One of my recent posts for the Careers Cafe at University Affairs compared life to a video game.

Video game developers write stories in a different way to novelists. Their stories need to be flexible and respond to the decisions the player makes at each stage of the game.

Each career decision you make takes you to a new “level” with things to learn, relationships to build, experience, skills and knowledge to collect. You will use all of those things to make decisions that will take you somewhere else.

Like a video game, you pass through some levels relatively easily and quickly, while others take longer to figure out.

Go read the whole thing. I can wait.

A few people reacted a bit badly to that, telling me that they always end up dead in those video games. And that you don’t get more than one life in real life.

This stumped me for a bit. But then Pace Smith came to the rescue!!! (Pace is a gamer and has a more than rudimentary grasp on these things.)

As I understand it, “Dead” in a video game is more like “Well, that didn’t work out.” in real life. So you really do get more than one life. Or, as Pace puts it, there is always a way forward.

In a video game, when you come across a wall that’s too high for you to jump over, there’s always a way forward.

Maybe you can dig a tunnel. Maybe there’s a secret door. Maybe you can get a boost from something else in the room.

Try everything you can think of, and a few more things to boot. Don’t give up.

Sometimes the way forward is roundabout, like “come back later when you have the jump boots,” but the jump boots always exist and it’s always possible for you to get them – some way or another.

Again, go read the whole thing.

Why am I talking about this?

Although I don’t play video games this metaphor tells you pretty much everything you need to know about how I do what I do.

I genuinely believe there is always a way forward. Neither the destination or the way may be what you thought they were going to be but if you are stuck and frustrated, I can guarantee you that there is both a forward and a way to get there.

What I do is help you figure out what those are.

Sometimes that looks like a boost to get over the wall. Sometimes it looks like asking you whether you need to get over this wall at all. Sometimes it’s about helping you find the jump boots.

The characters I work best with are those who have graduate degrees in the social sciences or humanities. If that’s you, you can learn more about what I do by clicking that “Services for Individuals” tab up there.

The statement of Fermat’s Last Theorem does not strike us as intrinsically important or interesting — it just states that a certain type of equation never can be solved with natural numbers. What are undoubtedly interesting and important are all the deep mathematical ideas, many of which led to new branches of mathematics, that were discovered during attempts to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. Although Fermat’s Last Theorem has not yet been used for practical purposes, the new theories developed to attack it turned out to be valuable in many practical technological advances. Within the aesthetics of mathematics, it is difficult to determine which questions are more important that others.
(Burger & Starbird, The Heart of Mathematics, 2000: p 76)

Last week I talked about how the culture of academic work works against the clear articulation of your intended outcomes. That’s not the only problem.

Most academic research is funded based on one criterion:

The likely significance of the contribution to knowledge.

From our vantage point in the 21st century, we can see that in the 350+ years it took mathematicians to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, some incredibly important contributions to both mathematical and practical knowledge were produced.

But if you were sitting on a peer review committee and knew you could only fund about a quarter of the applicants would you fund anyone to work on it?

And if you were applying for funding to work on it (before the proof was found in 1994), how would you make the case that you were likely to make a significant contribution to knowledge?

How can you determine significance before you’ve done the work?

Image (c) Amy Crook, used with permission.

The key to the answer is in your motivation to tackle this particular question in the first place.

Presumably you don’t think it’s a waste of time to do what you plan to do. You aren’t particularly interested in taking public money to sit in your office thinking about unimportant things.

What makes you think that this is not a waste of your time?

This is not a rhetorical question. The adjudication committee wants to know.

Your grant application needs to lay out for the adjudication committee your best guess as to what you are going to find when you dive into that archive or grapple with those theoretical texts. It also needs the executive summary version of why you think that, based on what we (meaning you and your peers) already know.

The significance might not be in answering your question

As I understand it, finding the proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem was not as significant to mathematicians as all the other cool stuff they figured out in the attempt.

Mathematicians actually don’t care as much about answers as the general public think they do. Like most humanities and social science professors (and probably scientists) they really like better questions, unexpected findings, and so on.

Consider your research question. Is the answer to that question the most significant thing that will come out of your research? Or is pursuing that question likely to lead to significant contributions on the way?

Talk about those. In fact, when you articulate your big research question, follow it up with a clear statement of some of those “on the way there” contributions. You won’t know for sure what they are until you’ve done the work, but you have a pretty good sense of what they might be now. And good reasons to think so.

Interestingly, looked at this way, the fact that other people have worked on or are working on this question without solving it can now be presented as positive: These people worked on it and found x, which was significant because a. These people found y, which was significant because b. This shows that significant contributions come from grappling with this question.

Remember what peer review means

In articulating the likely significance (scholarly and/or practical) of your proposed research, remember that you are speaking to your peers.

The members of the adjudication committee are like you. The fact that your mother doesn’t understand why this research is significant is not relevant.

Can you explain it to peers, even peers who are not working on similar problems but are working in the same discipline? Check the composition of the adjudication committee for the particular funding competition and write for that audience.

I can help

I’ve been helping researchers with SSHRC grants since 2005. I’m not an editor or a grant writer. I’m a coach. I can coach you through this process.

We start with a telephone conversation where I can help you articulate the objectives, among other things. Then I support you through the process of writing the narrative parts of the proposal, right up to a full draft.

More details about how grant support works.

This post was first published on May 4, 2011. It has been edited.

I was reading a blog post about hiring in a small business and this paragraph resonated with conversations I’ve had with researchers.

I have a love/hate relationship with the word “delegate”. It implies that my time is SO valuable that I need to get rid of all kinds of crap in order to do “important” work. And that I should just hire people to shove that crap onto. I do not believe in that. … I believe that I am a genius at some things and not others. And that I need to hire geniuses in the other areas. With such a small crew, I cannot afford to have mediocre people working for me. We are small and powerful because we are a team of geniuses. Not one genius with a bunch of low-paid appendages doing her bidding.

via Blisstitudinal hiring.

Applying this principle to your research

It’s a bit different when you think about research assistants because one purpose of hiring them is to provide apprenticeship opportunities. But that just extends this perspective rather than negating it.

What areas are you a genius at?

How did you learn those skills? And how could you create the conditions in which you could pass them on to others?

This is the cornerstone of the apprenticeship model. We can only learn so much in a classroom. Then we need to practice, under the supervision of a master, to really solidify that knowledge and develop our skills.

How can you take students with a certain amount of classroom training (which you can specify in the job description) and provide high quality opportunities for them to use that knowledge in a real research project?

What areas are not really your strength?

There is no shame in not being good at something that is crucial to the success of your research project. There is only shame if you hide that weakness and do that aspect of the work poorly.

You may know a lot about some things and have developed excellent research skills. Some of your students will bring knowledge and experience that you don’t have. That knowledge and experience can make your research more successful.

This can be small things. One of my clients once hired a student who had been a dental receptionist before coming back to university. Her experience at setting up meetings (and making reminder calls) greatly improved the process of conducting research interviews and resulted in fewer no-shows.

Your students may have computer skills that would be valuable to your project. When I was in high school there were no websites. When your students were in high school, many of them were designing and building websites. They may be able to program iPhone apps, too.

Yes, you could learn to do these things, but is that the best use of your time? And will you be a genius at it? And why shouldn’t you be an apprentice to your student for this stuff while they are being an apprentice to you for other things.

Are students the best people for this?

As a researcher you are expected to provide apprenticeship opportunities for your students. But some of the help you need may not be done best by students.

Check the eligibility guidelines for your funds. It may be permissable to hire other kinds of staff. You may even be able to pool funds with colleagues to hire an administrative assistant on a reasonable part-time contract. And then work with a wider group of colleagues to ensure there is enough money coming in to give that administrative assistant some job security.

You may already have the resources to do this

Internal research funds.

Independent study options where students can be involved in research for course credit.

University programs designed to give students valuable research or work experience. (You may need to support a student applying.)

Ask around and see what’s possible.

You may need to think differently about what the student might do, especially if the funding requires them to have an independent project. Go back to the apprenticeship idea. What could they do under your supervision that would develop their skills and contribute to your larger program of research?

Think big.

If you are applying for a grant think about what you could do if you had more resources.

What would enable you to do your best work? What kind of team would produce the best results?

Start with your ideal. Then make compromises based on the budget you are awarded, the personnel available, etc.

Related Posts:

Why budgets are frustrating

Looking at budgets differently

Don’t delegate what you love doing (Marissa Bracke)

This post was first published July 1, 2011. It has been edited.

With changes in the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funding programs, researchers are now also required to write a 1 page summary of Intended Outcomes. This is basically the objectives written more explicitly in terms of the long term contributions they foresee. And people really struggle.

Here’s why:

Scientific method (and the general culture of academic research in all fields) tells us that we should not predetermine our outcomes but be open to what comes out of the data.

So when you are asked to summarize your intended outcomes

… well, people resort to all kinds of rhetorical strategies to avoid saying what they think they are going to find and what difference that’s going to make to the state of the debate in their field, the state of practice, the state of policy, or whatever else they hope will be different as a result of this research.

Writing strong intended outcomes/specific aims/objectives:

It is best to go beyond saying you want to make a contribution to specify the kind of contribution you hope to be able to make.

Think about the literature you review in your proposal (under the heading Context, Literature Review, or Significance). If everything goes well; your project works out the way you think it will; you get published; people in your field read your publications

… what will the debate look like 3-5 years after this grant is completed?

I told you this was hard.

Try this:

Take a time machine so you can skip over all the messy details that happen between now and then.

Just set the dial for 3 to 5 years after the grant you are applying for will be done. Enough time for people to have read the publications that came out of your grant and incorporated your ideas into their own work. (Your time machine may be imprecise. Set it for the future and assume you land at such a point in the future even if you don’t know what year it is exactly.)

You land at the main conference in your field and walk into a session on the area you are most interested in.

What are people saying? not necessarily about your work, but what is now possible in the discussion because we know what we know as a result of your research?

Those are your intended outcomes.

The hard part is going to be writing that down on paper.

This is why I recommend starting to work on your grant proposal early.

It is May. The SSHRC Insight deadline is in October; Partnership Development Grant in November, Insight Development Grant in February. You have several months to get used to the idea of saying this in writing to a group of people who are going to judge you.

You can start by writing it in crayon on scrap paper. Or in Mr Sketch* markers on flip chart paper. You can put all kinds of caveats in front of it for now.

Put your colourful statements up on your wall where you can see them (maybe at home so no one else can, then bring them to the office when that feels comfortable). Look at them every day. Take some deep breaths to calm the anxiety.

It’ll be difficult.  It’ll take time. (I know. I do this whenever I think about changing what I charge for services.)

*they smell better than other markers; look in the kids section

I’ve been helping researchers with SSHRC grants since 2005. I’m not an editor or a grant writer. I’m a coach. I can coach you through this process.

We start with a telephone conversation where I can help you articulate the objectives, among other things. Then I support you through the process of writing the narrative parts of the proposal, right up to a full draft.

More details about how grant support works.

A lot of the pressure academics feel is related to a sense that they need to publish more regardless of how much you are publishing now.

In a certain sense, this is true. When you are competing for jobs and grants, you do need to publish more.

Do you think Olympic athletes just look at how fast the medalists are running? Sure they are aware of that as a goal but they mostly focus on their own performance. How can I run faster? How can I improve my technique?

It’s only at the point where they are entering a race that they look at how their times measure up to the likely competition.

Why do you do the research you do?

Seriously. Take a moment and really think about that question.

I’m pretty sure you don’t do it to get promoted or to get a grant, though you also want those things.

You do it because you find your topic fascinating. There is an intellectual challenge. You think there could be a better explanation of something or it could be better theorized or …

You publish to contribute to the advancement of knowledge

Research is part of a conversation. A debate.

You were inspired by other research. Research you thought was missing something. Or research you thought would benefit from a different approach, or a different/additional data set.

You have something to contribute to that conversation. So you publish your work.

You want to have an impact on the advancement of knowledge

Impact is not a function of how much you say. It is a function of how many people listen and use what you say.

To have an impact you need to

• reach the people engaged in the same conversation
• reach as many of those people as possible
• use a means of communicating that assures those people your contribution is worth reading

You also need to build a reputation.

Eventually, people in your field will keep an eye out for what you have to say. Just like you keep an eye out for particular other researchers in your field.

Luckily, you are evaluated for having an impact on the advancement of knowledge

The reward system in universities is in line with your own goals. You are rewarded for the thing you want to do.

Peer review, in journals and with some presses, is a system for ensuring quality. This is why publications in peer reviewed journals, or with particular presses, are more highly valued than publications in edited books or with other presses.

Some journals have lower acceptance to submission ratios. They are more competitive. They are, thus, more likely to publish higher quality work because they are choosing the best from a larger field. This is why publications in those journals are more highly valued than publications in journals that are easier to publish in.

Some journals are more widely read. Articles in those journals will be read by far more people than articles in other journals. The impact of work published in those journals is thus likely to be greater. This is why publication in those journals is more highly valued than publications in other journals.

Although some disciplines use statistical measures of impact (called “impact factors”) and others use more qualitative, cultural notions of “good” journals, all are working with these same principles.

Yes, the peers evaluating your publications will use imperfect measures to assess these things. All measures are imperfect.

Focus on the work not the numbers

Start with the goal of influencing debates in your field, having an impact on the advancement of knowledge.

Select publication venues based on the principles of suitability of audience, size of audience, and reputation for excellence.

Then write.

These are your people. You want to reach them.

I’m willing to bet that you also have a lot to say to them.

This post was originally published on August 13, 2009. It has been edited.