I now have to get on with it - now or never- in relation to getting this beast called an Ed D tamed! I know that I don't want to take 8 years - in fact, I want to get it completed asap and I've just come to the realisation that having jumped a number of required hoops, it's now back within my control to do this.
I've just flicked through a couple of 'how to write your PhD thesis' books, you know, the 'quick fix', 'self help' kind, buoyed on by a comment made by a colleague last week about formal writing styles. I've just realised that I don't need to do it in the way that I have been writing (although nobody has told me that what I've been doing is wrong), and in actual fact, I need to practice what I've been preaching in terms of pragmatism, and find a “productive, naturalistic approach” (Field, 2005 [online resource]) in terms of writing style. Maybe this is where I've been blocking myself all along, trying to write in a formalised style - the type of writing that we expect our students to use. A pragmatic approach would say that experimentation and intervention as a key part of “transformative human impact” (Miettinen, 2006 :12) and I'm going to interpret this with the need to experiment with my writing style in order to transform this experience into something more productive, readable and engaging.
I've chosen my methods (developmental work research - DWR) through a series of decisions influenced by John Dewey's pragmatism, and I have chosen to answer the questions “What is happening here?” and "How can this knowledge aid future practice?', taking a descriptive approach rather than an ethnographic approach. As a researcher I am using methods based on my knowledge of the context to become an assembler (of the findings) and a commentator on the current and future situation (Newby, 2010: 66). Using DWR techniques that strive to see the issues from a practice perspective, rather than an individual perspective, I now need to find a writing style that is also congruent with my epistemology, ontology and methodology.
Whilst I do keep a research diary, writing this post has made me realise that I also need to be blogging again on a regular basis, as it is here that I write in , not blocked by the need to reference every statement. Blogging is interesting in that it goes public, so that in writing it the potential reader is always to the fore in my mind. Perhaps all my first drafts should be written here?
Field, R. (2005). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: John Dewey [Online]. Missouri,
USA: Northwest Missouri State University. Available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/dewey/
[Accessed 17/09/2011 2011].
Miettinen, R. (2006) Epistemology of
Transformative Material Activity: John Dewey's Pragmatism and
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. Journal
for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 36 (4), 389-408.
Newby, P. (2010) Understanding the Research Process, Harlow, Pearson Education Ltd.
