Writing a Research Statement Part I

I’ve been helping a few people with job applications, both for first positions and for mid-career changes. And one of the things we’ve worked on is how to write a good research statement.

Even if you aren’t applying for a job, you might find this exercise helpful. Think of it like zooming out when you are looking at an online map — sometimes it helps to see your current project in relation to a wider body of research. Getting this kind of perspective can then focus your activities so you get more done, help you write better grant proposals, and figure out which conferences and other networking activities are really worthwhile.

Focus on what you want to be doing for the next 10 years.

This will make it a more useful exercise whatever the outcome and lead to a research statement that is more realistic and easier for you to talk about in an interview.

And if this more detailed description of your research doesn’t fit with the job as described or the departmental research profile, you have learned something useful. This might not be the job for you.

Even for experienced and successful researchers, this process can be difficult. You are an intelligent person who is capable of writing coherent and engaging prose. However, there are likely to be some emotional blockages that might get in the way.

Imagining your research under different conditions

Currently you work under particular conditions.

Maybe you are a PhD student with limited resources, specific demands from your committee, and a deadline to finish the PhD.

Or you are employed as a sessional lecturer and need to work long hours to earn a living. You have limited time for your research. You are not eligible for research grants. And you have little or no support for research activity. Basically, you have few resources for research.

Or perhaps you are in a tenure-track or even tenured job. You have teaching responsibilities, service responsibilities, and resource constraints particular to your institution.

Whatever your situation, your research plans need to consider the possibility of different conditions. A lower teaching load. Or more financial resources. Or supportive colleagues.

Even if you don’t get this job, planning in that frame of mind can help you identify other strategies for ameliorating some of your conditions to better support your research.

An exercise to get you started

Try to find one hour for this exercise. You are going to try to imagine what you’d like to do in ideal circumstances. This will probably work better if you close your eyes.

• 2/2 or lower teaching load*
• excellent graduate students
• strong relationships with other academics, and relevant non-academics
• money is not an issue

* In my experience 2/2 is a pretty standard teaching load at a research intensive university. For those not in North America, this means 2 courses per term for 2 terms a year.

Dealing with the gremlins*

You might need to take a few minutes to really sink into the imagined scenario so that the gremlins who are screaming “You can’t have that” or “But that’ll never happen” quiet down and let you think.

You know the gremlins I mean, eh? Some people call them more neutral things like “the gang” or “the voices”. The important thing is that you can treat them as characters who can be engaged with.

If necessary, tell the gremlins that this is just an exercise. You know they are right but can they give you 60 minutes to just imagine this scenario anyway. You can negotiate a bit. If not 60 minutes, maybe 30 minutes.

If that doesn’t work, tell them you will write down their concerns and seriously consider them later. Then write them down. Take your 30 or 60 minutes with quiet, if sullen, gremlins in corner.

The gremlins are quiet. And you are imagining yourself in this wonderful ideal world where you get to do the research you really want to do.

*I’m drawing on a few things I’ve learned from Havi at The Fluent Self when I say this. She calls them monsters. What Havi teaches is that these voices are not us but they are trying to protect us. Unfortunately they are often kind of mean. But we can talk to them. If this isn’t helpful to you, that’s okay, but even if you treat this monsters stuff as a purely intellectual exercise it sometimes helps clarify things.

What are you working on?

List the projects.

• Your projects.
• Your list of “if a masters student wants to work with me and needs a project, they can pick off this list” projects.
• Your list of projects the doctoral students are working on under your supervision.
• What your imaginary post-doc is working on.
• Who you are working with on collaborative projects.
• What kinds of workshops and seminars you are holding.

This can be scrappy. Write it in a notebook. Or on the computer. Do it in a dark room so you can hardly see. Do it in a new space so you don’t have reminders of the fact that you don’t live in your ideal world.

This is NOT your research statement. This is a list of all the dreams and stuff you have about what kind of research you want to do.

I think you should be writing fast and not thinking too much. Try to get down as much as you can about your ideal situation.

• How big is your team?
• How much do you travel?
• What kinds of sources are you using?

But if some of the details are foggy, that’s okay. Write down all the details you can see clearly. And most of the ones that are faint shapes in the fog.

If the gremlins start jeering

The gremlins might have let you do all that in relative peace but those big ideas might get them upset. They’ll probably start shouting and jeering.

Don’t try to ignore them, that only makes them angrier. And even though the jeering is a little hard to take, underneath it is usually a genuine concern for your well-being. And they might have some good points that would help you write a better plan.

So I recommend getting another sheet of paper or turning to a fresh page in your note book and writing down their concerns. If there are multiple gremlins you can ask them to appoint a spokesperson or take turns. Don’t try to argue with them and whatever you do don’t tell them they are wrong. Pretend you are a court reporter or something and just take notes.

Reassure them that these notes are going with the other notes in your file of things to help you write a good research plan/statement.

This might be easier with audio

Since closing your eyes or working in dim light might make it easier to block out the real-world constraints that you work under, I have recorded an audio file to guide your thinking and note taking.

Right-click (on a PC) or Ctrl-click (on a mac) to save this file so you can put it on your MP3 player and go sit in a more comfortable place while you do this exercise. I’ve left some silences for writing things down but it is hard to judge how much time you might need so feel free to use the pause button as much as you like.

Imagining Your Ideal Research (MP3, 2.2 MB, 10 minutes)

Now go do something else

You’ll need a bit of distance from this to turn it into a real-world research plan/statement.

Put your notes somewhere you can find them again. Make sure you have both the ideal situation notes and the transcript of the gremlins’ objections.

Schedule some time tomorrow or in the next few days to return to your notes and take the next step.

I’ll have some ideas about how to do that in Part II.