Late-Night Talk: Jessica Diehl, PhD. How To Turn Solid Research Into A Publishable Journal Paper.

Students and Graduates!

Jessica Diehl, PhD, is a teacher, researcher writer, and social scientist. Jessica is the Founder of Publish It!, an online business platform where she helps scholars to publish their research strategically.

Jessica Diehl's Publish It! website: https://www.jessica-diehl.com/

YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/@jessicadiehl4219

Thank you all for tuning in, it has been a pleasure!

Students and Graduates!

This is a mid-roll from my late-night talk with Ilana Horwitz, PhD, about her book The Entrepreneurial Scholar. A New Mindset for Success in Academia and Beyond. Use the code IMH20 when buying her book at Princeton Univ Press

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Students and graduates,

Have a break from this session by hearing a late-night talk I had with Michael Gerharz, PhD, about the impact of communication in your PhD and in public.

Thank you all for tuning in, it has been a pleasure!

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Students and graduates!

This is a pod-roll from a solo session of PhD Lounge from the Iceberg explained series. Thank you all for tuning in, it has been a pleasure!

Students and Graduates!

This is my podroll with one of my guests Nikita Bedov, a PhD in Biology.

Thank you all for tuning in, it has been a pleasure!

Transcript

Welcome And Quick Setup

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Okay, Jessica Deal is I think it's how it's pronounced your surname. Perfect. Welcome and thank you. Thank you for joining in.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, thank you so much, Louise. I'm so excited to be on the PhD lounge and um yeah, I'm excited for our conversation.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

So we were talking previously about editing and rendering all our videos, and I noticed that you also have a YouTube channel uh and you post your the the content of publish it. So just tell me anything how hard it is to edit your own videos and then publish it. Is there some like a uh a dopamine release when you when you edit and then you release it and then oh I feel great.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I have to be a little bit forthcoming that I don't do much editing, I record mostly in PowerPoint, so I can do slide by slide, and then I just export it as a movie video, and I just want to be done with it at that point. So I'll do like closed captions, add that, but I really I I'm it I'm a perfectionist. I think a lot of us in academia are. So for me, I was just like, I don't have the capacity to this needs to just be a very simple thing that I do. So I record it and I put it up and I don't look at it again.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

And I think it's just for small content creators and who are who have their own businesses and they share their own content via YouTube, so uh for example, then it has to bring a lot of editing skills, which sometimes you have to be prioritize what you have already. So I think with the PowerPoint is enough, and I had my my own share of it, because I tried I did one first time one about that uh podcast uh talk I had about uh being a PhD in the 21st century. We'll talk about a bit that in a bit, and I used that power I used the PowerPoint as well, and it was it was interesting, but but I saw at the same time that um maybe I could use this a bit better for my next uh paper conferences, and which I have I have done already, but I think for that side from that aspect, then I'd be let's prioritize this and then use other sets of skills uh to record and edit of edit podcast videos, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's also diminishing returns. So I taught design for many years, that's what I taught. And um, you know, students have a great idea and then they spend, you know, 10 times the amount of time perfecting it. And so, you know, I'm sure you know diminishing returns. You do like 90% of the work in the first 10% of time, and then you only get 10% more out of the next 90%. So yeah, knowing when to stop is good for our mental health.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

Yes, mental health, and especially us as PhDs, attention to detail matters, matters the most.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

So you said you had a background in design, uh, as you said to me. Uh, how then led that to your PhD? And well, first and foremost, what was your PhD about, and how that background led you to have that ground knowledge and establish, uh publish it.

Diminishing Returns And Mental Health

From Design To Health PhD

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah, so you know, I was thinking about this, and there's there's so many angles that I could take, but I'll try to be as kind of straightforward as possible. I know life is complicated, isn't it? Um, yeah, so I actually did my undergrad in creative writing and I love to write. I'm a writer at heart, but then I realized trying to be a novelist is like trying to be a rock and roll star. Um, and so, you know, um I looked around my city and I was really interested in public spaces and how um green spaces can really be democratic spaces where, you know, different people from different backgrounds can come together. I was also really interested in community gardens and access to healthy food. And, you know, so I had a lot of sort of diverse passions. And so I realized that I should go to school for landscape architecture and learn how to design these kinds of spaces. And so when I graduated from, okay, so I did a research thesis as part of my master's. You can do project-based or research-based in-design programs, and I wanted to do research. So I had the beneficial, maybe not so beneficial, experience of my advisor saying, Your project is great. I want you to publish two papers out of this as a master's student. And so it was a huge honor to have that pressure. Um, but then it took me a long time to actually be able to publish those papers because I, you know, the training at master's level is very different from PhD level. So so I had sort of that piece going. Um I was motivated to publish my research, but it's a practitioner-based discipline. When I was going to graduate, it was during the 2008 sort of crash, 2009 crash, and there weren't any jobs. So I had some thinking of first of all, I'm not going to get a job. Secondly, I really like research. Uh, and third, designers don't understand people. So we know I was taught how to design cities, but not the to understand the people that are living in those cities. So I decided to go for a PhD in health and behavioral science and to understand human behavior and how the environment impacts that. So when I got there, I was in a good position because I was on my way to having my first publications. I actually did a pivot as part of my PhD. Um, so um I'd wanted to continue looking at green space and health, but I was accepted into a National Science Foundation Eigert program, which is an integrated fellowship where you work across disciplines and you have a PI that oversees the whole project. So I was part of 25 students across five disciplines, and our PI really wanted us to look at sustainable urban infrastructure. So, not to nerd out too much. I know we're a bunch of nerds here, but so I was gonna look at food systems within that. But as luck would have it, as part of that project, each of us had money to conduct research in a sister city. And my PI was from India, so we had money to go to India. So I thought, well, this is great. Um, you know, free money. I'm gonna go study um food systems and urban urban agriculture community gardens in Delhi. And I got to Delhi and they're like, we don't have a lot of community gardens, but we have farmers and they're farming this very contentious floodplain, and we want to develop it. So yeah, so I did a little bit of a shift where I um investigated social networks of those farmers to understand how they access resources to sustain their livelihoods and also um how they access, you know, government agencies and actually have a voice or don't have a voice and become invisible in the planning process. Um yeah, so then um, so as part of my, you know, working on my dissertation uh research, I've got my papers coming out from my master's thesis and so shifting gears and so those actually both of those papers, after some back and forth and re revise and resubmits were accepted to the original journals, the first journals that I had submitted them to. So, in some sense, I was I didn't realize it at the time, but I was a little bit lucky. I sort of just stumbled on the right fit um for those papers. Um, but as part of my PhD work, um, we did a small pilot study and collected a ton of qualitative data, one of my peers and I in Delhi. And we spent six months coding the research, and then our advisors were like, let's publish this. And so I decided to take on first author role among the four of us, because I was like, Yeah, been here, done that. So I start writing the paper, and we all get together, and the first thing the advisors say is, Yeah, this is great research, but what's the point of this paper? Like, so what? Like, what's what who cares? And I was like, What do you mean who cares? Isn't it obvious? So I went back and I did some revisions and I came back and they were still scratching their heads. They're like, we don't get it. Um, so it started to dawn on me that like I didn't have a core, uh, what I call now core argument. I mean, I don't call it it, it's a core argument, but what I didn't understand at the time is I didn't have like like a central thesis, like one big idea that was holding it together. So eventually we did get that paper published and I didn't quite understand. Eventually, I answered their questions. I revo revised enough, but I didn't really understand, I didn't actually learn why I was able to meet their requirements. I just knew that I had done it and we submitted it. And I forget if it what the review process was like for that. But it was the first time I was like, what do you mean, so what? I've got all the pieces, I've got the in the lit review, I've got the methods, all the findings, we've got some discussion. Isn't that what a journal paper is? Um, so then uh I ended up, so I had done research in India, and for personal reasons, I ended up in Singapore and like at my time of graduation and took a job at the National University of Singapore teaching landscape architecture and got hired very quickly, mainly because they had had trouble tenoring their faculty. So in design programs, usually master's is the terminal degree, but things were shifting at that time where design programs were starting to only hire PhDs because they needed to get them to tenure, and to get to tenure, you need published papers. And to be able to do that, you usually have to have gone through um a PhD program, as you know. Um yeah, so I was hired um with the hope that they would be able to tenure me since I did have a publication track record, and I was part of a sort of a new wave of hires that had PhDs and publications. So at that point, I wanted to publish from my PhD research, and I wrote this very intense paper on, you know, basically a whole comprehensive paper on this very complicated research project. And I sent it out to what I thought was a fairly prestigious journal. Because I thought, well, why not? And nope, they're like, no, thanks. Here's comments, but we're not interested. And I was like, okay. So at least I got some comments. And I have to say, even if you get rejected, comments are gold. Listen to them because you will hear them again if you don't correct. So I made some revisions and sent it out again. And I got rejected again, this time with no comments. So I was like, okay, huh, let me like line edit and massage and like make my figures look better. Like, let's just tidy it up some more. And I sent it to a third journal that I was really hopeful about. And the editor emailed me back immediately and was like, I'm not sending this out for review. This is not ready. You don't really know what you're doing. This is really great research, but this is not a journal paper. So let me help you. I want you to read Wendy Belcher's Writing Your Journal Paper in 12 weeks. And this book is really foundational, was really foundational for me. And I recommend it to everyone because it made me realize that a journal paper requires a core argument and structure. So it's not about the contents. I mean, obviously, you need the contents, but good research doesn't mean a good journal paper. Good research is easily transferable to dissertation or a thesis report, or you know, a report to donors or, you know, funders. Um, but a journal paper really requires um this sort of like higher level of structure around it. You've got your your big idea, the thing that you're contributing to the discourse, the scientific community, and then you organize your paper around that. And that means probably not publishing your entire research project in one paper, but really pulling out maybe some of the important ideas and making them their own papers. I don't know if I answered your question.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

I feel like this is a long No, it was it was you've basically told your your whole journey of uh how you got yourself into the PhD, using your background in architecture and design to teach at Singapore, and then mixing both of your worlds to tailor all your research papers into the journal in any academic journal with their own standards. And I personally for me, I never published uh an academic an academic um article yet. Yet uh, but then this is something uh that for those who are who want to take that next step following their PhDs or even during their PhDs, then uh it's better to have some prep some preparation of okay how we will uh encounter these uh this these uh not obstacles, these challenges, and rejection after rejection, improving and hearing from others who who have been through that uh as you as you are sharing it now. And I do wonder as well how how intensive was is it just the rejections or was it also anything uh any other any other things that uh came up to you?

Research Pivot And Delhi Fieldwork

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Uh as I was trying, as I was going through my own publishing journey or starting to think about okay, yeah. Let me think. I think you know, for me having a writing background, it was and this is something that I I'm very sort of cognitive uh cognitive of that many many of my peers and um call colleagues, mentors, mentees uh don't have the same passion for writing. Of course, scientific writing is very different from creative writing, but I recognize that every kind of writing has its own structure, like it's a way of how you package the information. And so when I was learning how to write scientific papers, I was always thinking, what is the package that I'm trying to put this information in? And I think one of the biggest disservices we do to our graduate students, having been on the other side and having had my own PhD and even master's students that I've actually had a number of master students publish from their research. Um we'll talk about small studies in a little bit. Uh, is that while we spend a lot of time being trained and training others in the scientific methods, you know, whether it's hard science, social science, humanities, we don't teach the process of writing journal papers. We we it's teaching by doing. So we look at other journal papers and like, okay, so here's the format IMRAD, introduction, methods, results, discussion, maybe some conclusions. So maybe it's a little different in the humanities, though. I'm not sure, uh, Lewis, if you would like where you fall on the social science is humanities. So I recognize there is a little difference. But there's, you know, there's the there's the obvious structure, um, and that's easy to mimic. But the spirit and what makes a journal paper a journal paper, which is that core argument, that thread, that structure, that sort of like somewhat like meta structure, isn't taught and it isn't always easy to see, even for those of us who are good pattern recognizers. Um, so that's actually one of the motivations for me in developing publish it, is that no one's ever really taught how to write a journal paper. And so then not only are we not taught how to do it, then we become suddenly become mentors for graduate students who need to know how to write journal papers. And we ourselves don't necessarily so we I think you know it perpetuates this sort of like mystique of well, just write a paper, like you can do it, I did it. Because you can't really sit down and say, All right, here are the steps that you need to go through.

Rejection And The Missing Core Argument

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Um, yes, and I think it's that is also due that uh everyone has its own style of writing, it just and then the person develops it through uh throughout the years into into their research, and that I it's kind of it's quite to say that everyone has its own method, and there's no there is uh no definitive uh regulation or even methodology on how you would write your own research paper. I think for for any academic journal, they they have their own standards. It's kind of like to say you have to find you have to find out what are the thumbnails of the of their of their academic journals, and then you have to navigate through trial and error until until it is accepted, so to speak. I I don't I don't know, as I said, I I haven't I've I've written research papers at President M at at academic conferences, but I yet have to uh submit my my some of those paper one of those papers like as as if it is a proposal, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Yeah, and I think you make a good point, but I also want to push back a little bit. Um absolutely different journals have different standards, and even within the same discipline, some journals are more theoretical, some are more databased, some are more less sort of like not robust, isn't the right word, but smaller, like shorter papers. Um, but I will push back and say that it doesn't have to be trial and error. There are fundamental things that are the same from one paper to the next. And so it's sort of that like as I kind of called it, that metastructure. So you you can learn that, and then you also already also have learned the scientific process. So you have your contents, so it's just that sort of like middle piece in how you fit the metastructure and the contents together that then vary by by journal. And um there is definitely, you know, there's always you never really finish finding your writing voice. I actually wrote a blog about that, like starting with your first sentence. How do you um it took me, I would say about half a dozen papers before I started writing in my own voice and being comfortable enough to not just hide behind the sort of like curtain of or wall of like everybody that had written before me and to be able to write sentences from my own with my own voice. Um, but that's you know, yeah, you you spend your whole life learning how to write from your own voice. Um, but the actual sitting down and writing the journal paper can be a more, it doesn't have to be such a gray area. Yeah. And so that's what I teach is if you focus on these, you don't have to do it in the steps that I recommend because everybody has their own process. Um, but if you, you know, have these certain components and focus on these rather than just sitting down with a blank page, then you actually will be um more, I hate to say efficient because that's such a like businessy term, but it yeah, time is time is valuable. Um and also affect it, it can also be more effective because you're you're very clear from the beginning what your point of view is. Because I think a lot of us, you know, early on when I would sit down and write a journal paper, I'd be like, okay, here's my findings and here's the methods I use to get those findings, and then I'm gonna see what my point is after that. Like, what did I what is gonna emerge and my paper is gonna happen? But that's really um it makes it a really long road to finishing your your draft when you do it that way.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

Yes, and I think I think it's just practicing the uh the the uh the practic more practicing, the better the results will come. And as you said, it's a constant learning process. So I'd like uh you've already explained uh uh in between what publish it means, but could you uh explain what what was the drive and the main goal uh essentially to say this is publish it and what's who are your clients? Main uh who are your clients?

What Makes A Journal Paper

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Sure. Um yeah, so uh I don't know how much I got to in my so um at some point at NUS I realized that I needed to apply for tenure, and I was there for seven years before my tenure packet was like last last day deadline due. Um, because I was there over COVID, so a lot of us got one, two, even three year extensions. So I had a really long tenure process. In Singapore, you said, yeah. Yeah, in Singapore, in Singapore, yeah. So seven years on tenure track. And so I had to decide, and a lot, you know, a lot of life had changed for me, um, as it had for a lot of us, and you know, for personal and whatever reasons. And I, while I love teaching and I really love research, I did decide in the end not to go for tenure because I just felt like it was time for me to repatriate. I really wanted to go into private practice. Um, you know, teaching was sort of a stepping stone for me. And when I came back to the US, um, you know, it's not so easy to apply for jobs these days. And something that I'd always been thinking about is um, you know, it'd be great to do consulting, but what am I good at? I'm good at, I mean, it isn't that I have the most amazing journal papers because I don't, but I know how to get published. And I've I've been able to get master's levels research that are very, very small studies that were conducted in very short periods of time published. So I have proof that, you know, even small studies um in unusual contexts with non-traditional researchers have a place in the scientific record. And I can help make that happen. And a lot of people struggle with that. So why don't I fill the gap and see what I can do to help um researchers? Um, and of course, you know, this is sort of an uh I'm an entrepreneur, this is a business. Um, so my thinking is you know, I can um do courses and do workshops um and do coaching um to support myself, but I know that I'm trying to reach a lot of people in uh contexts that they're just, I mean, to just be totally blunt, don't have money. I mean, even graduate students in uh high-income countries don't have money. So I want to make sure that this is accessible because the whole point is that I want to facilitate or enable researchers that wouldn't have the resources to get published to help them on their track to getting published and make it less difficult. So I do a lot of, you know, I try to, I actually I'm not prolific in creating content, but once a month I publish a blog and I publish a new free tutorial and I do a newsletter. And so I try to create resources that are free or low cost in addition to things that are, you know, um, if you really are interested in really making it happen, then then we move you into a more um into one of the workshops, sort of the one-on-one coaching. Um, so yeah, so my motivation is really uh twofold. Yeah, and I don't think, especially, you know, I'm part of a woman's entrepreneur group and we don't talk about this enough as women that when we're in business, it is a business, you know, and there is a financial aspect to it. But at the same time, this is not a business I'm running to make money. I obviously choose this line of work because I'm very passionate about it. And um, you know, it stems from all the way back to when I moved to Boston, uh after, uh, I don't know. Yeah, did I say it was Boston after my undergrad? And I saw public spaces as being democratic and wanting to create spaces like that. Like I've always wanted to be in uh have a career path that I feel like I've I don't know, I have a moral obligation, even if I'm not a religious person, I I feel that way.

SPEAKER_02 34:25

So it's kind of a bit of both worlds. One, the act the academic venture, and then the the industry uh um side uh side uh hustle, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Yeah. It is it is a hustle.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

So it's quite it it it is interesting to mix both worlds where nowadays there's this I don't want to say biased views of oh academic academia is worse than industry, industry gets gets you more employability opportunities than academia, academia has two percent. We get uh caught up with this uh mixture of feelings uh uh each per each individual on social media uh shouts out uh and says why you should be here, why you shouldn't go there, and why not mix both of both both worlds as you as you are as you're currently doing with your own business. It just gets the better the barrier, I so to speak, and probably potentially your clients uh have some good thoughts and good uh dropped good reviews upon it.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah, and it's interesting you say that because I'm curious from your perspective. Um uh I've listened to a lot of your podcasts, but I don't maybe I miss some where you talked about this, so apologize if this is general knowledge, but I'm curious. No, not a if you're yeah, or if you're planning on going into academia or into practice and how that because even going into academia, there's you know, where's your grant funding coming from? It's usually, you know, a lot of it is private business or and there's also a big push among universities to uh monetize you know innovation that comes out of research. So like there's there's a lot of there's no more black and white between practice and research and practice.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

Uh it's just interesting that you that you point out and just hear my thoughts because initially when I started my PhD, I even before that I I wanted to go to into academia, and then fast for and then during the my second and third year, and then even fourth year, then I said, no, I'd like to go to industry first to gain some professional experience and maybe could give like a boost to get into academia afterwards. Uh although I'm I'm browsing any anywhere, I'm just networking, uh anywhere, strategically networking, of course. Uh recently I was with I was with my examiner and Maxiner told me you have to convert some of your one of your methodologies into a sequential a sequence of papers, because it's complicated. And so yes, I've been thinking about that because the methodology I'm using are too theoretical and they need to convert it into practical terms or so to using more case studies to give to reinforce why my my these methodologies I use. Uh well it's called hybridity in third space, but because it's from post-colonialism, and I transput that into ancient worlds is a rather complicated process, but I digress in that in that part. Uh and that that was a good conversation for me to have uh a sense of a bit of a different thought about how can I approach um postdoc, so to speak, and trying to get into maybe I've and I've applied for funding I've throughout my whole degree, I've been self-funding myself. I do have a part-time job, uh I've been multiple uh income streams to income stream stream jobs to well to pay the bills, so to sp uh right. And I think neither one, the acad the academia nor the other industry are inherently bad. They have their ups and downs, just like any other environment, and they have they have their own advantages as well. So I understand that here in the UK academia is like what 2% or so three or two two or three percent of uh accept accepting rate, and industry have more higher probabilities, but we we can't we can't we can't say that out uh in uh without knowing the the facts or the statistics because the difficulties are uh come from both sides.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Absolutely, yeah. And so I would say start writing papers now.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yes, uh, and that's what that's what I'm planning to do, and um as well writing the papers. I'm current after submitting the corrections of my PhD, I have an article which I have already written, half of it from my paper, but needs to be must be polished, and so it's halfway half halfway done. The other halfway must be done.

Why Publish It Exists

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I think it's interesting you said um when you're talking about your um sort of your methodology is very theoretically complex, and so you kind of have to disentangle and maybe write a few pub um you probably get a few journal papers out of it, and I think that's it's a really smart uh approach. Um I see all too often it's not maybe one out of five papers that I review. I feel like the the authors are trying to put an entire research project into one paper and there's too much happening. So they have a new, they have a new instrument, but then they also collected data in a new context. And so those two pieces alone could be standalone papers because they can't, when you're trying to put too much in, there's no way to prioritize one idea over the other. They're both important. And so I think that's a good litmus test of like how to kind of divide into different papers. If you have two competing or three competing ideas, those are two or three papers. The risk is, and I wrote a blog about this, salami, salami publishing, where you slice and dice, you want as many papers as possible because you only had this one funding, you know, or like, you know, you're just working on your dissertation and you want, you know, you'd love to have five published papers and you slice and dice so thin that none of them are really robust enough to stand alone. Um, but I do think that it's really important for each journal paper should just have one idea. And it makes it stronger and more clear, and in fact, is a is a better contribution to the research. Um, and so if you have several aspects that can be published, you're gonna appeal to to different um, you know, different researchers are gonna lean towards one versus another paper. So you'll actually be speaking to different audiences, which is great because your research has more reach. And when we're so specialized, we don't have a lot of reach anyway. So the more reach we can get, it's great.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

So it's a sort of strategic nuances around what we have, and that is that what you can see the small research and framing it uh at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 42:41

No, not necessarily. Um, so small research I would kind of define as like a pilot study or a proof of concept, or like where you have a really small N. Uh, so I did a study once where I had an N of 15. Um, and um, so it was a small, even though I was using um a framework and an instrument that I had already published in several papers, that small N I really had to defend. Yeah, so no, you can have a very large project and still kind of slice slice it.

SPEAKER_02 43:17

Yeah, yeah. So and since we're speaking small, and we can why what that's what prevents them, what prevents scholars then from publishing it small research then you know, um I don't know because I'm perfectly happy to publish small research projects.

One Paper One Idea

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Most of my research is small research, um, because I love qualitative research, even though I I I love numbers too, but um I just think uh qualitative research is so much more in interesting to me personally. But that being said, uh I think a lot of the hesitation is just I hate to say lack of confidence, but it's just sort of some sort of maybe hesitation. Maybe I'll call it hesitation because so much of the research we cite is either foundational or really large studies, they become, you know, the um, they rise to the surface of the discourse. But it's the small studies that then get built upon that make space and give confidence to um grant funders to actually fund those big projects. So it's the small studies that are so important to be published because they may only take one small tiny question and answer it, but they're resolving something that you know maybe it isn't worthwhile to waste a lot of resources on because it may not be the right way to go. So I love small studies because they give a lot of flexibility. Um, and you often find something unusual um that emerges out of it. Um I had a couple of things to say about small studies. Um yeah, so um especially uh I mean I guess PhD research can feel very uh can feel very big, but there's oftentimes aspects of it that are either a pilot study or a proof of concept. So for example, for my PhD research, I wanted to do a lot of field interviews, but I was measuring something, uh qualitative social networks. And so there weren't a lot of uh methods, like there's a lot of theory, but to like what probably what you're doing, creating a new way or a more innovative way of measuring. Um, because we're always trying to get closer to the actual thing we're trying to measure, right? So we want to refine our instruments. And so when I was doing my qualifying exams, one of my advisors and the kicker is I had since I was in this interdisciplinary fellowship, I had five advisors, each from different disciplines. So I had a lot, I had a lot of people to satisfy to get through. And one of them, um, the planner in the group said, How are you like, how do you know that this survey instrument is actually gonna measure what you say it's gonna measure? And I was like, Well, I'll find out. And you said, Nope, you're not gonna. I'm gonna give you a contingent pass based on you're going to do your field, you're like going to India in two months, and you're gonna pilot test this and you're gonna send me back like a report of whether it actually worked and how you refined it. And so it was the best thing that came out of my QEs because I got to the field and I realized that I needed to make some modifications. And so I only wasted, wasn't even wasted, I say wasted, but it felt like wasting at the time. Like 10, I did 10 interviews. And over the course of those 10 interviews, I was able to refine the instrument and get to the instrument that I ended up using. Um, but even that, in it, I didn't actually I didn't even publish that, but that would have been a really important sort of stepping stone. Um, you know, at the time I was like, oh, but this is just uh, you know, nobody needs to know about this.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

If it was if it was now, would you publish it?

SPEAKER_00 47:37

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:39

Which would you publish all 10 interviews or one that uh one that you found more interested, more interesting, sorry?

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Yeah, it's a good question because that so that assumes that the paper would have been about the interviews themselves. And so this is the thing that I would have I would have leaned into. Um we something to the effect of, you know, we have instruments to measure uh social networks quantitatively, but the qualitative ones are not comprehensive. And so here is how I developed through through 10 sort of cases, how I developed this instrument. And here's based on you know the final whatever one or two with the final instrument, here's what it produced. Um, and I would show like um, so it would be more of a methodological paper that focuses on the instrument itself and looking at like construct validity. You know, I measured it this way and I didn't get the answer I wanted, and here's why. And then I changed it to this, and I got this other answer, and that that was actually what I was sort of aiming for. Um yeah, and I think I think in there's a lot of innovation out there, you know, we're smart, we're always thinking and trying to make things better and measure things more precisely, or you know, apply one theory in a new context and just to make it better, we sometimes get distracted by the data itself rather than realizing the contribution is really in the change in instrument because the instrument is what will be reused again, not the data.

unknown 49:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

Sure. So sounds like it would be uh an a not a not easygoing task, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Well, and it can be hard to see, um, especially when you're early in your research path. You know, I'd probably midway, I would say. Um, I've been doing this for almost two decades, but uh it's hard to see at the beginning. Um, you know, it isn't it isn't recently that I started thinking about uh like how, you know, I always say, like in a research paper, well, or any sort of research project, you have to have your literature review. What do we know? Then what don't we know? What's the research gap? And then what are we gonna do that's gonna fill that gap? You know, so that's kind of the standard way of thinking about it. But I've recently um, I don't know where this sort of came from. I'm sure that I was hearing it in some different places, but started thinking about um a journal paper as a conversation. And so it isn't that you need a literature review of everything we know about the topic. It's like imagine that you're invited to like a cocktail party, and there are a bunch of researchers in there that do something very similar to what you do. Like you've learned from them, they're at the top of their field. Some of them are more like younger and innovative, some of them have like very well established, and you walk in and you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I yeah, I know that's what you've done and you've done, and oh yeah, you tried this new thing and that was interesting, and you pointed out it's them, you know, it's limitations that maybe there's an opportunity for something new here. And oh, and I had this idea that like none of you have addressed this issue yet, and so that's what I am coming to this conversation to talk about is this thing that you haven't talked about yet. So let's let's have a conversation about it. Um, and maybe that's a weird way of approaching it, but I love this idea of a conversation.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

I think I think that's that's how we start for for PhDs, to talk sharing their own ideas and thoughts. And as as you said, Jessica, it's it's on conversations informal, formal, anywhere and any time. So I don't see that that big of an issue. So it's just it's a it's plain and simple, and then we transfer them onto paper.

Small Studies And Pilot Instruments

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Yeah, yeah. And so do you so I'm curious, like, how do you because I think for me, I felt like, and I I feel like I've seen this in other um uh you know, as we start out, there's this I there because when you have to defend your, you know, you go for your qualifying exams and you really have to defend yourself, you have to prove. You know everything about everything, but in a journal paper, you don't. You just have to prove that you know about this specific thing. And sometimes we get caught up in making the conversation more than it needs to be rather than focusing on, you know, there could be a whole room full of people in your research space, but you just want to sit at the table of the people that are doing exactly what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 52:47

Yes. Well, I think for me, I think, well, I can speak from when I had my my my Viva, it was it was a two hour and a half um talk, discussion, uh between my external and internal examiners. Then obviously there was the chair to moderate, but the the the chair didn't intervene whatsoever, uh just the beginning and end of the viva. But at the same time, I felt it was it was more than exam, than an exam, so so to speak. I think it was also a bit of get to know uh get to know the examiners, the examiners get to know myself. Um simply talking about the features, what what can you bring and how will you contribute to the to the academic community in the future and why did you want to choose this research rather than saying just oh I choose because I liked it. No, it's simply I wanted to I wanted to do something different. And for example, my my topic was about ancient cities in the Middle East, specifically Syria and Iraq, from during the periods of the Greeks and Romans over there. And so I used two postcolonial concepts, the the that I've mentioned previously, and that's what they wanted to know. Why why using those two concepts that come from the 20th century and bringing them into a completely different context and time frame that most of them have even rejected it, rejected them several times, and you still wanted to bring that. I said, Well, because they are two interesting topics and two interesting uh concepts to explore a topic that is so vast and interesting at the same time to know what happened to the other side of the world from a uh to into a world, the western world that we know it already. And so I think the conversation, the ex the examining conversation, uh developed throughout that, and with some with a few detailed questions, of course, but at the same time, we we we we had a nice conversation, we sometimes we had a laugh as well. Uh, I could even go for a break. They allowed me to go on a break because I so that was about it, and that was there was a great feedback from the examiners, and the intention was to having more than the more than the exam, having a conversation and explore networking opportunities, so to speak, and socialize even more. So, in the end, it was a really positive experience. So, I don't know how it was uh 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I heard stories that it was a bit more uh rigid between examiner and candidate. It had some different so it has some differences uh in each country, maybe in Europe is a is a whole panel discussion in the UK is more more private.

SPEAKER_00 56:14

So yeah, that's really interesting, and I'm glad to hear that because so mine wasn't rigid, but I certainly wasn't asked why um this topic. Um and I think it's a really it's a really undervalued conversation to have because this is your like this is the stamp that you're making. You can change research directions after this, of course, but this is sort of your this is the thing that you are spending the most time probably in your career just focused on. So it's really important, and it's really important to be self-reflexive of, you know, is this interesting, especially since you are going to spend a lot of time with it. And I think that's also another reason that sometimes it can be hard to write journal papers, is that your researchers aren't, they don't necessarily self-reflect and think, is this interesting to me? Is this interesting? Do I actually feel like I want to commit my because we're not just it's not just a job, right? I mean, you're putting energy and passion into it. I mean, even though it's research, but it's you know, we are passionate about what we do. And if you don't have that, you're not gonna be motivated to publish. It's gonna be feel like a lot of work.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

I would I would add up as well that uh again it's the the pleasure of the conversation, and it is a one uh uh one a one-time opportunity that you will have this uh uh the viva voc case just only once, unless you want to do a second PhD in five years' time. But uh for those who are not who just want to do a PhD and not for just for the sake, but having an opportunity to uh launch themselves into the marketplace, I think this is a great opportunity to reflect on the TV itself as a as a positive experience.

SPEAKER_00 58:19

Absolutely, I absolutely agree.

SPEAKER_02 58:21

We and so we were talking about the uh me exploring the eastern side and trying to obviously we're talking about publishing uh small research and um to for any types of scholars. Do you deal mostly with non-Western scholars or or a bit of both?

SPEAKER_00 58:43

Uh mainly I would say no non-Western because I was in Asia for 12 years total. So almost all of my colleagues and students and mentors were um Asian uh and English, non-native English speakers, although Singapore is English is the first language, but I worked with a lot of overseas uh faculty that came from overseas, other Asian countries, and students mainly from overseas as well. Wait, so what's the question?

SPEAKER_02 59:13

So it's okay, no problem at all. So how how non-Western scholars uh really release their own work? How what what what is their struggle? I drew and I can grasp the example that I was hearing some uh watching some videos on your channel this morning, and uh to just to give context that the Chinese scholars uh translated their their own papers into English, and they would the the the and we know here that the English academic standards is three lines three line uh three to four lines maximum, and you gave the and you and you said that they translated their own Chinese text into English where the sentence would be even more even broader, more than three lines.

Bias Against Non-Native English Writers

SPEAKER_00 1:00:08

Yeah, so that's based on a published uh paper on um specifically on the challenges that Chinese scholars have in translating to English language journals. Um and I would say uh haven't, you know, uh, so the majority of the papers that I review are typically from non-native English speakers, which I think is interesting, is probably because I do a lot of interdisciplinary work and I was based in Asia. Um, but I also get even, you know, European research out of Europe, because of course Europe is very multilingual. Yes, and you know, English syntax is there's a lot of variation. And even as a native speaker, um, I still struggle with, you know, sometimes I have very awkward syntax and I have to revise and revise. And this is me, you know, coming from having a degree in writing, English writing. So it's very easy to see when I when I get a peer-reviewed paper, I know immediately uh, you know, the double blind papers, even the double blind papers, um, if it's a native English speaker or um non non-native. And a couple of things. Actually, I have a couple of thoughts on this. Let me try and organize. So I talk a little bit about bias in publishing. I have two journal posts that are two blog posts that I put out last month on bias in publishing and then what we can kind of do about it. And one of the things that I want to kind of service from that is non-native English speakers have an extra hurdle to overcome, not just in writing in English and dealing with the grammar, but with reviewers themselves, because, you know, as reviewers, we try very hard to be unbiased, but we're human. And so there's the potential insecurity of the authors just finishing a draft and being confident enough to submit it, knowing that it might not be up to par, maybe not having money to pay an editor, you know, a copy editor, which some do and are able to do that, but many don't um have that within their and so then the reviewer, if they can tell that it's it's um, you know, it's pretty easy. It's generally pretty. I mean, there are some terrible English, sorry, I shouldn't say that. There it's it's English can be difficult, the syntax can be difficult. And anyway, um, so as a reviewer, there there could be a bias if the language is particularly difficult to read through, which I have had many cases where that is the case, it can be hard to see the actual research underneath the surface of the language. So I have trained myself to be very to look at those two pieces separately, to give commentary on the language and the clarity separate from is this research robust? Like, is the design um, you know, is this like is this worthy of publication? Um, and um not every reviewer can see below the surface of that um language, sort of like they there can be an assumption that the research isn't good because the way that it's described is it's poorly described. So that is a that's a huge barrier for non-native English speakers to sort of overcome. So it's it kind of reinforces forces the fear of publishing in a language that you're not super comfortable with, even if you're an amazing researcher. And there are, you know, so many really, really excellent um researchers that should be, you know, there's maybe this is controversial, but I'll just say, you know, English language journals are kind of the gold standard. That's kind of like the baseline, right? So to be to get tenure, promotion, go to grad school, like a lot of you know students in Asia will want to come to Western universities. So getting published in an English language journal is important. Um, graduates want to come and work at universities or you know, uh anyway, it's it can be really sort of important to publish in an English language journal. So that that becomes really challenging. The other piece about oh, yeah. So then you have the other side of it. And I reviewed a paper just on Friday, it was it was single blind, so I was a blind reviewer, but I had the list of authors, which I'm never super comfortable with that, um, because it again introduces another level of bias, but it also, you know, there's argument for transparency as well. Sorry. Um as soon as I started reading it, the the grammar was perfect. Um, the word choice was very advanced, and I'd gotten through a paragraph and a half before I realized that this was written by AI.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:29

And you've read my mind because I was about to say to tell you that.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

Yeah. And so it's the first time that I've I mean, I've seen papers that have been edited by AI, like I've read a paper said, you know, you need to improve the English language syntax, and then gotten the revised version, and it's basically the same paper, but it reads much better because it was put through an AI. But this is the first time I was reading this, and so I really, you know, I really first of all, it was so dense and unnecessary, the language is so unnecessarily complex. There's also a thinking that like if it's a scientific paper, it has to be really dense and use these big words and very complicated like sentence structure, which is not true because we are in a world where we're publishing for a broad, intelligent audience. And if you can use a simple word, you should. If you can make one sentence to, then make it to it's just our cognitive load. Nobody reads journal papers anymore. We skim. So this more simple we can get our ideas across, the better. And you're gonna get cited. If it can be understood, you will get cited. If it can't, then nobody's even gonna bother. So I really struggled, you know. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but I looked at the journals' requirements because more journals are adopting AI policies. And basically it said, you're allowed to use AI, but depending on what level of integration, AI becomes a co-author or an acknowledgement. And in this case, I felt like it should have been a co-author, but it wasn't even in the acknowledgments. So I had some real sort of like ethical hesitations. So in any case, you know, it's not my place as a reviewer to decide the fate of the authors. That's the editor's job, but I did make it, I did voice my concerns both to the authors, but then privately to the editor. Um, you know, they need to be very clear what their policy is. So so there's like this two, this double-edged sword, right? Do you submit um based on the extent of your capabilities in translation, or do you you uh use AI, which I mean, I use I use um, I fully say I use Claude AI almost every day. Um, Claude is my research assistant, not my research, my office assistant. So I am definitely the boss, but I think that there's a trend more towards letting AI be the boss and becoming the assistant, and that's that's the risk.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:12

I do think that the it is also a bit controversy to say this, so to speak. Um, and I had several conversations with my advisors about this and say, listen, and I I guess listen, I've used AI to just for tiny bits of some aspects I was not understanding, and I need to convert into it, and I had to copy and paste, but then I had to uh shape it into my own language in how I perceive and read academic English, because I'm Portuguese, uh native Portuguese speaker, and English is my second language, and it said to me, You can use AI as long as you don't show it that it's too linear, because we we have AI as well to mark exams, so and I know that because I was a TA as well, uh senior teaching assistant, and there is no wrong in using AI, but I think at the same time you must have uh the critical thinking and common sense to know that you use AI, you will be you you'll you'll be dependent on AI, you'll become penalized. If you just only use AI for a tiny specif a specific aspect that you find it so hard to understand, and AI can even say so to speak, uh polish it, then it becomes easier for us to use our use our own our own thought in in and processing skills to say what we are going to say uh based on that specific thing that AI has written for us.

AI Use And Research Ethics

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

Yeah, and I am um, you know, I hope that we are able to start developing even more clear policies. I left academia, literally, they were just starting to offer workshops for faculty on integrating and recognizing AI in the classroom. So I I did I left before I could, I didn't get to attend any of those workshops, but I've certainly immersed myself in it to understand it better. But yeah, and I so I wrote also wrote a blog using AI for a literature review, and I literally asked both Claude AI and ChatGPT, I gave it sort of some text and uh said to describe what I was like, how should I use you? In which cases, how do I use you for a literature review, to what extent, what capacities? Um, when should I like, you know, where is the sort of line to be drawn? And they both gave me very different answers. And so I blogged and I blogged about that. It was really interesting. But the short of it is we are creating new knowledge, so an AI can't create that for us. And so if we rely heavily on AI, as you said, we start to lose our own brain power. So, how do we know the new knowledge that we are even able to create? So it's a it's a really delicate situation right now, I think. Um, because uh the other side of it is um there is a lot of um uh I don't know, you know, there some parts of research are like just kind of like admin. So how can we use AI to fill that piece so that we can take back some of our time, you know, and some of the things that were suggested by the AIs that I asked, where, you know, it's it's good at it could be good at finding research gaps or coming up with like broad, you know, to create a broad like topical outline for your literature review, but you have to give it a lot of guide rails so it doesn't miss important research that's been published, and also that it doesn't um make up stuff because we all know that AIs can hallucinate. And I've even I've even um so um I've been creating case studies out of my published works uh into more like translate, like to translate to practice to do some consulting in like urban planning and community design on it separately from like as another thing that I'm doing. And so I will feed one paper. Uh what I've been doing is I feed one paper into Claude and I say specifically, I want a case study, I want it this long. These are the you know, the subheadings, this is what I, you know, I basically give it all the instructions and it still makes stuff up, or it misses like the point of I'm like, and I wrote this paper, so I know that this is wrong. And then I think, well, what about researchers that are doing literature summaries on papers they haven't read and they don't know that it's wrong? So that's yeah, that's the real risk.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:11

And back to what I was saying is just having having the the decency and knowing that okay, you developed your own critical thinking skills and you have your own common sense to write a piece of evidence that will be read by an academic audience, so to speak. And we were talking about you were talking about biases, and because of those biases, non-Western scholars tend to pay more because of that, you know, to get published.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:48

Yeah, so that's an interesting. So I don't know the actual data on that, but it's um so open access started being uh kind of percolating uh when I was moving from PhD to um teaching. Um, and of course, you know, at that point I didn't have any money to publish in open access, but when I got my first research grant, I wrote in um a line item to pay for open access because the thinking is um. Well, so I assume it do you want me to just do a quick run through of the difference between, or is your audience gener? I'll just like I don't mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:32

You can see you can spend the ruling for the thing.

Open Access Paywalls And Abstract Power

SPEAKER_00 1:14:34

Everybody knows. Yeah, I'm sure everybody knows, but basically, journals need to make money to like stay in business. So they either pay a subscriber fee and the papers are submitted free of cost, or the sub or um the open access journals make money when they accept a paper, the authors pay a fee, and then the journal provides the published work free of cost. So there's no paywall. And so being being inside a paywall makes journal papers inaccessible to anyone at a university that doesn't have the funds for a library that can subscribe to all of the because it's very expensive to um journals, but yeah, um, I mean like thousands of dollars for a subscription to one journal and think about how many journals universities have to subscribe to um to give their their faculty and students access. Um so um, but it's free to submit. So if you don't have the money to submit to open access, you want to subscribe to submit to a subscription journal. So if you're if you have limited funds, you're more likely to do that. The other side of it is if you do have the funds, you're potentially more interested in publishing in open access because, first of all, nobody has to pay to read your paper. So that means more reach. And with more reach, it becomes potentially more citations, right? So there's this weird bias that can happen because of one side of the other. So you have more uh underfunded publishing in subscription only, but then their research isn't accessible to their peers. And in fact, I have journal papers that I can't access because they're behind a paywall and I no longer work for a university. So luckily I downloaded them when I can. The but the thinking, the thinking about this, and I yeah, so I wrote a blog about this open access versus um uh subscription-based journals. Um again, the thinking is there's you'll get more citations if you publish in open access, but actually the data isn't there because in this world of skimming, most people don't read journal papers anyway. And so I want to make an important point here that your abstract is probably the most important two or three, or maybe one, one, two or three paragraphs that you will write in your entire journal paper. Because most people will only read your abstract and they will cite you because of your abstract. So it's important for it to be clear, transparent, have all your findings, your argument, everything needs it, does a lot of heavy lifting. And I will admit that even when I can download papers, I've been in a time crunch to, you know, I have a revise and resubmit, and I need to add a new more um papers. I just need like one paper that has evidence of this one thing, and this one just needs to support my theoretical framework. So I'm just looking for the topic. I'll do a quick search, find a well-cited paper, skim the abstract, and then I'll cite that whole paper. And that's not uncommon. And I don't feel conflicted in doing that. If the abstract is well written, it represents the paper, and it doesn't matter if you're behind a paywall or not, you will get cited.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:58

Yeah, I think having a great having a great abstract it definitely what it counts. And for your clients, um what is the how can I put this? Uh what is the the academic uh journal platforms you recommend to your clients who want to publish their first article? Ah, first article, or say one or two articles, just whatever, or their own research paper.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:35

Yeah, that's a good question. Um so in my case, um I really wanted to publish in um a disciplinary uh like a strict disciplinary journal. So when I was publishing, going to submit my paper from landscape architecture, I wanted to publish in there's really only two peer review landscape. I mean, at the time, maybe there are more now. There's so many journals coming online now. There were only two to choose from. So that was where I published. So it may make sense to um, I would say just off the cuff, publish in the place that's going to establish your expertise, which would be a disciplinary journal. That being said, it can be difficult because there's a lot of research and they're generally pretty broad. So there's like there are there are two approaches. I think I might have a video on selecting a journal paper. If not, it's coming up soon, or selecting a journal. Um there's there's a method where you sort of like there's kind of like um so not just sort of looking beyond impact factor in not just targeting tier one journals because they can be really difficult to get into, which isn't to say you shouldn't shoot for that if it makes sense. But there are a lot of there are a lot of journals out there. Um so part of it is where you are in your career path, because it if you want a broader audience, you may be targeting something that's interdisciplinary. If you want to translate, like for me, translating design to practice, so looking more at like policy or practice, more practice-oriented. So, you know, there's different themes of journals, also regional journals versus international journals. But there are what I would recommend that's probably easier, you know, if we're talking about AI, the major journal publishers have abstract, like journal pickers based on your abstract. So you can literally put your abstract in and it will tell you what will be the best fit. And it doesn't mean that you pick the first journal and each like Elsevier and uh like MDPI, like all of the major publishers, like five, six, seven of them have this kind of thing. You can go through and see what they recommend. And then, especially if you're early in your career path and you have a mentor, ask your mentor, like select the ones, like these are the five or six that's recommended. Um, this is sort of like what they publish and their impact factor. How would I, you know, ask, how would you prioritize? And I think that that then helps to narrow it down in addition to looking at your own citations, because that's also a really good indication of where your research fits, you know, who where who is publishing the papers that you're citing the most? Because generally speaking, if you submit a paper to a journal, you want to have at least cited one or two of their papers, because if you haven't, that probably means they're not publishing your topic.

Choosing The Right Journal Strategically

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

Um and I think it's all about the strategy, it's all about the strategy, and I think that is something that uh from this conversation I will absorb and uh take a shot for me. Take a shot and then just uh trying to see around um the the uh the academic platforms where I could uh publish my my first scientific article, so to speak, of all the research papers I've uh I've uh presented at.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:31

I think that's great, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:33

But and um to moving to a qu to that question of of this whole world that is uh so full of uh academic biases, uh lots of uh subscription paywalls to for non-western scholars, uh maybe even Western scholars to get noticed by their own peers. In summary, for you, what does it mean to be a PhD candidate? And then and then I can ask I add also a post-PHD um individual in this country.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:14

Huh. That's tough to answer. Maybe we can let's have a conversation. What do you think? And then maybe I can sort of like put my thoughts together.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:25

Oh well, I think just for being for being a for being a a PhD in this in this century, you you have to be a a jack of alt-rights. That's I would sum up. I'm doing this podcast since 2021, when I started my PhD back in July of that year, and I'm finishing, officially finishing in in two weeks, and or even less than two weeks, uh so to speak. Um and thank you, and been being active online, well, not 100% active online, but having at least uh a personal branding, uh networking around, well, strategically networking around, participating in conferences, go to meetups with peers. That's what I would say that being a PhD in this century, uh and and I think probably over the over the last the last century, it also takes to that that it's being proactive across all all areas.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:38

Yeah, I mean you everything that you just listed is true and also made me really exhausted.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:45

It's mentally exhausting and specifically.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

So, when do you have time for the deep thinking? I mean, and I think that that's really the real question. And you know, it's been a while since I've I mean, yeah. So when I started my PhD, when I did my field work for the first time in Delhi, it was the first time I had a smartphone. So that maybe that ages me a little bit. It was the first time that I actually had a map in my hand and I could follow my tuk-tuk driver. Um that was in 2020, 2012.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:18

I was still I was still in high school, so never thought about going to university, but yeah, go.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:26

Yeah, yeah, no, and I think you know, the world is and there's it's exhausting. Like there's so many places that you have to be and you have to network, and you know, social media makes it even more challenging. So even for myself, you know, like you gotta be on LinkedIn, you gotta be on Instagram, you gotta be on like you have uh do a blog, do a you know, YouTube video, do a podcast, do like be translating your research, but you can't be translating and putting stuff out there if you're not actually doing the work itself. And so really being protective of that deep workspace, I think is really important. And to keep in mind that, like I remember one of my mentors told me many, many years ago before I even went for a PhD, actually, it might have even been an undergrad. She told me that I might be a good candidate to go for a PhD someday. And she said, it will be the best and worst time of your life, but the best because you will never have the space, mental or you know, time, time space, again, to work on one project that you're really passionate about. And in this day and age where we have to be so networked, because getting a job is even more difficult. You have to know someone, you can't just submit a resume somewhere and then be picked because there's you know, you're competing with yeah, it's just it's in it's crazy. It's hard to wrap our minds around it. Um, I think that I I feel I feel the heaviness of sort of your batch coming up now in this space where you you have to yeah, you have to do everything and know everything, but you also yeah, you have to be really protective of that that brain space because your brain is everything, right? I I remind myself like I spent so much money on this brain.

What A PhD Means Today

SPEAKER_02 1:27:30

I think it's just a lot, it's it's too much, and we're it and it's paying loads of tuition fees and we covered in debt. Thankfully, here there's a different policy in what comes to student loans, uh rather than than the the situation in the United States. Uh but we won't talk about that. Let's not talk about that. In the UK, it's rather different, thank, thank God. But um as you said, I think it's being proactive and having a strong network with someone who who really wants to invest on you if you do if you if if you do the the the it's saying I'll invest in you, but you have to give me something back.

Where To Follow And Free Workshop

SPEAKER_00 1:28:24

Yeah. Yeah. So because PhD, you know, and I think about that with my own students, um, and how much time and effort, even outside, I mean, so much time being an academic bleeds outside of office hours, you know. They there's this sense that like, you know, epit academics live this very sort of bucolic, like whatever life, but it's not like that. And I think about my own students, and the ones that I did put the most investment in motivating were the ones that I knew would be able to, I hate to say produce because that's not I don't mean it to be transactional, but the ones that I had had the most potential to, you know, publish a paper or go to a conference or and that would be for their CV, but you know, also it's for for mine as well, because if I have a successful student, it reflects well on me. One thing that I'm thinking more about more about lately that I want to develop more is the idea of how we're motivated in terms of whether, you know, being process or task oriented. And, you know, I think about it in terms of writer's block because there's a lot of procrastin procrastination around writing journal papers. But, you know, as a behavioral scientist, I see that in all aspects of life. You know, I've studied a lot of behavioral models and I came across one that looks at motivation in terms of internal and external factors. So some of us have a lot of internal motivation and can sort of push out external, whereas some of them, some of us need accountability, don't have a lot of internal, but can meet external. Then there's the unique subset, which I think actually draws a lot of people into academia or the overachievers that meet internal and external motivations. And then there's the other end of it where you know some people have struggled to have internal or external motivation and struggle to move forward in whatever way, shape, or form in life they desire to or is expected, you know, and how that impacts, you know, how you plan your day, your week, your month, your year, whether you're someone that, you know, can focus on a task to get done, you need it an hour every day. Or, you know, for example, I promote the idea of like just write 15 minutes a day. Every day you write for 15 minutes. But to be totally transparent, that doesn't work for me. I can't do 15 minutes a day, and I don't. What I do is if I really need to get something done, I block a whole day. So once a week I block a whole day, and that's protected, but that doesn't work for other people. So yeah, so knowing like how how your brain works, um, and being really clear about your yeah, your priorities.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:10

So all in all, that would be your advice to those who want to start uh a PhD then.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:18

Uh I would say my no, my advice is do you really want to go down this path? Because it's different, it's a different lifestyle. Like you're not gonna get paid more if you have a PhD. In fact, statistics are you'll get paid less. So that's important. And with masters. Masters is um, if you don't want to go into academia, you think carefully about what a PhD means. Um, but if you're if you love knowledge, go for it. Um, in my case, I just ended up in a PhD because I couldn't get a job and I was offered a fellowship. So sometimes, and I have no regrets. I don't know. I probably can't give you good advice.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:00

Um, yeah, and but it's still it's still valid. And I think with this amazing conversation we're having, I mean, we can do it again some someday. I I've been trying to insist on my guests in doing this. Uh oh, let's have it again, let's have it again. But okay, I still need to think about it. But but it was Josh, it was a really amazing conversation, and I think it's up to a point to ask you uh where can they follow your work? I know you have a website of your company, publish it. Uh where else can can they follow you? And also if they have anything to to ask you to to ask you, what would you say to them to use their your own services?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:47

Yeah, thank you. First of all, thank you so much. This was uh above and beyond um not that I had low expectations, certainly, um, but this was really fun chatting with you, and I would love to come back. I would love to do like a panel with other PhD students and like a QA.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:04

We could like a seminar around it when Yeah, or something more casual than that. Something more casual, yes, that would be great.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:12

But yeah, you can find me my website for publish it, which is it's a place for academic writers. I want it to be more community space. You can find the website is my name. So it's jessica-deal.com, jessica-di-e-hl.com. And if you check it out, there's lots of free stuff, lots of free advice. Happy to have a conversation through my community discussion board or offline through um, you know, email me. Um, my contact information is there. Um, if you sign up for my newsletter, which I only send once a month and I do send some occasional emails, you can subscribe and unsubscribe anytime. If you sign up for my newsletter, you will be launched into a mini sort of like welcome email sequence. And each of those emails has a free download or a very special offer for a really nice discount on some of my pay for options. So do check me out there. And I'm gonna do a little plug. I know I'm not sure exactly when this is airing, but I do have a live free workshop coming up this 18th and 19th of March. So two weeks from now, uh free. It's um it's a core argument clarity workshop. So in one hour, we're gonna move from your research question to your claim, which will become the foundation for writing your entire journal paper. So a one-hour sort of like a little bit of lecture, but mostly workshopping, um, get it done workshop. So sign up for free on my website.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:45

And I think this this is a wrap, a wrap up. So Jessica, thank you. Thank you, thank you so much. And for those who are listening, uh make sure to reach out to Jessica and she'll happily provide you with all the resources uh possible for your for your thesis, thesis, research or research papers to get published. So, students and graduates, thank you all for tuning in, and it has uh been a pleasure.