I was reminded today that I’d been meeting with my Patreon mentor Helen for two years* and the overall output I’ve produced is not much. At least, according to those who know how much output there should be. I’ve written up a survey, a few case studies (still incomplete) and I’m nearly finished with my first article.
So what is my end date? I don’t actually have one. Or at least I didn’t have one until today. I have just liked the idea of doing this forever or maybe for 10 years; or have I?
I want to finish this PhD so I can learn the right skillset and have the right criteria to at some point work with a university or even apply for academic positions. That seems positive to me.
So I do want to finish. Or at least part of me does.
One way to figure out how much other parts resist what I’m doing is by writing up a schedule and noting any resistance.
With feedback from HK, it seems reasonable to write six articles in two years. I have two more to write for 2022, and then three for 2023.
Validity check: The PhD by thesis requires five to seven articles so that fits.
A fellow student talked about her work at the group meeting and really inspired me in further matters:
- What is the demographic of the Twitter activists/citizen journalists;
- Autoethnographically: writing an academic article is journalism; noting how I write that counts as practice.
- Who is excluded? Who excludes themselves?
How much of my research is about the local political participation and how much is about researching how to do a PhD on local political participation?
Immediate Actions
- Finish the article, send to HK before the end of the month.
- Cut about 2000 words, let it flow better; make it make sense.
- Plan two further articles for 2020
- Riots in Bristol and news framing
- demographics of citizen journalists in Bristol
Plan three further articles for 2023
- local media? local journalism? (See Franklin, 2006; Routledge Handbook on the local media) how local is the coverage?
- Citizen journalists in other cities (what’s the angle? LDRs in cities linked to quantity of activism?)
- Diary research on the use of mayoral time.
Schedule for PhD
2022
28 February – Final version of Article 1
15 June – Article 2
15 November – Article 3
2023
15 April – Article 4
15 August – Article 5
15 December – Article 6
And then I have to fit in the application to a university for a thesis by publication and a 20,000 words or so for a dissertation. I also have to wait to see whether the articles are accepted, any revisions, how long it takes to get published, submit to different journals etc.
Submitting by 2025 seems a possibility.
Schedule for writing a book on how to do a self-studied PhD?
??? This was in the back of my mind but not really something I thought about. How about I think about it now?
If I was planning out a book, which I do want to write, I’d write about setting up a schedule for how to be a professional researcher and complete a PhD in Chapter 1.
15 March – outline for a book on how to do a self-studied PhD.
*It’s actually nearly three years because I began in July 2019
Selfie PhD 