Surviving your PhD

 I wanted to write a post about my PhD, but the trouble is that writing about your research can be a minefield. While there is much about the internet and the access it provides to so many ideas that is wonderful and that makes my job as a researcher easier and more enjoyable, I also find myself coming up against problems that people haven't quite worked out the answer to yet. For example, it is difficult for me to write about my current research on this blog because then that information exists 'out there', and if the world already has access to all your brilliant new ideas then they stop being so brilliant and new, and who is going to want to publish them? This instinct to protect your work is complicated by a desire to celebrate what is brilliant about the internet- we can share ideas instantly,with so many people, and out of this collaborative experience can come great work that is marked by a sense of freshness and immediacy.

While I struggle to make sense of all this, I thought it may be interesting to share some of my own experience of working on a PhD so far. Everybody works differently, but this is the strange, slightly fraught, system that I have built for myself. Recently I have been really struggling to tame an unruly chapter and looking at these pictures they fail to convey the feelings of despair, joy, stress, and just plain lunacy that accompanied the process.
My research always starts with a massive pile of books. I read these, make notes on them, mark pages,split them into common themes, and generally feel upset that after every working day I have nothing to show for myself. This can be a common frustration for me. The writing - the word count - tends to happen very quickly at the end, but before that come weeks of painful slog where I seem to be working very hard and producing very little. I am much more at peace with this bit of the process than I used to be as I trust myself a lot more, but it can still be frustrating. This kind of research is slow and laborious, and would not make a good 'Rocky' style montage. After this I try to make some kind of plan by noting all the different ideas I've come across and how I want to try and fit them together. This usually results in a mad scrawl with lots of arrows pointing everywhere as my excited, tea-fuelled brain comes to the conclusion that 'EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED!!!' and a lot of exclamation marks and capital letters start creeping in everywhere.This is one of my favourite bits. Nothing beats that light bulb moment when you can see how everything fits together. I think this is especially rewarding because so much of what you do up until this point is based on instinct, and every time it falls into place your trust in yourself as a researcher grows. Sometimes I won't quite know why I've chosen to follow certain avenues of research, but these seeming tangents often offer me the most innovative insights into a text.

The picture on the left shows all my lovely chapter notes typed up and put into sections. I have to see all the notes in front of me on bits of paper so that I can move them all around until I have them in the best order. After that the actual writing happens very fast. I think that's another reason why putting in so much groundwork works for me- I like to be able to write very quickly, and to keep the style of the thing quite loose and fluid. I suppose the work is quite dense but I don't want it to read that way.
At this point it may be worth stressing how important it is to take breaks. At first I found this really difficult, but  just because you love your job doesn't mean you don't need to take regular time off from it. It's lovely being able to structure my own working days, but I know myself better now, I know how much the quality of my work tails off if I try to log ludicrous hours, and feeling guilty about enjoying my work and then having 'free time' as well doesn't help anyone. I know how lucky I am, and I don't take it for granted... this PhD is one of the most challenging, stressful, frustrating things I have ever done and I absolutely love it.