Equating writing with research may be a bit narrow interpretation,
and this is what Terry is in his polemical way reacting against.
Writing is anyway without doubt one form of thinking, and a
thoughtless researcher should be an oxymoron (although that may be
the direction older research managers are evolving, when running
years and years after funding...a bleak future...).
I have tried to teach my doctoral students that as researchers they
are expected to become professional thinkers, but this thinking comes
in many guises they should be aware of:
1. "Pure" thinking without any props. This is of course the most
common, and we do it all the time from moment to moment. But in a
sustained form it is quite difficult, needing discipline, practice,
and perhaps even natural talent, because some (few) people seem to be
so much better in it than others. I can do it 5 minutes at a time,
and there may have been occasions that I have been so exited that it
has been sustained a quarter of an hour, but that's surely my limit
without any props.
2. Thinking by talking (to oneself, either silently or aloud).
Thought is not flying from flower to flower, but muddles through at a
pace of speech. For me, this is an essential and valuable partner of
writing; whenever running in difficulties finding an expression, I
resort to talking it to myself and varying it until something
understandable emerges; silently when in company, aloud when alone.
Walking around seems help more. (Advice: keep the door of your room
closed when practicing this, otherwise you will be thought being even
more weird than you are...).
3. Thinking by reading. This is one easiest and often also most
enjoyable forms of thinking: somebody else has done a lot of
preprosessing and prepared a series of props of thinking for you to
interpret, react, argue, and use as springboards for your own
thoughts. It is so easy and enjoyable that doctoral students should
be warned not to use it excessively as an escape from more stressful
forms of thinking (we older researchers naturally know the danger and
are more disciplined in this respect).
4. Thinking by discussing. This is also an easy form, and in a good
company it may be very enjoyable. It is a bit like reading in the
sense that someone else is providing the props for your thinking, but
unlike reading it is directly interactive, and you can get immediate
answers to your reactions, arguments, and ideas, and it can branch
out to unexpected directions. If there is a problem, it is that
longer narratives are difficult to maintain.
5. Thinking by writing. As we know, most stressful from all forms of
thinking: enjoyable during the moments when it flows, but those
moments come sparsely and are difficult to sustain long. No props,
and you have even imagine your audience and counterarguments
yourself. Small wonder that it tends to be avoided by doctoral
students (alone?)
6. Thinking by doing. Interacting in a non-verbal form (hands and
other body) with material world and reflecting upon that. I count
sketching to this class, but it is more wide and varied: whatever the
material of interaction, thinking can be stimulated. In our own
research, we must often construct experimental settings for user
interaction; get various input- ja output technologies working
together, prepare the space, tweak that and tune this to make the
experiment work, and even that kind of practical involvement clearly
evokes different kind of sensitivities than the other forms of
thinking listed above.
This list is based on my own experiences and observation; perhaps
some theorizing could be connected to it. In any case, we should not
block any of the channels for thinking -- on the contrary, we should
perhaps prepare and train for them more...
best regards,
--Kari Kuutti
Oulu, Finland
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