Using Overview Devices in scholarly research and academic writing

While I do not study nor research academic writing (there are people who do!), there’s something that has kept popping in my head: the notion of Overview Devices.

I define Overview Devices as artifacts (diagrams, techniques, strategies) that help us sustain a “bird’s eye”, a panoramic view of what we are doing. While writing a short Twitter thread for Dr. Jackie Bruce, who mentioned was struggling with her literature review, and after having my work recommended by Dr. Courtney Vengrin, I figured I would write about the four Overview Devices I have discussed on my blog:

• The Conceptual Synthesis Excel Dump (CSED) – gives you an overview of the material you have read for your literature review.
• Mind maps – which give you an overview of ideas and concepts and the relationships between them.
• The Dissertation Two-Pager (DTP) – which gives the student (and the supervisor!) an overview of the entire thesis and where each element fits with each other, progress degree and tasks remaining to be done.
• The year-long plan section of my Everything Notebook – which gives me an overview of what I am going to be writing, when the deadlines are and what I am supposed to be generating, which conferences and workshops I committed to attend, etc.

Why do we need Overview Devices? Because the research and writing process is messy and non-linear. We may get bogged down in details and we forget sometimes to see the big picture, or the forest for the trees.

5) One thing I’ve reflected upon as I’ve written more of these resources is that things we often lack are “overview” or “bird’s eye” or “panoramic” devices: stuff that tells us how everything connects with everything else. I consider CSED and DTP two of my “overview devices”

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) August 6, 2019

7) When I plan my academic year, I also keep a “bird’s eye” view of what I’m doing all year (which is why I keep a printed copy of my year and a list of conferences and workshops and writing commitments at the beginning of my Everything Notebook) https://t.co/oZvQE8XaBc

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) August 6, 2019

Post-script – mind maps are ALSO Overview Devices. This post explains mind mapping your results once you’ve reached conceptual saturation in your LR https://t.co/hihmBsjlFZ and this post is just on the value of mind maps for research https://t.co/hBfzcl2mCM </fin>

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) August 6, 2019

I am glad this question was asked because this notion of Overview Devices had been hovering in my brain for a while and I’m happy that I finally figured out a few of the reasons why I enjoy thinking in such panoramic, broad view way, and the strategies I use to do so. Hopefully these will be useful to others!

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