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Interesting Things, August 6th 2015

It’s a long, long time since I’ve written a post for this blog – I deliberately took time off to focus on other projects (more on those soon), but today I want to share a couple of links to interesting things.

We The Humanities, curated by Emma Cole – all this week We The Humanities is being curated by Emma Cole, who recently produced a daily vlog about the last thirty days of her PhD leading up to submission. Emma has some interesting things planned for this week, and on Thursday – tomorrow! – I’ll be headed down to London to film a vlog episode about the viva and viva prep with her, as well as doing a Q&A on viva things with her. Check out the Twitter accounts above for more details.

Extremely Useful Notebook Organizing Hack – a title that does what it says on the tin; I’ve recently been cultivating a SANE habit of starting the day by recording a page of ideas in a little notebook, but that hasn’t quite hit the productive highs I’m aiming for. I think that having a more substantial notebook for idea development might help, and organisation-wise this might just make the difference.

20 misused English words that make smart people look silly – I’m going to print this and stick it in front of my desk for when I get my writing groove back…

10 tips for more concise writing – …and I think I’ll be sticking this next to it.

Explaining graphic design to four year olds – this article delighted me in a number of ways. First of all, I liked the approach and the results that the author took; it made me think about design and what it is, as it’s definitely a component of my work, and perhaps I need to recognise that more and think about how to apply it. But it also made me think about my work and the work of a lot of people I meet: researchers. How would you explain what you do to a four year old? My daughter is fast approaching two, and her language is really starting to come along – although the phrase “Chocolate biscuit please daddy please!” is clearer than some others – I have no clue what to say to her when she is a little older.

And I have a sneaking suspicion that if I can find a way to explain what I do to a four year old, then perhaps I’ll have figured out what I do too…

Thanks for reading!

Nathan (@DrRyder and @VivaSurvivors)

 

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Interesting Things, June 8th 2015

Hello! How are things in your part of the world? Since I last shared an interesting things post I’ve had a strange series of weeks. First, I was ill – and being ill sucks! I got better after a couple of days, but I realised that I have very little in the way of relaxing strategies. And as I write that I realise how odd it sounds: why would someone need strategies for relaxing? People talk about strategies or systems for time management or planning all of the time, but it feels wrong to think about strategies for relaxing.

I’ve also had a couple of weeks where I’ve been working from home. I’ve missed being out and about delivering workshops, but enjoyed the extra time around family. It’s also meant that I’ve had time to start planning for the next writing project, which I’ll probably be in a position to share something about soon. I’m aiming to publish again by mid-to-late-September I think, but this is contingent on me getting first drafts done by the end of July. I’ll need to use this last week of non-workshop time to really get a good plan together, and also break some ground on chapters……..

…….but I think it’s doable 🙂

Anyway! What have I been reading?

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Interesting Things, May 18th 2015

A few weeks back I did the first of these regenerated round-up posts. A lot has happened since then, not least of which I published my second book. I also had a busy couple of weeks, working on the Manchester GRADschool and a First Year Development Workshop at Liverpool. With finishing a project like publishing a book, my brain is at once happy that it’s done, sad that it’s over and curious to know what I’ll be working on next. As a way to try and wrap things up I wrote a couple of posts about writing The Viva: Who? What? How? last week that you might be interested in. Meanwhile, elsewhere…

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Catch Up, 26th January 2015

Previously in this sort-of link round-up slot I’ve had some kind of format where I talk about things in certain orders and so on. But after having spent a lot of time writing out to a clear structure lately (he says, conversationally referencing his next book) I thought I would write as things occur in this post.

Work

I spent some time away last week at my first KESS Grad School of the year; it was great to work with a group of MRes scholars, hear about their research and look at some interesting case studies. Very happy that I have some more of these in the coming six months. This week I’m away in Bangor for a couple of days, talking to staff and PhD candidates about vivas, and on Friday morning I’m at LJMU to talk about viva prep there too. Busy times!

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Catch Up, 8th December 2014

Hello! How are you doing? This is the last catch up post for this year, although on 31st December I plan to share a “year in review” post that will summarise what I’ve done this year, some of the most-read posts I’ve written and other projects I’ve been involved with. And on the 1st of January I currently plan to talk about my goals and big projects for the year ahead!

The last few weeks have been good, a mix of working from home – which is lovely because I get to play with my daughter more – and workshops in Sheffield. I’m at Liverpool for most of this week, and starting to plan ahead for January’s workshops. I’ve also been doing a fair bit of writing too!

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Catch Up, 24th November 2014

Is it that time already? Seems like only yesterday that I was writing one of these posts, where does the time go… It’s been a busy couple of weeks for me, delivering more than a few workshops and keeping a few plates spinning. I was very happy to facilitate on a KESS Grad School recently; I’ve been involved with the programme for a number of years now, and it’s great that that’s continued on. Long train journeys to get to south Wales though, but perfect for lots of reading!

On This Blog

Almost two weeks ago I shared a favourite idea generation process of mine, which resulted in me coming up with some more Christmas presents for my wife! I reviewed The Path Of A Doer, and answered a common question about the viva (“what’s the worst question they can ask?“), before sharing a series of posts that started with me thinking about to do lists. I shared some experiments that I’ve run on myself to try to find things that work for me. In fact this week I’m doing another, capturing things in three columns on a big sheet of paper. Column headings are Tasks, Short and Emails (Short is for the little tasks that are not urgent but need doing at some point OR need doing soon but are not important). It’s just another little test to see what works. What works for you?

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Catch Up, 27th October 2014

What have you been up to lately? I’ve been in Sheffield delivering some workshops, and I’ve been preparing for a few more in the North West and Wales. I’ve also been recording more episodes of the Viva Survivors Podcast after a call for interviewees was answered by lots of people all at once – a good problem to have! I’ve also been writing for the coming weeks, as I’ll be away a little and didn’t want to break the chain of publication that I’ve been forging.

On This Blog

Almost two weeks ago I shared a post about inspiration, which was followed the next day by my first book review (a monthly feature of this blog from now on). I rounded that week out by answering a common question about the viva: is there a dress code? Last week was a bit reflective around here, and I shared a total of four posts loosely themed around “Time and the PhD“. These were some ideas that I’ve been chewing over for a while now, and they’re starting to poke out from among my brain cells and make themselves known more and more. I’m sure that it’s a topic I’ll be returning to in the future, as I try to draw thoughts together.

Anyway: let’s take a look at what else I’ve seen that’s piqued my curiosity!

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Catch Up, 13th October 2014

Every two weeks or so, on a Monday, I write a recap of what I’ve been posting about – just in case you missed anything, after all, you’re busy, it’s not all about me! – and also share a couple of links to articles or things that I’ve found interesting recently.

On this blog

I shared some ideas about capturing ideas, and then a couple of posts each with ten questions: first, for people who were starting a PhD and the second for people who were starting another year of their PhD. The second seemed to interest folk a lot, I was tweeted left, right and centre and had a few hundred people come and read it! If you shared it, thank you, and if you read it I hope it helped.

Last week was all about the research I’ve been working on, looking into the viva experience of PhD graduates in the UK. This was a series of five posts, and I am very happy that they have been shared and read as widely as they have already. I’m thinking hard about the next step for this research – I have a couple of ideas, and if you have any thoughts please get in touch!

Anyway, enough about this blog – what other treats have I seen?

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Catch Up, 29th September 2014

Every two weeks or so I intend to write a post just like this one – where I’ll talk about what I’ve been posting for the last few weeks, and link to any posts or things I’ve seen that I think are also worth having a read or look at. OK?

On this blog

The last – and first! – two weeks of posts here have been about acronyms, the neatly encapsulated ideas that I use all the time both for myself and for working with postgraduate researchers. I’ve written about INTRO, which helps start presentations; STAR, a technique for talking about your skills; PMI, an idea evaluation tool; and five other acronyms. If you haven’t already, take a look, and let me know in the comments what acronym ideas you find really useful!

Meanwhile, elsewhere

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