Academic re-engagement – the drop-out’s guide to re-booting academic skills.

Having become disconnected from academia altogether after dropping out of a PhD in 1999 I have rekindled my interest in academia as a means of evaluating and appraising information and propositions – and as a means of relating to the world in the general terms. I had what I may as well describe as being a nervous breakdown that would appear to have been due to over work (what I think it was due to is a different story) – having spent long hours working on relatively basic tasks and not fully relaxing when I did have time off. I wouldn’t attribute the problem arising to the conduct of staff at University of the West of England which is where I was based during the period the meltdown began. If anything I’d say that the standard of convening in meetings was very high – if I had to say that there was a place where I’ve worked where this was the case I would probably select UWE. This does happen to a number of people in academia and I wouldn’t like anyone to think that this blog was aimed at them in particular – it is meant to be very general and not inspired by any single individual.

What I’ve put up on the blog, for the purposes of assisting others, it an outline of the process of re-engagement that I’m undertaking. It isn’t meant to be a short cut for those who haven’t spent a long time in academia as some form of distillation of what the key skills are but is rather meant to be some form of gradual re-engagement of those frequently used skills. I did find it difficult to find any information on this process of re-engagement and I thought that it may be well covered elsewhere on the web but one has to define one’s own process if it does not exist. It does surprise me that this is not documented elsewhere as there are frequently reported sub-clinical mental health issues experienced by academics and because of the nature of the working hours that some may choose this can be to a degree a health and safety risk, one of few involved in the job.

What I’ve listed is the sequential process that one would go through in the education system right the way through from the entry level to post-graduate level and comments on some basic tasks that I’m planning that will assist with rebuilding confidence and developing a sense of coherence about academic activity. If you wish to comment or add a link to relevant information please do so. Also, a number of theoretical perspectives may be applied to the process that may imply that other action is necessary as part of the recovery process. Arguably, from a social-ecological perspective recovery from mental illness may entail a review of the norms and behaviour that an individual may have participated in and change to them so that the individual is able to function within a particular social environment. It could be argued that minor breakdowns and panics may have an evolutionary basis and like the function of a psychosomatic illness may be argued to serve, that is to assist with re-engagement and socialisation (i.e. some form of change in cognition and behaviour may be required) there may be some argument that there is a need to have a mentor for this process who can advised on the norms of the social group that one is re-engaging in. [It would be interesting to get the comments of Prof. Paul Gilbert and Prof. Mike Hyland – and some comments from the USA who have undertaken more research on family within a community from a social ecological perspective than in Europe, as far as I am aware.

Here is the basic outline of the process that I will be going through:

Warming up – Basic skills level, Entry Level etc.
Review of basic skills and entry level courses. Describe rudiments of use of punctuation style which are associated with this level of qualification and may not be suitable at other levels.
Task –Examine how the basic skills would contribute to written communication and serving a purpose of communication within an organisation. Describe how these skills are comprised of the core elements of communication/literacy which are constant through each stage of this process.
Skills – List the skills that are involved in basic day to day tasks of writing and record number of mistakes made through misleading written communication, how much time and cost does this incur? What are the highest priority changes in communication that would need to take place as a result?
Consolidating tasks – Evaluate the utility of basic skills information and consider these along with other vocational qualifications in an academic setting. What skills do I use frequently and which skills would I benefit from developing in the short-term, medium term and long term?

1. Academic re-engagement: moving up to general qualifications.
Read GCSE Specifications for guidance on the quality of the writing that is expected through GCSE levels.
Task – Discuss and describe the qualities preferred at GCSE level writing. Outline why a style of writing may be acceptable at GCSE level of writing and not at others.
General supporting administrative tasks to develop basic skills in this area – scanning and photocopying. Ordering and organising of materials in order to leave them accessible.
Skills - Summarising articles with a few sentences in terms of content without reference to issues outside of the text? Paraphrase, summarise and precise – practice methods of doing each.
Consolidating tasks - Collection of range of materials that would support a 500 word essay. Write in short bursts of 5 minute blocks with 5 minute breaks. (build this up gradually to a normal work-break ratio, say work of 45-50 minutes in one hour and 10-15 minutes of break. Read newspapers for one week and plan a series of essays on the content on the basis of newspaper articles.

2. Academic re-engagement: moving up to ‘A’ level standard.
Use recommended text books to support the activity of writing to A level standard. Eg. NEC booklets and other ‘A’ level guidance – eg specifications.
General background tasks at this level - review, precise and summaries.
Task – Describe and discuss the qualities desired in the writing of A level writers. Identify if there is support for the proposition that the jump up to A level standard from GCSE is the biggest single step up in academia or if there are other steps which are more significant.
Skills – List skills and how these can be utilised at A level standard in a manner which supports development.
Consolidating tasks –Read through several months of practitioner journals and plan an article entirely based upon the content of these so it can be referenced with all propositions referenced where at all possible. Write several essay plans and carry these out if possible.

3i. Academic reengagement : moving up through to a university level.
This should ensure that the engagement in an academic planning process can begin with the issues of writing which is entirely based upon written sources such as books and journals and makes reference to other data through academic appraisal, such as following application of appropriate qualitative and quantitative research methods. This requires a thorough review of the research methods courses undertaken and review of literature on research methods. There are other texts which may be useful to make progress in this area such as University writing guides, for example, ‘How to get a first’ or other undergraduate writing text books.
Task – Describe and discuss the qualities of degree level writing and how different this is to A level and general qualifications level writing.
Skills – Measured writing – writing to achieve effects of change within a research field. Write to impact upon practice within a specified area using an analysis of interests of specified groups being written about. This should not take the form of a report stated in section 4 below but would draw from the same theme areas. Academic information should be converted to resource status for practitioners.
Consolidating tasks – Undertake a review of several academic issue areas and summarise how they could impact upon practice, write essay plans and indicating how the changes in practice should be termed.

3ii. Academic reengagement: writing at the standard of a post-graduate.
Examine if there are any text books aiming to take the student through from undergraduate writing issues to post-graduate writing issues. Use books such as ‘how to get a PhD’ and determine factors which elevate a piece of research work from Masters’ level to PhD.
Task – Describe and discuss the qualities desired in the writing of the post-graduate. What extra qualities are added to a piece of research through carrying it out to Doctoral standards – what are the major benefits of carrying out a piece of research to this standard and how does the writing style differ from degree and Masters level writing.
Skills – List and explore the issues of post graduate writing through summaries of doctoral theses and Ph.D. supporting text books.
Consolidating tasks – Examine the nature of research programmes and how these are structured and what level of contribution doctoral research would add to these.

4. Professional writing within an organisation.
Review the texts on report writing within a professional setting and summarise these.
Task – Discuss and describe the features of a report in terms of the process of gathering information and the style which is to be used within it.
Skills – List the key skills that are used in forming most reports within the area that a report would be written for.
Consolidating tasks - Practice reports and highlighting issues which arose within the report. Review several reports and examine whether or not they function within the guidance stating within the report writing guides. If they diverge significantly add in extra guidance on report writing and the style that this would need to be done within.

5. Leisure writing – contextualising academic writing within other writing settings.
Read through books on creative writing and on writing poetry.
Task – Describe and discuss the methods of writing and styles within each discipline. Review the above and contrasted to the academic writing books.
Skills – Aim to specify how different the styles are and what constitutes structure and style within this area.
Consolidating tasks – Evaluate poetry in terms of it’s form and content and aim to mimic this.

6. Writing and verbal ability.
Write a list which aims to breakdown of skills and listing of these and how they can be used together. Presentation structure and style of delivery etc.
Task – Describe and discuss the main features of several forms of public and private speaking and how these may be supported by the skills developed in academic writing.
Skills – Examine how different forms of research can be presented and what considerations need to be made for particular audiences giving examples.
Consolidating tasks – Summarise how several different scenarios could be approached and detail the types of problems that may be encountered and how to deal with these.

7. Revisiting statistics.
This is assuming that a social science degree was undertaken that involved some small reference to statistics….undertake a review of undergraduate statistics books (eg. Judith Bell, other stats from undergraduate studies (Howell ?))
Task - Examine statistical tests in relation to the work undertaken in community safety and the potential there is for tests to highlight statistical significance to be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of an intervention.
Skills - Use of statistics tests on data from real world situations.
Consolidating tasks – Practice several statistical tests on data from relevant agencies and get feedback on how to undertake these to provide information relevant to practitioners.

8. The graduates skills sets.
Summarise the extent and range of skills required for development within an academic context and when interfacing between the academic and real worlds.
Task - Summarise the process undertaken and some of the implications for practice. Aim to work on the personal weaknesses identified as ‘areas for development’ and identify system for prioritising academic skills development.
Skills - List skills and means to keep these in some form of rigour and ability to use them appropriately.
Consolidating tasks – Examine what skills have been regained and which ones were close to being developed and to work out a programme of development which is SMART and likely to result in development of further skills at a suitable pace.

I haven’t completed this process yet, nor am I sticking to it that rigidly – I’ve jumped around within it to a degree, and it would take possibly a matter of weeks to gradually gain what was lost especially when there may have been a great deal of time since the skills were last used. I guess sometimes they return quite quickly and while there may be some attention on this process as being rather too mechanistic and rather like a keep fit workout it does have the virtue of being clear so anyone could begin it. If there is nothing else to go on I hope this does not cause any problems. It is important for academics to control the process of work – as it is for anyone – and I hope that you can control (take out what is irrelevant and add on what is necessary to the bare bones here).

Best wishes…Steve.