Calling All Writers to Community
“…we simply must, once and for all, put to bed the notion of the lone-wolf doctoral writer as the model student.” – Dr. Desi Richter
For those of you who are following us on Facebook, you will recall that this month’s focus is writing in community. You may wonder why, with so many concepts are worthy of our attention, we’ve chosen to spend an entire month reflecting upon and inviting you to write in community.
I want to answer that question simply, straightforwardly, and from the heart. Simply put, writing in community might be the single most important factor that enabled me to complete my doctorate. Without the aid of my community, I don’t know if I would have made it.
My community consisted of instructors, other doctoral students, friends, and family. Each person in this community provided me with different kinds of support as I planned and executed my doctoral research. My major professor was beyond incredible. I have no doubt that I am the scholar I am because she not only guided me, she did so with care. And I’m not just talking about feedback and direction on my research, I mean that this woman knew what it means to foster a mentor-student relationship. My professor cared about my writing, but she also cared about my life, so if we needed to take a few moments to attend to the personal concerns (my latest mothering conundrum, my breakup blues), she patiently listened, offered such advice as she could, and then steered us back toward the writing.
Other instructors encouraged me, gave me feedback and helped me find the direction I needed. A research instructor suggested the theory that became the guiding theory of my study. Another instructor noticed my efforts and told me that she saw promise in me. Of course, these instructors challenged my thinking but always in ways that let me know they were on my team.
I can’t talk about community without talking about Kendra. Kendra was a year ahead of me in the doctoral program, and I watched her masterfully plan and execute her writing in ways that still astound me. I had the added benefit of running into Kendra a couple of times a week at the coffee shop we both frequent. I’d roll in around 8:00 a.m. to see Kendra working, earbuds in, eyes fixed on her screen, fingers moving lightning speed. Kendra had a little one, and she had carved out the early mornings to work on her dissertation. When she would head out to her day job, invariably, I would seat myself in her vacant chair. On these days, I would say that I was channeling Kendra.
When I was in my prospectus writing class, our instructor put us in cross-disciplinary writing groups. I can’t overemphasize how important it was to know that someone was actually reading the thoughts over which I’d labored. The feedback from my peer readers (and the times we spent just talking about our research) buoyed me. If my writing was clear to someone not in my discipline, then my writing was clear indeed.
The thing that these community members had in common is that we all were trafficking in a particular genre of writing: dissertation writing. I don’t mention this because I am trying to support some sort of elitist mindset about doctoral writing. However, there are discourse-specific terms and concepts that it can be difficult to dialogue around if someone is not well-versed in them. I’m imagining, “How was your day?” being answered with, “Well, I’m really in the middle of ferreting out the implications of a constructivist vs. positivist worldview. On the one hand, I really want to get at the truth of the matter under study. On the other, I’m just not comfortable leaving behind the notion that truth is a constructed reality that is dialogically mediated. Pass the salt, please?” Of course, we share with our non-dissertation writing loved ones what we’ve been up to. But sometimes it’s just nice to jump right in without having to set the stage and talk to a peer or mentor in your field.
I don’t know if the kind of community I experienced while I was researching is the norm, but I think that whatever form community takes, we are doing doctoral writers a great disservice if we don’t look for ways to intentionally create a writing community. We need spaces devoted to helping writers grow.
We need these spaces in part because not only is dissertation writing a complex, oft-times arduous process, this task called, “getting a doctorate,” doesn’t happen in isolation from the rest of life. And while we need to carve out solo time to write, we simply must, once and for all, put to bed the notion of the lone-wolf doctoral writer as the model student. Such a notion is antiquated, runs counter to best pedagogical practice, and serves exactly no one well. If you choose to write in community, your dissertation will still be yours. You will still do the work, but you will do so in more humane ways that help you stay focused and forward moving. I think your end product will be better too because your ideas will be vetted and re-molded along the way. Simply put, it’s time to write your dissertation in community.
This blog post was written by Dr. Desi Richter, Creative Director & Dissertation Coach