Working with research assistants: My approach and philosophy

One of the reasons my scholarly productivity went up (literally, through the roof) during a previous stage of my academic career was the fact that I had not one, but two amazing research assistants. Whatever I needed done (assemble datasets, create tables, format journal article manuscripts, organize my academic life), they were there. Right now, I have a small army of 6 research assistants (I brought back to my team someone who I had worked with during my postdoctoral years), and while two of them work 50% of their time for me and 50% of their time for another professor (both colleagues of mine), I do consider them all part of my research team (my research students being the other part). They’ve been incredibly helpful in boosting my productivity and helping me with some very tedious administrative tasks (including photocopying, printing, data-entry and assemblage of my SNI submission).

There are very good reasons to be a research assistant, particularly at a prestigious institution like CIDE. In addition to learning about how to conduct research on-the-job, obtaining a very solid letter of recommendation from a respected scholar, being a research assistant pays off because it provides the apprentice with the experience of being one of the building blocks of a solid scholarly programme.

Whenever I have worked with research assistants, I have tried to motivate them and boost their morale because to me, their work is incredibly valuable. They are not only “dataset-assembling-machines”. They’re human beings with excellent brains, who are hard-working and committed to my success. Given the fact that in my RA team I have 5 males and 1 woman, I came up with the metaphor of The Avengers, and had a friend of my cousin design and create small figures that represent my research assistants as The Avengers.

The metaphor works well, because even if I see myself as a superhero, I wouldn’t be able to succeed without their help (hence the Avengers metaphor – they are stronger as a team, whereas one alone is not as powerful). Admittedly, I’m a very challenging professor to work as a research assistant for. I work in a very broad variety of fields, and I work really long hours, at a very fast pace. But I know that I can count on my research assistants to have my back.

My philosophy for working with research assistants can be summarized as follows: all I ask of my RAs is

1) Commitment – The first thing I need from a research assistant is that they can be trusted and that they are committed to helping me. I need to know that they will be there when I need them, even if the work sometimes requires them to stay a bit longer, work a bit after work, or come in on a weekend or on a holiday. I need to know that they have my back and that they’re watching it.

2) Hard work and high quality of work – I need to know that my RAs will take the same approach that I take to my research. While I am a bit of a perfectionist, I don’t expect perfection from my RAs. But I do expect that they will take time to proofread their work, to check for consistency in datasets, to upload clean references to Mendeley, and to be careful and exercise proper etiquette in how they deal with other professors and students.

3) Independence – I strongly believe that the best thing one can do to train and mentor RAs is to show them how to undertake independent work, to walk with them through the process, to teach them the first steps on how to use a particular software or tool, and then let them work themselves out. I am not a micro-manager. I never was when I was a research lab manager, and I never will be. I fully believe in my own mantra: I tell people “THIS needs to happen” and I let them make it happen. I strongly believe this approach really enhances the RA experience.

4) Mutual respect and a team approach to work – This is incredibly important to me (that my RAs respect each other and that they work together as a team). I don’t play favorites with any of my RAs (nor did I do it with my students). I’ve always believed in self-organization (I wouldn’t study self-organizing water governance units if I didn’t!) so often times, I just tell my students what I need done and they self-organize on who can help me do what. This approach enables them to learn better collaborative ways of working together, and it frees my time (and my brain) to focus on my research.

A couple of interesting posts I found while writing this piece – on working with undergraduate RAs in a lab setting, and on working with RAs as translators. Of course, I’d appreciate additional tips on how to work with research assistants if you think of something that you think I missed on this note.

Posted in academia, research.

Tagged with research assistants, work.

2 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – February 3, 2013

Maturing as a scholar, long-term thinking and the research trajectory

Recently, I was asked on Twitter about what I meant by a research trajectory (I discussed my research interests and the plans I had for my future investigations in a previous blog post). For context, I have been thinking about maturing as a scholar and research trajectories for the past few months. For example, I recently had to assemble my submission to the National Researchers System (Sistema Nacional de Investigadores) in Mexico. My brother and I recently reviewed his research interests’ statement (he’s also a professor) and I explained to him how I wrote mine. Last November, I also had to produce a research plan for the next 3 years. And my research assistants just asked me how I knew where I was going (as a scholar).

I have noticed how I have matured as a scholar, not only in the PhD-to-professor process kind-of-maturing (where you need to demonstrate that you can think differently from your PhD advisor, when you are ready to undertake independent thinking and analyzing), but also in how I examine problems and what kind of scholarship I apply. I have also noticed how other senior scholars have shifted their thinking.

Dr. Elinor Ostrom. Photo credit US Embassy in Sweden.

Let me explain with an example. Ten years ago, when I first met Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom, they had already been thinking for a very long time about issues of collective action for resource governance, multi-level governance and self-organization in local communities for water management. I first learned about institutions from the Ostroms, and what they taught me did shape how I think now about resource governance. I know that the Ostroms’ thinking around institutions and polycentric governance itself evolved through the years. And it took me a good 2-3 years after my PhD to really think hard and find out what exactly is the core of my theoretical and analytical processes. It is NOT that I am obsessed with the Ostroms and their scholarship (though admittedly, I admired them as academics and loved them as people). What happens is that at the very core of my work for the past 10, 15 years, I have been studying cooperation and conflict. In completely different areas, but if you examine with a critical eye what I investigate, at the very core, I am interested in cooperation amongst agents. I always have, and I probably always will.

As Jo VanEvery put it in a comment on my post,

That is a great description. The thing about cooperation between agents connects what otherwise might look like a very diverse research agenda into something much more coherent. You have particular empirical interests right now (water, especially) but you have successfully identified the core that would remain even if that particular focus changed.

While the kind of research I focus on has evolved, and I have shifted from a main interest in strategic alliances (during my MBA) to clusterization and industrial agglomeration (during my PhD) to networked governance of natural resources (as a professor), I have always maintained an interest in cooperation. And my scholarly findings have shown under what circumstances cooperation exists. That kind of maturing, knowing exactly what kind of questions I want to answer in the future, I think is crucial for any researcher.

I set out to design my research trajectory not only because well, I do want tenure (and this suggestion by Karen Kelsky on how to design a research trajectory applies mostly to PhD students and on-the-tenure-track professors), but more importantly because I want to ensure that where I am in 3 to 6 years (analytically speaking) is further from where I am right now. I have long known that I eschew popular research in favor of cutting-edge, non-mainstream scholarship, and I intend to stay on that course.

Academic fields also evolve, and other scholars mature as well, and their thinking becomes more refined, as my trusted former PhD advisor always said. I remember when I was in 3rd year of my PhD and he said to me that I would some day re-read my previous work and think how far I have come and how evolved my thinking is, and he was entirely right. One of my fields (water policy) also has evolved. Eight years ago, few people in Mexico wrote about water governance, and this past year, the popularity of the term exploded. I was challenging the validity of governing by research councils since 2007, and now even respected scholars who previously defended the policy now have questioned whether it is a valid one. I think this demonstrates that the field itself matures, and that scholars reshape their own thinking as they learn from others.

Political science is a great example of an evolving field. Lately, I have seen more political scientists use social network analysis in their research (a tool that has been used in sociology for decades). Economists and geographers now can straddle two fields (geographical economics and economic geography). That is also why I encourage my students (and fellow researchers) to read widely and across academic fields.

That is what I love about being an academic: that I get to think hard about tough issues that require policy action, and that I get to do so and get paid for it.

Posted in academia.

Tagged with scholarly evolution.

4 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – February 2, 2013

Discard Studies and the social science of garbage: Some preliminary reflections

For the longest time, I have been fascinated with waste, although for some reason that is not 100% clear to me, I haven’t devoted much time to studying the scholarship around sustainable consumption. I’m currently engaged in a number of projects around the socio-political dynamics of informal recycling (waste picking) and as a result, I have been writing a summary, overview piece on the social science of garbage. The goal of this piece is to integrate what we know about how waste is perceived, analyzed and understood, from a social science (and humanities) perspective. While I have found many studies that touch on various aspects of discarded materials, I have just recently begun to think about them from the perspective posed by Robin Nagle, Eric Friedman and Max Liboiron on their blog, Discard Studies.

The new multidisciplinary field of discard studies considers definitions of, attitudes toward, behaviors around, and materialities of waste, broadly defined. This blog is meant as an online gathering place for scholars, activists, environmentalists, students, artists, planners, and anyone else whose work touches on themes relevant to the study of discard.

From the perspective of an interdisciplinary scholar like myself, discard studies as an all-encompassing field of research has, as the authors propose, great potential. As I have written before, I approach problems from an interdisciplinary perspective, using analytical frameworks that borrow from a variety of social sciences (anthropology, geography, sociology and of course, political science and policy studies). My research interests are centered around networked governance, but I study governing from an integrative, multidisciplinary perspective.

Discard studies as a field in its own right has rich potential, drawing upon but going beyond approaches to waste undertaken in disciplines of cultural anthropology, economics, sociology, archaeology, geography, history, and environmental studies, to name a few.

A growing number of researchers from all of these disciplines are asking questions about waste, not just as an ecological problem, but as a process, as a category of rejected material goods, as a mentality, as a judgment, as an infrastructural and economic challenge, as a political risk, a site for power struggles and as a source of creativity.

My first degree was in chemical engineering, and I started working in waste management (solid, hazardous and liquid waste) even before I completed my undergraduate degree. I remember reading George Tchobanoglous’ books and the Metcalf and Eddy masterpiece of wastewater engineering but what I noticed in both sets of books was a distinct lack of exploration of the human dimensions of garbage governance. We still know very little about attitudinal change, policy instruments to reduce pollution control (my first scholarly love, I should admit!), political dynamics of interaction between informal recyclers and their governments (a topic I’m currently studying). However, there are numerous studies on the anthropology of garbage, particularly as it relates to the archaeology of garbage. Archaeologists find the study of previous generations’ material waste particularly informative in describing previous civilizations/eras.

Discard Studies offers a substantially large selection of articles, journals and book suggestions, many of which I have ordered for acquisition by our CIDE Region Centro library. I have also looked at Academia.Edu’s groups on Anthropology of Waste, Sociology of Waste,

In the human geography literature, I’m very familiar with Anna Davies’ work on the geographies of garbage governance. And Carl Zimring‘s edited Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste (one I should have contributed to, and missed out on!) is a great resource.

At the end of the day, I’m interested in examining waste governance from a multidisciplinary perspective (I’ve done extensive research on wastewater governance), particularly focused on explaining divergences in governance structures (I am a comparativist, after all!) and waste policy outcomes. In my preliminary research I have found substantial variation in how solid waste is governed at the sub-national levels and I’m currently seeking to expand this work across Latin American countries. It will be very interesting to try and compare how each country’s populations behaves when faced with increasingly packed landfills and growing amounts of garbage to be dealt with. I remain fascinated with the social science of garbage.

Posted in geography, governance, public policy theories, waste.

Tagged with social science of garbage, waste governance.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 25, 2013

On discipline, focus and writing every day in academic writing: My 2013 goals

When I set out to write my Research Plan for 2013 and my Research Trajectory for 2013-2016, I decided to write down one word that would establish my goals for the year. This year, the word was FOCUS. I decided that, no matter how many obstacles I face and regardless of how many different scholarly topics interest me, I was going to focus on what I had set out in my 2013 Research Plan.

Photo credit: crypto on Flickr

One of the biggest challenges I often face is to be disciplined and focused in my academic writing. Because I have so many (and broad) scholarly interests, and given my extroverted and vivacious personality (a factor that I think is often overlooked when writing about productivity in academic settings), it’s often challenging to remain focused on what I need to achieve. I get excited about so many things. Admittedly, I work really hard and I’m very fast at what I do. But still, academic writing requires reflection and in-depth thinking. So I vowed this year to be more disciplined and focused.

Three productivity tips I’m implementing this year in full force (I’ve been working at them for the last little while, but this year they are the top priority) are:

1) writing every day
2) doing more distributed work
3) maintaining focus

Writing every day

I regularly read 3 academic productivity blogs, each of them written by Tanya Golash-Boza, Jo Van Every and Karen Kelsky. Because so much of my academic life and success has hinged on being productive, I enjoy their productivity tips. Tanya suggests that you can be productive by writing 2 hours a day, and I can certainly attest to the truth of that suggestion. I don’t write for 2 hours straight, however. As Jo indicates, you should write the way it suits you, not the way everyone tells you to. Karen suggests that you should channel your inner rage and motivate you (in this case, to write).

So here is what I do: I wake up every morning, and before doing anything else, I prepare a pot of coffee and I start writing. I have daily meetings with my writing (I book time that nobody else has access to, where I just sit down and write). Because nobody has asked me (YET) to meet at 5:45am, usually my writing comes out at around this time. I spend anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours doing what is called “generative writing” (putting ideas down on paper/word processing file, drafting new sections of a paper, revising sections, reformatting and adding ideas, editing sentences, etc.) Anything that makes me feel that I am advancing my own research.

If I can’t write for 2 hours straight, I set out to write for at least 4 blocks of 30 minutes each EVERY DAY. No day goes by when I don’t write for at least 4 blocks of 30 minutes each. If I have to be at my office at CIDE in the morning, I book 4 slots where I just write without interruption. No email, no phone calls, nothing. I used to have an open-door policy, which I no longer have. I have found that closing the door, while everyone knows I’m inside my office, makes people realize that I might be busy writing or doing research, so they think twice before knocking. If I’m travelling, I usually wake up 2 hours earlier so that I can devote time to writing.

Doing more distributed work

Photo credit: David King on Flickr

This is a topic that merits its own blog post, but in general, my goal here is to do more work remotely and to distribute workloads effectively. On the topic of distributed (as in, remote) work: I love coming into my office every day, that’s how I get to engage in excellent discussions with my colleagues, my research assistants and my students. But ever since I discovered the distributed work features of Mendeley and Dropbox, I’m more inclined to spend time away from the office doing work. I have a lovely home office at my parents’ place and one at my own house in Aguascalientes, so I can always work from home whenever I want.

On the other hand (distributed work as in allocating workloads), I also have been empowering my research assistants to take the initiative and push their own boundaries of comfort. I think the world of my students and my research assistants, and I’m not a micro-manager. I set out to tell my RAs what needs to happen and I give them the freedom to pursue avenues and strategies that allow them to accomplish what I need accomplished. I think this is part of distributed work (distributing workloads in such a way that I don’t micromanage but I get things done). Also, hiring the best people always helps.

Focus

Photo credit: Mark Hunter on Flickr

Most people would look at my scholarly interests and think that I write about and research a very broad variety of topics and that this would be counter-intuitive if I’m trying to maintain focus. I’d respond that this is not the case. By maintaining focus, I mean that I just do what I am supposed to do, instead of adding things to my pile continuously. I can’t even begin to tell you how many calls for papers, invitations to submit to edited volumes, etc. I receive on an every day basis. I look at them longingly and I think “wow, this would be a really neat project“. And then I file them in my “Cool Things I Would Love To Research Whenever I Have Time (Which Is Pretty Much Never)”.

I’ve survived the siren-like lure of engaging in scholarship on water use in agriculture. I just can’t deviate from my line of research. I’ve been invited to do more research on climate policy. I have been told that I should analyze airshed governance. And my response is “sorry, but I already have a research trajectory and none of those topics are within my plans for the next 6 years“.

Any invitation I’ve accepted (or extended) to engage in new scholarly pursuits is perfectly aligned with my research trajectory for the next 6 years. Yes, I’m going to start doing more work on water conflict. But I’ve already studied conflicts for water in transboundary water governance, so doing it at the sub-national scale is a natural extension of my work. Admittedly, I’m going to do some work on environmental injustice and global geographies of e-waste. But I’m already doing work on informal recycling, therefore e-waste is a natural extension. Sure, I suggested a colleague that we should look at work on policy diffusion. But I’ve already done extensive work on policy transfer and policy learning in North America. This new project would be a natural extension of what I already do.

By focus I mean, I am not going to deviate from my scholarly goals and my research trajectory, even if the topic is interesting.

So this is my plan for 2013, and I’m writing it on my blog to keep me accountable.

Posted in academia.

Tagged with academia, academic writing, productivity tips.

5 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 24, 2013

On self-care in an academic environment

I got braces for the first time in my life last month. You may wonder “how does getting braces relate to Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s academic life?“. There’s a very simple response to that: In 2013, I decided to become the first priority in my life, both professional and personal. Out of context, undergoing teeth surgery (two wisdom teeth and a broken tooth removed) and getting braces may seem like just part of everyday life. But within the context of my (incredibly busy) academic life, the braces are a symbol of self-care, something we academics seem to forget a tad too often (anecdotal evidence notwithstanding, I think forgetting to take care of oneself IS a generalized practice in academic circles).

While I had all the intention to complete my book, and I did read and I did do a limited amount of work, this past December I spent the majority of the month recuperating from teeth surgery and learning to live (and eat) with my braces. I could have not made a better decision, I think (other than, of course, coming back to Mexico and joining CIDE Region Centro, which I think was a fantastic decision for my own growth) than finally getting my teeth straightened.

Back in Vancouver, my morning routine included waking up at 4:45am and doing some work, heading to the gym, exercising for an hour, working a 10-12 hour day and in the evening doing artistic stuff. On weekends, I would do some work but my priority was my personal life and volleyball. Yes, I used to work and continue to work long days, but those were balanced. I am aiming to do the same here in Aguascalientes. I’ve already lined up a couple of artistic pursuits, and I’m seeking a volleyball team to join.

As for my home and office environment, we have superb offices at CIDE Region Centro, but I also have built a home office in my house. I do that wherever I live because I know that by having a home office I can do some work without having to commute to the office. And in all of the above decisions, my first thought is: if I want to have a successful academic life, I need to find some balance and exercise a healthy amount of self-care.

I do ask my students (undergraduate and graduate) and research assistants how they are doing both in their professional and personal lives, not because I want to be nosy, but because I want them to exercise self-care. I do monitor their well-being not because I want to micro-manage. I prefer to have a healthy research team than an overburdened one. There are too many stories (a few too close to home and personal) of academics who have become so burdened by the pressures of their responsibilities that they have taken extreme measures.

While I’m not yet able to do what Tanya Golash-Boza suggests (only work 40 hours a week), one of my goals in 2013 is to ensure that, whether I work 40, 50 or 100 hours a week, those hours are balanced and that I am able to still be academically productive while remaining sane and being aware of the need for self-care. If there’s something I can recommend my fellow professors out there, and their graduate students is: always make sure to take care of yourselves.

Posted in academia.

Tagged with self-care in academic environments.

2 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 17, 2013

On surviving a PhD

Having struggled through the PhD process myself (I wish I could say that it was a smooth ride, but it wasn’t), and obtaining the degree, I have taken it upon myself to ensure that my own PhD students (and other faculty members’) don’t ever suffer the things I did. I have spent a substantial amount of time mentoring PhD students, even those who are not my own, simply because I had mentorship and I believe I should pay it forward too.

Though I don’t want to make it like everything was a struggle (I had a fantastic, intellectually stimulating and human PhD supervisor), I did face challenges, and I survived them. Not small challenges, mind you. But here I am, on a tenure-track assistant professor position, having a grand time.

I won’t repeat them my grad school woes now, but my advice to graduate students is: DON’T EVER LOSE HOPE #PhDChat #PhDAdvice That is all.

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) January 11, 2013

I cannot write a recipe for PhD success because what worked for me may not have worked for someone else, but there is one thing (and I mentioned it on Twitter, again one of my most retweeted and favorited tweets) that I encourage PhD students to do is to maintain hope. Regardless of whether they choose to complete the degree (an entirely personal choice – I saw many friends of mine quit their PhDs, some of them in fact several years into the PhD with a substantial part of thesis draft already written), I cannot say that I believe giving up hope is an option.

Stay strong out there, PhD students. And if there is anything I can do to help, feel free to reach out.

Posted in academia.

Tagged with PhD life.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 16, 2013

Open access #OverlyHonestMethods and the broken publishing system

I’m not going to be the one to solve the broken publishing system (though I do try really hard to make all of my research publicly available – Redalyc is a great help in that regard, since everything I have published in Spanish is freely available – Redalyc is the Latin American Network of Scientific Journals (though they also cover Iberoamerica, Spain and Portugal). But in the aftermath of Aaron Swartz’s passing, I can’t help but feel a stronger burning desire to push for open access to research worldwide (at least, to MY research). Swartz was a fervent advocate of open access.

Coincidentally (last week, before Swartz’ passing and the worldwide outpouring of academic sympathy known now as #PDFTribute), I tweeted along the #OverlyHonestMethods – my tweet became one of my most retweeted and favorited, which I think (yes, I know, anecdotal evidence! but bear with me for a second) showcases how many of my colleagues feel that the publishing system is broken.

I would have cited your mildly relevant paper in my manuscript but it’s paywalled and non-open-access #OverlyHonestMethods

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) January 8, 2013

The number of papers I find online that “seem” relevant (reading the abstract) and that I am unable to judge by their quality is staggering. They are pay-walled. I’m lucky that all the universities where I’ve been a faculty member in the past 6 years (and where I did my Masters and PhD) have had extremely robust online access to databases, but what of other academics, students and the general public who aren’t so lucky?

I don’t want to enter the debate on the economics of publishing and open access per se (my scholarly research is in comparative environmental public policy) but I feel even more encouraged (and a sense of duty) now to publish Open Access even more than I have so far.

Posted in bridging academia and practice.

Tagged with open access, public intellectualism, research.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 16, 2013

Tenure-track faculty opening at #CIDERegionCentro (Public Administration)

I am delighted to share with you the news that my department (and campus!) are hiring! Please forward this announcement to anyone you know who might fit the bill.

Faculty Opening: Tenure-track Assistant Professor position.
Department of Public Administration/CIDE‐Región Centro

The Department of Public Administration at CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas) solicits applicants for a tenure-track, assistant professor faculty position in our Aguascalientes Campus (CIDE Región Centro).

CIDE is a public research center specialized in the social sciences, offering high‐quality undergraduate and graduate programs. Salaries are competitive nationally and internationally. The usual teaching load is one course per semester. Applicants must be fluent in Spanish as it is the working language at CIDE. The chosen candidate should be able to teach courses in the areas of Public Policy, Federalism and Local Government, and Public Management.

We welcome candidates from public administration, public policy, law, political science, or other related fields. Candidates are required to have a doctorate degree, a solid background in theory and research methods, and an interest in studying public affairs. Applications from candidates without the degree will only be considered if they include a letter from the chair of the committee stating a date for the defense of the doctoral dissertation. The latter should occur before the end of 2013.

Applicants should send the following documents in PDF format to wendolyn(.)veana(@)cide.edu before April 14, 2013.
‐ Research and teaching plan for the next three years (no longer than three pages.)
‐ Curriculum Vitae
‐ Writing sample (the candidate should be the first author, preferably a refereed journal article or two chapters of the doctoral dissertation.)
‐ Three letters of recommendation.

CIDE is an equal opportunity employer committed to the promotion of diversity(*). For further information please visit CIDE’s webpage.

The PDF version below contains the job advertisement in Spanish-language first and then in English.

Convocatoria Profesor Investigador de Tiempo Completo CIDE Región Centro, División de Administración Públic… by raulpachecovega

Posted in environmental policy.

Tagged with assistant professor, job, public administration, tenure track.

1 comment

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 14, 2013

Insights I gained on academic writing by doing #AcWriMo in November 2012

This year, I participated in #AcWriMo (an effort initiated by Dr. Charlotte Frost to encourage academics to focus almost solely on writing, I assume with the intent that their productivity goes up). I even joined the Google Documents’ AcWriMo Accountability Database so that I could track my progress. I was quickly derailed in reporting back on my progress simply because I had so much writing to do. So, now that #AcWriMo is over, here are my quick notes on what I learned and a summary of my progress.

I must admit that I love doing these posts on what I have learned because I then have a permanent record to revisit. I will come back to this post and check what worked for me on a regular basis.

During #AcWriMo2012, I

– Wrote a first draft of 6 journal articles (all in English). Still rough, but thy are there.
– Polished 2 journal articles’ drafts (all in English) to the point where they are almost working papers.
– Edited (with a former student of mine) one journal article to the point where it’s almost ready for submission to the journal.
– Re-wrote 3 chapters of my single-authored book on sanitation.
– Created a “Research Output” document that summarizes how much research I have produced in 2 of my projects (I still need to do this for the remainder of my papers)
– Edited a first draft of a journal article in Spanish that I am submitting this month with another professor from CIDE Region Centro.
– Wrote abstracts for 4 conferences for 2013.
– Created a master overview of my waste pickers project.
– Prepared a survey and literature review on water conflict at the local level.
– Performed a literature review on social science research methods.

On non-writing-but-still-academic duties, I also:
– Read a PhD dissertation (I’m an external examiner) and provided detailed feedback for the student and PhD advisor.
– Presented 1 draft paper at a seminar in Mexico City.
– Prepared 5 lists of books (with the help of my research assistants) for CIDE Region Centro’s library to purchase.
– Attended a full-day strategic planning retreat for CIDE Region Centro
– Participated in 3 scholarly events not related to my discipline, but organized by CIDE Region Centro.
– Gave 2 entirely different talks at 2 conferences.
– Wrote my Research Plan 2013, my Research Trajectory 2013-2016, and my Productivity Report 2012.
– Reviewed a book proposal for a publisher.
– Reviewed 15 paper proposals and 3 panel proposals for a conference.
– Organized 3 social activities at CIDE Region Centro.
– Gave 2 interviews to media (1 to a newspaper, 1 on TV).
– Wrote 1 op-ed for The Ubyssey (the student newspaper at UBC)
– Wrote 2 blog posts on my research blog.
– Edited 1 press release on my research to go to media.
– Wrote 5 letters of reference for several former undergraduate students.

Overall, against what people might think (that November is a slow month), mine was quite hectic. I did learn a lot from trying to do AcWriMo the right way, so here are some lessons for myself and for anyone who wants to do AcWriMo.

1). Write EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. This is something that helped me move forward and that every single academic coach will tell you to do. Write every single day. I would not let go any of the 30 days of this month (included Saturdays and Sundays) without writing something. A draft note, a series of concepts, a summary of ideas on a particular research project. Transcribe interview data. Create a list of headings for a journal article or a conference manuscript or for a book chapter.

2). Organize your calendar. I knew that this month would be hectic because of whatever non-writing duties I had to perform. So what I did was that I blocked time every single day to write. In my case, it was anywhere between 3:45am and 6:30am. I went to bed early and the first thing I did every morning was wake up, set a pot of coffee and write. Occasionally I would also read my social media streams, but for the most part I would just focus on write. Anybody who knows me knows that I schedule my life to the very last minute, and writing was always on the schedule.

3). Do NOT read your email in the morning. Much less on Monday mornings. Not sure why people tend to answer and send emails on Monday mornings much more frequently than any other day. I noticed this and decided that I will never answer emails first thing in the morning BEFORE writing. If I answer an email in the morning, it’s because I already have written something.

4). Quantify your output. I think the most motivating thing that I have created was my research output documents both for my report on what I did in 2012 and for the projects I am closing with a former student of mine on transboundary water conflict. Just knowing that THAT much work had been done and written keeps motivating me to continue doing stuff. Even if it’s 2 pages, I knew that I had already added 2 new pages to 13 pages of draft notes, etc. Even if just creating one abstract of 300 words, I felt that I had already moved forward.

5). Delegate as much as possible. The mantra I have imbued in my students and research assistants is “I need THIS done. YOU go figure out and do it”. This doesn’t mean that I don’t guide them through data searching and table/figure assembling, but it means that I give them enough freedom to figure out things without me micro-managing them. This attitude of empowering and enabling my students and research assistants frees up my time and brain power to focus on what is important.

6) Devote time every day to READ. Yes, you read right. The strangest thing about academic writing is that, if you don’t read, you can’t identify the gaps in the scholarly literature. By dedicating time every single day to read book chapters, books and articles, I have been able to see where I DON’T want to go in my research trajectory, and where I DO want to go.

7). Take regular breaks. Taking time away from your research is very important. It gives your brain some time to digest concepts and ideas. Despite my long days, I always take some time away. I go for short walks around the CIDE Region Centro campus, or read social media, or go for lunch with my colleagues, or simply take a bus to downtown Aguascalientes and walk around the Zocalo. Furthermore, because I visit my parents every weekend, I dedicate long chunks of time every Saturday and Sunday only to spend time with my parents. Go for a walk, go shopping, visit a new park or museum, etc.

If you participated in #AcWriMo, what did YOU learn?

Posted in academia, research.

Tagged with academic writing, AcWriMo, publications.

3 comments

By Raul Pacheco-Vega – December 3, 2012

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Working with research assistants: My approach and philosophy

Maturing as a scholar, long-term thinking and the research trajectory

On discipline, focus and writing every day in academic writing: My 2013 goals

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On surviving a PhD

Open access #OverlyHonestMethods and the broken publishing system

Tenure-track faculty opening at #CIDERegionCentro (Public Administration)

Insights I gained on academic writing by doing #AcWriMo in November 2012

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