices from your university about extensions, hardship support and moving to non-print submission and vivas by skype. If you are on track to demonstrate your original contribution to knowledge, have done all your own work, and have a well-structured thesis plan, you are doing really well. It is very hard to fail at your level, because you have passed the thresholds to get you here. So well done.
Finally, self-care is something to take seriously, if you haven’t already. There are lots of resources in the digital world for breathing, stretching and relaxing. The mental health charity Mind offers a great range of advice and support, and a simple summary of five ways for well-being: connect; take notice; be active; learn; give. Your learning is part of this virtuous circle.
How can I work out without weights? Some useful hardback weights.
Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light: 1.3k
Wood, The English Medieval House, 1.4k
Bannister Fletcher 18th ed., 1.6k
Colvin, Biographical Dictionary, 1.4k
Oldies but goldies to watch on catchup:
Black Books, c.2000-4, All4
Would you like the SAHGB to host a postgraduate forum for these exceptional times? Be part of your scholarly community, share tips, resources, small victories? Let us know…