Day 47

I just started working with graduate students a few months ago and they are already teaching me so much. I am a mentor to students engaged in the dissertation process: a process of research and writing. I sometimes receive messages from frantic students


Yesterday, I received five urgent pleas from the same student. She is trying to figure out how to organize her lit review. She was drowning in data. I could see her flailing around in ideas, her panic pulling her under. My instinct was to reach for her immediately, but I knew that I could be pulled under as well. Instead, I waited on the shore until I found the life ring.


I was putting peanut butter on my toast this morning when the answer came to me. I heard it clear as a bell. Her problem is not how to organize the lit review. Her problem is one of focus. She is not focused because she had not yet clearly articulated the research questions. The research questions drive the whole project. If they are not sufficiently developed, the project cannot move forward.

She has already written a prospectus; the research questions are embedded there. But she doesn't see them. She is lost among the trees. My job is to help her take a step back so that she can get a full view of the forest. I sometimes have the same problem with my own writing. I need to pull back and get an aerial.

If you are lost in the woods, you must avoid the urge to panic. That's what they taught us in Girl Scouts and it's good advice for writers, as well. They also taught us to stay put and wait to be found. Pull up a log, build a fire and listen. That's what I try to do. Maybe if I'm lucky I have a radio with me. Playing on the radio is the Beatles song, Let It Be:

Let it be, let it be
Let it be, let it be
Yeah, there will be an answer let it be