Post 83: Book Review: Scheduled Writing, Habitual Writing, or "How to Write a Lot"

This post is written with, once again, big hugs and thanks to my colleague Dr. Garrett Richards, now a post-doc at the University of Saskatchewan, who recently recommended the book the title of this post refers to.

"How to Write A Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing" by Paul J. Silva is a practical, no-nonsense book geared at helping academics (and graduate students) learn how to write more productively. While the book specifically targets psychology graduate students and academics, its principles are general enough to appeal to those across other disciplines, too.

From my reading of the first—excellent—three chapters, the basic messages of the chapters are this:

1. Writing is a skill that can be learned, especially if one is willing to put in the time to learn how to write well.
2. "Academic writing should be more routine, boring, and mundane than it is."
3. Scheduled, regular writing is more important than the number of hours in a day or days per week. (This is the establishing the mundane part of writing.) 
4. Any of the common excuses you make for not writing are not good ones, so don't make them. Some of the common and pervasive excuses that the book blasts in Chapter 2 are:

Wisteria on campus at one of the Chapel entrances. Very lovely!

A. You don't 'have the time' to write; you do: you allocate time to write every week/day, and are rigid about that time. This way, writing is regular and expected. 

B. Need to read more, analyze more data, run more tests... This is fine, as long as you actually do these things during your scheduled writing so you can get closer to putting words down on paper for yourself. Whether it's reading another article, running another statistical test, or reading through a journal's submission guidelines. As long as you're not using those things as excuses to avoid sitting down and working on or getting closer to what you need to be productive with your writing.

C. (This one is most obviously excuse-like:) Need a better desk, chair, computer, etc., in order to write. Need the 'right' notebook, or something like that. **Note: I haven't encountered this excuse myself, and while I can't say as much about the other ones, I haven't found myself talking about this, either. But in short, you don't need the latest and greatest technology in order to write.
As a side note: If you have an existing repetitive-strain or motion injury (I've dealt with one of these myself before), then do do your homework and figure out what ergonomics you need to change in order to be able to write comfortably, and without injury. I've written about my discussion with the on-campus ergonomics person here. 

D. You want to wait until you feel like writing. This one has to do with feeling inspired to write, and the idea that the best writing comes from those inspired emotions. However, this leads to inconsistent, erratic writing patterns that usually doesn't produce a lot of words, and if you want to finish your thesis, then you need to regularly be putting words to paper and doing something with them.

Lovely white harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) with tiny dragonflies in them!! Walking James Bay this May. 

Chapter three starts in on some motivational tools to get writing. And I've found some of them helpful myself.

The first is setting small, manageable project goals. You want to be able to measure your progress and keep moving forward in a way that you feel good about. Setting small milestones is a great way to get to passing big ones. You can also have an ongoing list of things that you want to write, which, when you have a regular writing schedule, become an ordered list of things to do. "A binge writer," Sylvia writes, "would feel anxious when confronted with this long list of writing projects, but you have a schedule." And you will get all your writing done in your scheduled writing time. :) (There's a lot more in the book about goal setting... and I'm really squishing this material down. Forgive me.)

Prioritizing your writing projects. Silvia suggests this order of things after his discussions with successful graduate students:
1. Projects with deadlines (eg. papers for classes, grant proposals, etc.)
2. Curricular writing (eg. a thesis!)
3. Professional publications (eg. an academic article or a white paper)
4. Other, miscellaneous writing (such as this blog!)

Then Silva spends a bit of time discussing monitoring your progress, or collecting data about yourself and your writing habits, behavioural patterns, and outputs. You set yourself a writing schedule for 8AM-10AM every morning of the Mon-Fri work week, but you are not a morning person, and you get discouraged because you sleep through your start times. Okay, so maybe mornings aren't your best time to write. But you can keep track of different times you set to write for yourself, and track that data! Then you can start to see when you meet your writing goals (keep them small and manageable), and then you keep up your momentum and motivation.

This chapter finishes with a quick note about writer's block. Basically, Silvia argues that academic writers can't get writer's block. "What are you trying to write?" he asks. "You're not crafting a deep narrative or composing metaphors that expose mysteries of the human heart. The subtlety of your analysis of variance will not move readers to tears, although the tediousness of it might (p. 45)."

He goes on to say: "Saying that you're not writing because of writer's block is merely saying that you can't write because you aren't writing." I think this is true enough. When I think of things that prevent me from writing (impostor syndrome, fear of failing, perfectionism...), these are things I allow to get in my way, but not because I don't know what to say. It's because I'm afraid that what I'll write won't be good enough. Though if I think about that, that's what revision is for!! :)

Meet Stewie: the tiny and oh-so-cute deep sea octopus print from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2015 Exhibit at the Royal BC Museum that I received as a lovely late-birthday present. <3

As a graduate student, human being, and world citizen, you do have lots of things to write and say and share, whether it's for yourself or for others. It's a lot less stressful sitting down to write out a draft of something, revise it, and figure out how best to express it than to get caught up in worrying about how you might say the things you want or need to, but not giving yourself the change or set up to be successful in doing so. (I write this as a reminder to myself, as well.) :)

The book has five more chapters, continuing on with how to form your own specific writing group, a discussion of style, one chapter each on how to write journal articles or books, and finishes with a short chapter on "The Good Things Still to Be Written", or reinforcing how scheduled writing will be rewarding, that you will spend more time writing, as opposed to wanting to write, that you will enjoy life more because you aren't stressing out about how much not writing stresses you, and that you can write as much or as little as you want. Cheers to that!

And, as the book mentions: "Let everyone else procrastinate, daydream, and complain-spend your time sitting down and moving your mittens."  Wishing you much happy, scheduled, regular, and mundane writing ahead!

Citation:
Sylvia, P. J. (2007). How to write a lot: A practical guide to academic writing. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.   

Post 73: Sometimes You Just Need to be a Science Nerd!

This will be one of my super-enthusiastic, pro-science, pro-art nerdy posts: writer Will Sabel Courtney at The Drive wrote about these amazing retro-style space travel posters that NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory came out with last year. And they are stunning!! I've included some of my favourites as part of the photos for this post! We need these things on grey rainy days when we're trying to remember what we get excited about. Amazing science posters will work for me!

The dwarf planet, Ceres.

It's one thing to be able to do science really well, and it's another when you cross the boundary into another medium (art) to inspire or kindle enthusiasm for an interesting idea, too, and these space posters do exactly that! Culturally, the universe, outer space, and space travel have since before the 1972 Apollo 16 mission to the moon inspired people's ideas about what it means to be human, how we conceive of ourselves and our places in the universe, how we make meaning, and whether there's life in other places in the universe.

Kepler 16b!

These poster situate the human being in various interesting and playful ways in the cosmic landscape. Who knows how long it may be until we visit the ice sheets of Europa (one of Jupiter's moons) or springboard off Ceres before heading deeper into the solar system towards Jupiter, or have fun teaching kids about shadow-puppets on the first circumbinary planet (a planet orbiting two stars!) Kepler 16b, but it is definitely fun to imagine!

Lilies and tulips. :)

******
And as per the usual weather in Victoria, it's been a rainy and grey day, and I've been taking solace from my very bright Valentine's day flowers! Cheers to bright bouquets! I bought the yellow novelty tulips myself! Here's a photo so anyone dealing with the rainy day blues can have a quick pick-me-up, too! :) The semi-positive part of the wet weather is the motivation to stay indoors and do work, though I did make a point of suiting up and taking myself for a quick walk through the neighbourhood today to drop some postcards off at the mailbox. Stretching my legs felt good, and the fresh air was wonderful. It felt even better than the sun salutations (yoga) that I did later this evening.

More novelty tulips. Thank you, Thrifty's.

And now on to more thesis writing! :)

Post 70: Cultivating Urgency and Sticking with 20 Minutes

Spring has sprung in Victoria and I'm finally feeling much better: the strep throat is feeling like an already distant memory, the antibiotics are gone, and I've had a productive weekend of working, some socializing, biking around, and thesis writing.

Every night before I've gone to bed for the last three days, my journal entries have been filled with encouraging notes to myself: I can finish this thesis. I can do this. I've been reflecting on how to instil a sense of urgency, which I think I need in order to complete this project, and I think it's been working.

I had a very productive 3 hour writing/editing session with Karen yesterday, and today is following suit. I keep asking myself: what do I need to accomplish right now? What comment am I tracking down in which transcript? Who said what here? Which footnote needs to be filled?

This amazing hellebore! One of my favourite flowers, grown from seed by my friend Emma! 

I know I've written about this in the past, but I affirm once more that I find it debilitating to think too far into the future about timeline and finishing. All I can do it work on the sub-theme I have in front of me, the sentence, the punctuation, the quote. No, I shouldn't be checking my email. I need to look at the article this participant referenced here. No, I shouldn't be on Facebook. Right now, I need to make this a block quote.

The first cherry tree I've seen blooming in Victoria. This image from a few days ago,
across from the Parliament Buildings. 

I break up my time into 20 minute increments, and in between stretch and do a few pushups and squats. This feels sustainable. Break for lunch. Send a text. Otherwise, keep stewing on the chapter and its multiple moving parts, all working together now to form a very solid, well-organized draft. I am getting close to sending it off, and I'm starting to get excited about it. :)

*******

Interesting quote from my brief literature scour again: this one from Bill Wilson, then Director of Industry, Trade, & Economic Research, at the Canadian Forestry Service, working at the Pacific Forestry Centre here in Victoria. From his concluding remarks in his 2002 article outlining the role of the federal government's Mountain Pine Beetle Initiative in responding to the mountain pine beetle's outbreak:

 "It has been a tough year for BC. Events bring to mind the riders of the apocalypse – pestilence, drought, fire, and floods."

Post 67: Keeping up Momentum: Perseverance and the Long Haul

At the end of November I found myself in chilly Cochrane, Alberta—there for a work trip with my sister and our long-time family friend Renee. During the trip I made use of a couple of things: the very cold weather to motivate my evening walks to become evening runs (it was so chilly that after 2 kms of a steady jog I was finally warm!), so I think that I ran my chilliest runs at -9C, I think, and -3C respectively. Brr! I'm trying to keep that in mind as I motivate myself to stay on top of healthy habits and getting some movement into the day. With the shorter daylight and cooler temperatures, I've certainly done a lot more walking than keeping up on my running goals.

The spire of one of the many churches in or near downtown Victoria.

That trip I had also made a date with my friend and colleague Cat, who recently defended her thesis in September! (Yay!) And it was such a lovely visit! She is in a really really great place now. She's recuperated from the thesis experience, and stated that she took about a month where she just felt like the immense effort it took to finish writing and defending the thesis meant she really only felt like doing the basics for a while: eating, sleeping, walking, yoga, and taking it easy. I remember how hard she worked during the summer months, and I was amazed at how quickly she as able to write and get her thesis together, and she did a really get job in the end, but I'm not surprised that she took the well-earned and needed break after such intense and sustained output.

Which is what gets me to the gist of this post: thesis projects are longer and more intense than (likely) anything that most students have worked on to date. They do NOT require the same skills that perhaps got students through undergrad: you cannot write a thesis with binge-writing habits that may have helped to complete papers in undergrad. I won't say that this is what I have been doing, because it isn't, but my process has certainly evolved into trying to build good writing habits that keep me sustained over a longer haul, because it is a long haul to write a thesis or dissertation.

January frost out in View Royal. Gorgeous!

As my supervisor recommended for me several months ago: write for a few hours, right in the morning, every day if possible. It's amazing how much can get done with consistency. I would also say that writing every day keeps up the momentum, engagement with the thesis, and just a general sense of encouragement for seeing continued progress being made. I'm trying to keep that in mind as I juggle a chronic health issue (migraines), and two part-time jobs.

Onwards and upwards! Cheers to healthy writing habits with stretches and standing up every so often, and making time for exercise despite working too much. Happy writing to everyone else working on theses and dissertations!

Post 60: Writing is a Constant Act of Courage, and of Failing

Sometimes random traverses on the Internet can be awfully rewarding when the traverse yields something that speaks to exactly the problem that you're dealing with. And I felt that way when I stumbled on to this really short interview recording with The Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates, one of their staff writers. Several parts of the interview really resonated with me, and have stuck with me weeks after I first watched it earlier in August, so here's the blog post for it, because if it's stayed with me this long, it might be useful for you to hear his words briefly, too.

While he's describing his process and experience of creative writing, a lot of what he says really speaks to my experience of thesis and academic writing, too. Coates discusses the need for persistence in writing. He states that he believes that "writing is an act of courage—it's almost an act of physical courage." Considering how much anxiety I sometimes have when I sit in front of my computer, thinking about how much I continue to fail when I'm trying to describe the figures and images and connections that I see in my mind, but seeing how little of that fails to emerge in my writing. So I have to keep at it. This project is important to me, and bigger than me, and it deserves to be written.

Coates continues on to say: "You never really get—I never really get, to that perfect thing that was in my head, so I always consider the entire process about failure... and I really think that's the main reason why more people don't write."

Ta-Nehisi Coates screenshot from the interview segment.

He also emphasizes the importance of revision, which is a lesson that I took away from the writing program at the end of my undergrad. Writing is a lot of work. It can be really rewarding, but it is A LOT of work. I will be glad to wrap up this degree for sure. So for now, it's one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time, revising and revising and writing and writing and revising and revising. The process needs to continue.

And of course, I have the support of my supervisor and my committee member to provide helpful feedback and revision directions as needed, so I can trust that process, too.

And a lovely photo of late summer crocuses that surprised me in the field near my office on campus:

Post 56: Garrett Richard's Co-Post on Different Types of Journal Articles

Not too long ago, I read journal articles fairly indiscriminately, and didn't pay too much attention to whether or not they were argumentative theory papers or delivering empirical research results or meta-analyses. Now, however, that distinction has become a lot more important as I'm trying to wrestle with my findings chapter and finding the best way to represent the important information that's emerged from my interviews. I will also add, however, that this distinction is important to keep in mind for whatever your current project is. As I mentioned in the previous post, about the importance of reading other theses, it can be incredibly useful and rewarding to have a guidepost or a model in mind for what the end product should be.

A stormy summer evening sunset! Fantastic energy in the clouds!

With journal articles that can be even more important, because different journals have different publishing styles, content guidelines, etc., that you need to know about if you're going to pitch your own article there. And from the other perspective, you should be doing some reading to find articles that you like/find inspiring or interesting that help you to set your aim nice and high.

So with that in mind, I thought I'd revisit an email that one of my favourite colleagues Garrett Richards wrote to me not long ago, answering my question about what different kinds of journal articles there are. This is his take on that. The content of that email is reproduced below, and I've added my own comments underneath. And, pictures throughout, as usual, are mine.

From Garrett:

Here are some examples of the different types of journal articles. They're not all from the same field, but hopefully you will find the subject matter of some of them interesting (of course, it's more important to pay attention to the basic structure, in terms of understanding the different types).

Type 1: Literature Review (e.g. Chambers 2003)This type simply goes over the literature in some field. The author will do categorization and framing, and point to emerging themes and areas for further work, but they generally aren't trying to make any argumentative points broader than that (just like a lit review in a class paper or thesis). Of course, most articles of other types have at least a small section that is literature review, but this kind is wholly a review. Uncommon.

Type 2: Argumentative (e.g. Sarewitz and Pielke Jr 2007)
This type will draw upon literature throughout, but it isn't 'reviewing' the literature as much as it is 'using' the literature to make some argument (e.g. maybe it's proposing a new theoretical framework based on previous work or gaps in that work). It will often draw on a case example (or several) to make the argument, but it won't have a methods section (probably the method used is a simple document review that isn't systematic enough to warrant a section describing it, just like we don't describe the process we go through to do a literature review). A lot like an essay. Common.

Great lunch spot in front of the building! 

Type 3: Supplemented (e.g. Hamann and Acutt 2003)
This type is basically an argumentative article, but the case example it uses to make its point is more methodologically rigorous (although sometimes it can be hard to tell - footnote 1 in this article makes it clear that interviews were used for data collection, but the actual text makes no mention of any methods, quotations, or interviewees). While a standard journal article (Type 4) will be primarily about the collected data, and secondarily about literature/argument, this kind is the other way around. A combination of types 2 and 4. I might have been able to find a better example (this one is close to being a type 2 with its invisible methods) but they are uncommon.

Type 4: Standard Original Research Article (e.g. Rietig 2014)
This type follows the standard intro-review/background-methods-results-discussion format, with the results and discussion getting more emphasis than the review/background. Almost certainly has a 'methods' section. Emphasis on methods can vary (some articles, unlike this one, flag their methods in the title and really play up the research itself over the implications/argument even more). Common.

Of course, not everything falls neatly into these types (and sometimes it's really hard to tell what the methods were or whether there were any 'methods' at all for a type 2 or 3). I think there are some articles that, instead of separating the literature/argument and the example(s) or case(s), they interweave them throughout the whole paper (and that could happen for type 2, 3, or 4). I've also seen lit review articles that have a very systematic methodology (e.g. meta-analysis/scientometrics), so those could count as type 1 or 4. I prefer having a certain structure/formula to aim for when I write an article/paper, but it seems like pretty much any construction will be acceptable somewhere, so whatever way you think best communicates your findings/ideas is probably the way to go.

Lovely Victoria evening sunset from my apartment. 

I think these 4 are very useful types of journal articles for graduate students to know about. editageInsights classifies 6 different types as: original research, review article, clinical case study, clinical trial, perspective, opinion, and commentary, and the book review, but this broadens the categorization to different fields. 

Raynor Memorial Libraries at Marquette University breaks down different categories and generalizations here, too, though I'm mostly interested in the social sciences. Their overview provides quick notes on different types of research, characteristics of research, they provide some recommended books on research, and highlight different types of scholarly articles. 

The four above are at least a pretty good start. Due to copyright, I'm unable to post the full articles here, but I've provided the full Bibliographic information below, so you can hunt down the articles Garrett mentioned yourself. Where possible, links are also provided above, but again, you need to get around the paywall, though you can still read the abstracts! 

***

Chambers, S. (2003). Deliberative democratic theory. Annual Review of Political Science 6: 307-326. doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.6.121901.085538

Hamann, R., & Acutt, N. (2010). How should civil society (and the government) respond to 'corporate social responsibility'? A critique of business motivations and the potential for partnerships. Development Southern Africa 20(2): 255-270. doi: 10.1080/03768350302956

Rietig, K. (2014). 'Neutral' experts? How input of scientific expertise matters in international environmental negotiations. Policy Science 47: 141-160. doi: 10.1007/s11077-013-9188-8. 

Sarewitz, D., & Pielke Jr., R. (2007). The neglected heart of science policy: reconciling supply of and demand for science. Environmental Science and Policy 10(1): 5-16. doi: 10.1016/j.envsci.2006.10.001 

Post 55: The Value of Reading Others' Theses

So I'm in the fourth of five chapters of my thesis now, and I've just spent an hour going through my supervisor's previous student's thesis. SO VALUABLE! It's not the first time I've gone to others' theses as guides or models for what I would be writing next, but it's been so useful to return to these documents at various stages of the writing, and to get an idea of what I'm aiming for.

The thesis, a comparative case study of two remote mountainous parks, Mount Robson Provincial Park and the Willmore Wilderness Park and their corresponding management challenges in the face of landscape change, is well-written, is engaging, and does a really good job of bringing all of their research together (I'm talking about you, Jenna!). It's also filled with a wonderful array of photo pairs from historical landscape surveys that the Mountain Legacy Project specializes in, and their contemporary repeats that field crews with MLP undertake (and of which I was a part in 2012).

Our beautiful West Coast, from a beach walk earlier this spring!

In a monograph style thesis, each of the chapters functions very differently from the others, and I find in incredibly useful to see how the words and text align and are shaped in these different sections. And, by seeing work from previous master's students, it's possible to see what a completed thesis looks like under a certain professor. I have read through a few different theses, and the diversity of form is actually impressive. Undoubtedly there are similarities, but how various people take creative license to present different chapters, or their analysis information, or how they discuss their methods and methodologies—each of these can be quite different.

Another thesis I've been returning to is Ryan Hilperts,' also qualitative research on the Elwha River Dam Removal project in the Olympic Mountain Range of the state of Washington, USA. Her writing is particularly great, and I love the introductions and overviews she gives her chapters at the beginning, oftentimes with really great epigraphs at their beginnings as well, like this one, from John Mannon:

                "Social research is both a process and a product. Presumably, one informs the 

                 other...[and] the relationship between words and worlds is anything but easy 

                                                                    or transparent."

Ryan was the professor for the class I TAed this spring, and it was great to work with her in that capacity as well, and meet with her to ask about various aspects of qualitative research generally, too. I think it is so valuable to have that inter-graduate-generational learning happening, that I am almost sad our department doesn't have more near-finished grads/PhDs to speak with on a more regular basis.

Sometimes when I'm struggling for the right word choice, or the right set-up, it's so nice to be able to go see how someone else positioned their work, or set up their paragraph. This begins Ryan's Findings chapter: "This research was not a latitudinal or exhaustive study of all the perspectives in Port Angeles on the issue of community engagement. As such, in my findings and analysis, it is not my intention to categorize informants into “camps” of conceptual agreement." And my first thought is "Great start," and then I can constructively think about what my own limitations are, and what perspectives I do have, too.

It's hard not to have a great day's work when these guys are outside the window, giving the bushes a haircut.
There were four of them last week! This is life at the GSS!

One of the writing tips I've retained from early in the writing process is to read the folks whose writing you want to emulate, and for me that included early on Hugh Gusterson's “Nuclear rites: A weapons laboratory at the end of the cold war,” and now it's been great to go to other folks' theses, which are also much closer to the document I'm trying to write. It's also a great reminder that I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel with this document. :)

We can all use writing prompts and tips in different ways, and from one colleague who leaves her laptop alone and spends her time in a creative mess of papers, to me lugging mine to campus and back each day, unable to leave it alone for a day, we all find our own ways through making sense of our data, and learning how to write about it.

A couple of wise words of advice from Joan Bolker's "Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day," too, on prioritizing the time to write:

"Engage those who care about you, and thus, about your finishing this project, on the side of your being ruthless. For example, if you are already teaching, ask your chair to remind you not to take on any extra committee assignments' ask your parent (real or imagined) to give you permission to have a messy apartment (or to come and mow the lawn). Ask your friends to remind you that when someone asks for a chunk of your time, you are free to say no immediately; if you're tempted to answer yes, though, learn to say instead, "I'll have to think about it and get back to you." And then do think about it, hard, and then think about how much you want and need to finish your dissertation. The only reason for saying yes to others' requests for your time is that there is an overwhelming reason for doing so" (pg. 87).

It's very helpful to go back to these texts and remind myself about the conditions I need to successfully write and finish up drafts. All very good at this point.

Post 45: Just Over the Half-Way Hump Trying to Keep Up the Energy!

Okay. Deep breaths. Square breathing, four seconds at a time.

This semester is proving more challenging than some previous semesters, and enormous amount of work at this point in the semester has no small role to play in that. I definitely like to be busy and feel productive, but there comes a point when everything feels a bit too much like madness and the burden of all my commitments feels overwhelming. Gotta keep something of an eye on balance, because when everything smashes together, it stops being fun, and it stops being what I want to do, and I don't like to coerce myself to relieve the pressure of deadlines and seeing through obligations.

Just last week I was buried in marking for the class I'm TAing, and it felt like last minute scrambling to get it all done. I was also hurriedly trying to edit my third thesis chapter to submit for Friday (got it in at 1:30AM, phew!), and dealing with guilt at not having more done on my other research project regarding climate change adaptation.

Walking towards Cadboro Bay, Mt. Baker off in the hazy evening rouge. 

So at this point in the semester the big challenge is fending off tiredness, making sure I get enough sleep, am still eating well, and still finding the energy to TA well, keep on top of my commitments, and meet all my deadlines. I had really bad stress anxiety last week, which felt horrible, and I'm so glad things are more under control now.

When life hands us the busy-time lemons, it seems like one of the best things to do is admit that things are hard, and try to tackle things on the to-do list so the stress can level off, and the super-stress is no longer useful. It was also really helpful for me to remind myself that as stiff as I think the deadlines are, I can still make time to go for a walk, and to get 8 hours of sleep, and to read in bed for 10 minutes before turning out the light. All of the little (and healthy) behavioural patterns that I usually still do are more than valuable and necessary for supporting me in accomplishing my work goals.

But when those tough moments hit, I am so grateful for the many kindnesses of my partner and friends for helping to keep my spirits up. The daylight savings time-change has also been incredible. I love that it's still light when I leave work now, and I still feel like doing things much later into the evening. It also helps that my iron levels are back up—I can feel the difference now, and I went to the gym on Sunday again for the first time in almost 4 months! YAY!

So here's to celebrating the small successes along the way, and acknowledging just how much I am getting done. It's harder to do than I sometimes think, with the next task ahead of me right away.

All in all, though, it's been a lovely week, especially so when I remember back to last week. I went to a reading and spent an evening with a close friend on Tuesday, and today we had a great lab meeting, Skyping in a grad student in our program, Kira Hoffman, who's at Oregon State University, for the semester, alongside another PhD guest, Christy James, who shares our building here at the university. Thank you, thank you to them both! I love hearing their different perspectives (more on this in the next post), and just appreciate having these conversations a lot.

Another gorgeous West Coast evening. Love these skies!

Afterwards, we had a mini-celebration with Rob Watt, long-time Mountain Legacy supporter and expert—he's likely the most knowledgeable person in Canada about the historical topographical maps that MLP uses for its research. Between a few really tasty snacks, and excellent storytelling by my supervisor, Rob, and MLP expert, Mary, it was an afternoon that zipped right by, and had my sides hurting from all the laughter. Great way to bring to a close a very good week.

Research-wise, I'm getting back into NVivo, and strategizing how to write my fourth chapter, which will cover my findings from the interviews. More on that soon, too.

Post 43: Student Health 101, Tutorial teaching, Writing Group, and Research Progress!!

Yesterday I got the most delightful email! I regularly read the Student Health 101 magazine that comes out every month, and saw some time last semester that they regularly solicit short student videos about a number of different topics, and so I decided that at some point I would try to learn how to put together a short video and submit something for a topic that I cared about and thought I had some useful advice. So a few weeks ago I submitted a little video about what I do to control my texting! As an introvert I LOVE texting, but try not to be on my phone all the time, so what I've found really helps me is to turn off the sound on my cell, which means that I don't get sound notifications every time I get a text, and that I reach for my phone when I am taking a purposeful break. Ultimately, it means fewer distractions, and is useful for things where the stakes are really high, like not driving and texting at the same time, or getting distracted by texts, then.

So, after spending about 3 hours learning how to use the iMovie program, and first, getting the length right, getting less nervous, rehearsing my little script so that I could concisely say what I wanted, and about 13 recordings later.... I submitted a video that I thought was not too bad. Certainly, I was tired and exasperated enough then to feel like throwing in the towel, and I thought that the sense of accomplishment from just sending it would do just great. So off it went!

AND YESTERDAY I FOUND OUT IT GOT CHOSEN!! That was really delightful! Now, I hope that there's a useful bit of advice out there for someone, or a couple someones, and now I have broken into my career as a video-journalist.

Okay, maybe not. But now I know a tiny bit about making a really short and simple video, which I didn't before I tried that.

Mini-salal (Gaultheria shallon) inside a stump along a trail through East Sooke Park!

My writing group and I also met yesterday afternoon, and it was such a productive afternoon!! We Skyped in our colleague Liz who's moved back to California at the beginning of this year; she's working on edits of her full thesis draft to get back to her supervisors, and wanted to get the first few chapters of her thesis back to them by the end of this week. She'd already gone through and addressed a lot of the simpler edits, and was working on some of the higher level (read: more challenging) edits when we checked in with her. The dynamic was admittedly a little bit different not having her in the room, but it was so nice to hear about how she was doing, and I think it really helped to reinforce her motivation to keep pushing through those edits, so I think it worked out for all of us. (I did check in with the others in the group this afternoon, and it sounds like it's working for us all.)

We did Pomodoros almost the entire afternoon, and I got so much done!! I wrote over 1500 words of new material: sections that have been floating in my head for the last couple weeks as I've been adjusting my energy budget to TAing (yesterady the 3 hours of teaching in a row didn't completely wipe me out, unlike the first week of tutorials, where I felt like I had run a marathon!). Between the new material, and going back for more edits to solidify a draft of my third chapter, it feels so good to see it coming together!

My third chapter is my methods chapter, and covers everything from the data collection, interview analysis and journaling, scope and limitations, and challenges. This will be, I think, the shortest of my thesis chapters, and has definitely been the most fun to write so far: it's had me reminiscing about my research trips, my wonderful participants, and the experiences I had when gathering that data. For example, there was a big theme of kindness of strangers for making those research trips work: when in Edmonton, I stayed with friends of my supervisor, a lovely couple, once of whom teaches at the University of Alberta. They hosted me while I visited the researchers there. When I was in Prince George, I was trying to find some milk for cereal the next morning, and I met Merlin, who gave me a lift down the highway to the nearest grocery store because it was on his way, and saved me a bunch of time. We still keep in touch!

And also while in Prince George, I spent a day driving logging roads with a wonderful woman and grad student there, Benita! We were enjoying the landscape and looking at forest regeneration and what shape the forests were taking about 15 years after the mountain pine beetle first passed through, and one of the numerous main areas where the outbreak began. It was a fantastic day, where we almost ran out of gas, and had to stop by a lodge to gets 15$ worth of gas from a canister. We took photos of the aspen forests and the lodgepole pines, and picnicked on the side of the Nechako River at someone's former hunting cabin; we had met the owner when we were stopped along the forestry service road to take photos, and the father and son came driving by and offered it to us as a lunch spot! That was a truly magical day.

Those research trips were a blast!

Signposts along the way. Great romp through the park. :)

In tutorial today, my students and I were discussing citation styles (in particular APA), and going over how to properly put together a citation, why we'd want to do that, and then a much larger discussion around how to assess the authoritativeness of a source, and understand the context of a particular article.

These kinds of critical thinking skills are sooooo important, and what myself and the other TAs has seen from the assignments was that students weren't quite researching deeply enough into where the voices of their sources were coming from, which includes everything from the funding people receive, the credentials they have, the journal/newspaper/magazine they are published in, the impact factor of the journal, and otherwise the bigger picture of locating and situating their voice in the discussion of [insert theme here].

They are bright students, I know they are, and I hope they'll use the information to their advantage; they need to show me that they can use the above outlined skills for their next assignment, so I am hopeful they will.

We hiked up a little island that you can't access when the tide is high. Beautiful teal waters in the little cove to see. 

Post 36: There are multiple zooms on the thesis writing camera: on realizing that writing the thesis is an organizational puzzle!

For many months I stressed about getting started on writing my thesis, and over the past two months, I've realized that most of it was overblown worry on my part. Writing is a lot of fun (and I definitely send big THANK YOUS to my writing group), and has been for a long time for me. So why all the insecurity, hesitation, and balking about the thesis writing?

Part of it is the size of the project, undoubtedly. This is probably the biggest thing that I will produce in my life so far (!!!!). Part of it as well, is the scrambled, getting lost in the details on my part, too. I was getting lost in the little pieces, and gazing at the pattern on one puzzle piece, while diving to the pick up the next puzzle piece without figuring out where the first one went.

Here's where I'm going to employ the camera metaphor: writing a big project is knowing when to zoom in, and when to zoom out. I recently wrote a post about paragraph thinking: but realized afterwards that paragraph thinking is only useful when you already know where what you're writing goes! :)

When I met with my supervisor a few weeks ago, we had a really great discussion where we realized that part of why I was asking so many questions about which section goes where is because I was in macro mode, when I needed to be in landscape mode! When we realized that, he asked me to write out kind of a one-pager outlining my entire thesis, how I was splitting up and organizing chapters. It was almost a relief to finally sketch out chapter contents and realize: This has to go, this can't be there, this isn't closely related enough; Oh, this section will be shorter and smaller in scope.... after all, master's theses are only about 75-100 pages (even though I have seen quite a few in my department that have been upwards of 150 pages).

Local maidenhair ferns, Adiantum aleuticum, hanging out in a cool spot, keeping their feet wet at the Sooke Potholes! 

Now for a different metaphor: in the past two weeks I also realized that writing a thesis is really about figuring how to fit puzzle pieces together. I had been walking around with a section on my scientists drafted in mind for a bit (who they are, why them, the different collaborations they engaged in when I thought at the beginning of my project there were more discrete research organizations, challenges in contacting various groups of them, etc.), and thinking about my methodology/methods chapter and what would go in there (methodology, methods, challenges and limitations), and what would go into my introductory chapter (thesis questions, abstract, great opening quote, context of climate change and rapid ecological change, and why it's important we engage with scientists).

So between juggling the various puzzle pieces, and organizing them into borders, and breaking them into colours and compatible sections (best puzzle building strategy!), things have gotten a lot easier and feel much more manageable. And I definitely can't underscore how important the emotional part of this project has been so far! It's nice to feel the buzz of seeing progress being made.

Onwards and upwards to stitching my 4 main literature sections together! :)

Post 35: Falling in Love with Write and Cite

Beginning in September, there were a few new members in my thesis completion group (I'd joined earlier in the summer). One of the members, N— is just starting her second year of her MA after a hiatus, and the group got to talking about 'writing and citing' programs that make life so much easier!!

Having been in this MA for 2 and a bit years now, it's remarkable how easy it is to forget some of the smaller things that I've grown so dependent on, and grateful for! And my write and cite program is one of them.

So, what are these things, and what do they do?

Gone are the days of printing every single paper and journal article, and marking it up with a highlighter and sticky notes with a memo for the gist of the paper. These days, there's a slough of programs that will help you to organize your library of papers (and save trees by keeping them digital), highlight important sections of them, keep notes attached to them, and stores all the meta data that's important for compiling bibliographies when you're ready to hit 'finalize'.

Some are free programs, others have a one-time fee, others simply manage and store your bibliographic information, and others still do the whole paper and notes and highlights she-bang.
It is well worth doing a bit of research to find out what program would work best for you, and will meet your needs.

More wonderfully bright leaves from across campus on a lovely autumn day!

I have gone with Papers, produced by Mekentosj. Papers stores and curates the full journal articles, has a built-in search engine that connects through the internet to check several databases (and works with my uni-library to access papers available through all the licensing agreements and such here), allows me to neatly store and file groups of related papers, allows me to annotate and highlight them and make notes on particular sections. Because it has a built-in search function, I can also look for article separate to the built-in search (say, off my library's homepage), download those articles, drag and drop them into the program, and 9 times out of 10 it will find and match the article and automatically in-fill all of the bibliographic info.

With the student discount it had a one-time fee of about 50$ (on the website it's in Euros), but I regularly and hassle-free receive updates (eg. I'm now on Papers2), and it's fantastic!

The one drawback of this program is it's ability to handle grey literature (government reports and technical summaries, etc.) I find that I edit almost every entry for those. But, that's not a terrible thing: at least I will know if I've missed any key papers because I've handled them so much!

Other programs that I've heard really good things about include Mendeley, which is very similar in functionality to Papers, and has a social function built in to share work and collaborate with colleagues (though I haven't tried that) and Zotero, which is a free version and styles itself as a personal research assistant.

So many arbutus (Arbutus menziesii) berries this year! This tree's absolutely loaded with them!
And while they have a very curious flavour, they are edible, but best kept in the 'emergency food' category!

WRITING AND CITING:

This is the fun part: Papers has a call function, where I can summon my articles library from my word processor, as I'm writing. In my case, I hit the option button twice, and then a little search window opens inside my writing composition program (I use Scrivener). If I remember the name of one of the authors of the paper, or a key word from the title, I type that in, and Papers gives me a list of articles that match that paper. I click on the one I had in mind, and am presented with 2 options: to include a formatted citation right there, or an unformatted citation. I slot either of them in and keep writing!

If you choose unformatted citations, when you are done writing your paper, you can tell Papers to format all of the citations in whatever style you want: APA, MLA, Chicago, etc. It's amazing, and such a time saver!!! It populates a complete, organized bibliography at the end of the paper, and all of the in-text citations are correct as well. it's worth having a look through to make sure the program has all the information right, because I've caught a few mistakes (as in the case of the grey literature info for a few reports), but those are easily fixed.

In short, write and cite programs like Papers save time and hassle (once you've learned how to use them), are extremely flexible with form, and ensure that you haven't missed a paper! I am so grateful for this program, as well as my supervisor who strongly recommended I look into one at the beginning of this degree! :)

Post 34: Paragraph Thinking and Writing

I write this post with gratefulness in mind for my colleague Garrett Richards, whose brilliant conversation, friendship, and mentorship was immensely valuable to me when we were able spend time together for a month and a half this summer. We'd meet up to eat lunch together several days of the week, discuss a wide variety of fun topics, including the thesis work we were doing.

As a PhD student, his slightly more advanced (in academia) perspective was fantastic: he'd finished his master's not-that-long-ago, and so was able to provide some phenomenal advice. He was also really getting into writing his thesis at the time, so a number of the conversations we had were around me asking questions like "How are you organizing your chapters?" and  "How do you sort out what information belongs where? How do you plan your writing?"

So with my thanks to Garrett, this blog post is dedicated to the few (awesome) conversations about thesis writing and thinking in paragraphs.

Thinking in paragraphs is the way he structures what he has to write. The paragraph is a great unit to organize thoughts by, because it's a nice balance between the tiny details of a specific point that one research paper makes, and the overall aim of a thesis chapter.

A paragraph has a logical organization, beginning with the topic sentence that informs what the paragraph will cover (and consequently, Garrett said, he had the tendency to write long paragraphs), and finishing with a sort of wrap up of what that paragraph then said (the concluding sentence), with related sentences in between. Then, you can organize sections of the chapter based on laying out which paragraphs speak to the others around it, and which ones need to be in there, etc.

On my walk to the library, being charmed by the big maple leaves! 

Having this kind of tool was really helpful for providing advice to one of my colleagues recently! In one of my Thesis Completion Group meetings,  a colleague was dealing with writer's block, and the fellow sitting next to me said to him, "D—, are you trying to write a whole thesis at once?!" And this got me to thinking about what was helpful for me for breaking down the intimidation involved with setting out to 'write a thesis', and well: you don't write a thesis all at once; you write word that builds a sentence that builds part of a paragraph, one piece at a time. Or, one thought at a time, and I chatted about this with D— when I invited him to my thesis writing group the following week. In short order, we'd discussed what he'd be working on writing, in smaller, manageable paragraphs, and he set to it!

Therefore, paragraph thinking (and writing) is an extremely important tool for chapter organization (on top of writing!) that helps to break down the concerns about writing a whole thesis at once. :)

Hope this was helpful!

Post 33: My Newfound Joy: A Writing Group!

Phew, September has WHIZZED by faster than I can account for! (Which isn't that unusual.) :)

As a graduate student who's had an office in a building located on the margins of campus (right by Mystic Vale, for those who know it), I spent much of the last eight months alone there. Of the four people that I shared an office with when I first moved there in August of 2013, one had graduated by November, another graduated in the spring, and starting in January of this year, had decided to work primarily at home (which is fair). But, the result was that I spent a lot of time in isolation, being a little bit (and at times a lot) overwhelmed by the impostor syndrome, not realizing that's in large part what I was dealing with (unsuccessfully at the time), and it took a number of things changing in the past few months to really get a grip on what it's meant for me.

One of the biggest breakthroughs was starting to talk to people about my despair, and quite continuous feelings of insecurity, doubt, lack of confidence, and that general feeling that someone would walk into my office and say, "Hey, that doesn't count as research! You're a fraud! You don't belong here!" (Oh yes, wonderful.)

Another breakthrough was when one of my colleagues, Garrett, started to spend his days full-time in our building, and when we started to simply have lunches together, what began as conversations about things we both enjoyed, became some thesis related discussions that proved to be incredibly valuable for me. As a PhD student, his perspective was very insightful and helpful, including strategies for various ways to approach writing different thesis section. (SO GOOD!)

There was also a different power dynamic when I was speaking with Garrett: I didn't have the usual fear and trepidation I sometimes have with professors, who also, admittedly, are often further in time from doing thesis-related work than a PhD student who recently completed their MA/MSc. I realize that obviously professors are doing research and publishing all the time, and that those are the skills (some of them) that we're learning in grad school, but the dynamic was incredibly close-knit and collegial.

Last few days of summer weather exploring downtown: this little water taxi
parked down by Wharf Street!

Another conversation with another colleague produced these two golden-advice nuggets: write the smallest amount necessary. Master's theses are expected to be between 75 and 100 pages. Not more. Considering that my monograph thesis won't be published in its current form, perhaps this is even more applicable advice. I'll be doing a fair bit of re-writing to get anything down to a useful size for journal article publishing, and if it'll become a book, then that'll need a good deal of rewriting, too!
Her second advice-bit was one that changed my perspective: she told me that I had done certain things (a whole lot of reading, lots of writing, conducting interviews and journaling, in my case), and now I had to stop doing the continuous reading, and write about what I did! In the past tense. Which was SO helpful! Without realizing it, I had been caught in this continuous slide of "I haven't read enough here, or here", and "I need to find out more about this..." and was stuck in this endless loop of reading further and more, instead of stopping to finally try to account for what I had already done.

Now, I've joined a writing group, and it's been fantastic! We're a group of grad students from across campus. Usually, 3-6 show up, due to availability. The group runs Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. While we're all writing different things, and really are in different stages, it's really nice to have a productive space carved out. I've found I'm much more motivated to work in this supportive atmosphere. This afternoon we really actively engaged in doing successful Pomodoros, with one person setting a timer, and us standing up and doing a few stretches. We drew a picture on the whiteboard for every successful Pomodoro done.

Pomodoro day! And yes, can you guess what the weather was doing? 

I'm enthusiastic about writing again, my perspective has shifted to feel more positive about how do-able my thesis is, and I have started to get really engaged with what I need to do in order to write successfully on my thesis, such as writing downhill, so that when I stop at the end of the day, I know what I'm starting with the next day again. What that means is that I'll write a short note about the next paragraph in the section that needs putting together. As well, though, the amount of time (so far) that it's taken me to break into the writing phase has decreased. It now only takes me a few minutes of mental groaning before I can commit to a good writing session, which has been very helpful outside of this group, too.

Revisiting the Joan Bolker book that my colleague Maddy shared with me was also useful to mine for some more writing tips, like: "Write one day at a time" to deal with any guilt or negative feelings about having missed a writing day. Wahooo!

If you get a chance to make a writing group come together, do it. I joined a small group that was already underway before me, and it's evolved in the past week as well to include more new people. It's a very supportive and productive space for me, and I really look forward to going. Especially when we can book a nice 4-6 hour period in a row.

Now, cheers to more writing!

Post 28: TA Conference and other TA and Grad Resources on Campus

Last week an email in my inbox made me really look forward to the approaching new semester: The Teaching Assistant Conference (TA Conference), put on by the Learning and Teaching Centre is on again this year!!

Aside from being an awesome on-campus resource that helps organize everything from tutors to writing help to teaching tips, the Learning and Teaching Centre has been running this conference for a number of years. The conference usually takes place in the week right after the Labour Day long weekend, which is idea for grad students and teaching assistants, because tutorials, labs, and other TA-related work doesn't yet begin.

The layout of the conference is great: its agenda features workshops for both new and experienced grad students, with some specializing in the three main discliplines: the Humanities, the Sciences, and the Social Sciences. As well, a few of the workshops are specifically designed for international graduate students who are TAing.

Tuesday is the most important day for the conference. It's a day stuffed full of presentations and concurrent sessions; there is a less busy schedule on the subsequent week days.

Two years ago when I was first starting my program, I attended this conference, and my experience was very positive. Certainly, I felt more prepared going into what then was a completely new experience. Some of the most memorable workshops were one on the many different kinds of icebreakers one could run at the beginning of a class to get students (and you) to know each other. I usually employ an altered a game that I played years ago in high school theatre class, but the workshop was great for getting me to think about different class sizes and how one can use the appropriate ice breaker.

Another one was specifically about being an introvert and TAing, and the kind of personality one brings to the classroom. I'm sure we all know the jokester, or the super engaging, humorous teacher or professor that knows when to crack the best joke, and how to include tastefully funny comments in their presentation. That isn't me, and it's stressful enough, sometimes, for me to be in front of a class (that is improving, however, with practice). The takeaway I got from there? Don't worry about being someone you're not; be your usual, quiet self, if that's what you need to do. You'll be engaging if you bring your excitement and care, and students will be understanding. They will know if you're being sincere and have their interests and learning experience in mind.

If you're around during the first week of September, I highly recommend attending!
Updated note: The Department is having their retreat on Tuesday, but even if you miss the first day of the conference, attend the others! There are numerous sessions that take place all throughout the week.

                                    When every stick looks the same, it's good to know which
                                                          resource will serve you best!

Aside from the TA conference right at the beginning of the semester, there are always a number of other resources available for graduate students on campus. This short list is a few of the main ones:

The Writing Centre (soon to become the Centre for Academic Communication), whose tutors will sit with you one-on-one to discuss your writing, ways to self-edit, revise, etc. They also conduct workshops throughout the year on everything from planning your research, to writing it up, and presentation skills.

The Halpern Centre for Graduate Students is also a great place to spend a bit of time, have a pint and/or a meal, and meet to discuss ideas with fellow grad students.

                              Another of our local beauties: common camas (Camassia quamash).

The Thesis Completion Group, run through Counselling Services, is a supportive undertaking that helps students to complete their theses! Maybe the best part is the camaraderie of understanding peers finding their way through academia, and the great listener and advice-giver that the organizer, Janet, is. The TCG also covers some practical things like time management (Pomodoros!), goal setting and planning, offering tips on the best resources for writing your thesis and dissertations, managing relationships with supervisors, and overall, just providing an open, supportive space.

CUPE 4163 is also the union the TAs belong to, and are a resource for all things work-related for TAs, including working conditions, interpreting the Collective Agreement (the rules that govern TAs' relationship to the university, and everything from breaks, to sick leave, to training...). They also have access to mediators and legal professional help if there is a need. Their blog features a number of up-to-date articles and issues that affect academia as well.

Post 23: Manuscript or Monograph Style Theses?

Somewhere in this process of undertaking a master's, this conversation starter came up: to do a manuscript or monograph style thesis? What's are they, what's the difference, what are the pros and cons of doing either (as I've encountered them so far...).

Well, to some extent, your thesis supervisor will have a lot of input into which one you write. Your specific topic and research questions will also influence the form that the thesis should take. Do you have two very specific and different research questions? It might be most suitable to tackle both in an article each. Or, if you have a bigger, over-arching research questions with a few subsidiary questions, it might be easier to tackle as a monograph. OR, it might just be the legacy of your supervisor's research group that manuscript or monograph styles are preferred.

In general terms, here are the differences between the two, and good things to consider:

Monograph style: 

For this thesis, the chapters are styled similarly to a book. Chapter 1 will be an Introduction, Chapter 2 the Literature Review, Chapter 3 will cover your Methodology, Chapter 4 will cover your Results/Findings, Chapter 5 will be the Discussion/Conclusion of your findings. (Or something to that effect; the chapter numbers and contents can be shifted around with some flexibility. For example, Chapter 1 may be a combination of the introduction and literature review, and chapters 5 and 6 may take on the discussion and conclusions separately.)

The idea behind a monograph style thesis is that it's a chance for developing a long, fully fleshed out argument that provides an answer to the research questions that motivated the undertaking. As my supervisor promoted the form, he pointed out that we don't see this kind of long-form argumentation very much any more.

Benefits: This form is relatively easier to write than the manuscript style. It's also easier to transform research written in this form into a longer book-length publication.
Drawbacks: This form means that there is a bit more footwork to be done if you're turning your research into a journal article or two. More rewriting and restyling later down the road.

                              Quick break for flowers - these live on campus by the UVic Bookstore.

Manuscript style:

For a manuscript style thesis, the format will take shape something like this: Introduction, Methodology/Methods, Article 1 (with it's own Introduction, Methods, Findings, and Discussion), Article 2 (with it's own Introduction, Methods, Findings, and Discussion), and Conclusion. Each of the articles is styled like a journal article or pretty close to it, each beginning with an internal introduction, content, and conclusion.

As is covered in a different post, there are a few different kinds of journal articles, which my colleague Dr. Garrett Richards illustrated here. From what I've heard from a colleague, it's become trendier to write original research into a manuscript style thesis because this increases the chance of publication. Some of the 'chapters' in this thesis may be labelled with the monograph style headers, but the content can be quite different. So, Chapter 1 will be the general introduction, Chapter 2 will be article 1, Chapter 3, article 2, Chapter 4, the conclusion. The introduction and conclusion in this thesis style need to speak to both of the article chapters, and generally, the Introduction, Methods, and Conclusion will pull together the whole document.

Benefits: This form will relatively quickly line you up for publishing journal articles.
Drawbacks: Sometimes it can be difficult for new graduate students to translate their research into journal articles right away (hence the comment re: monograph style thesis above). Ultimately, these things seem to me to come down to time, and things you want to learn before you get out of the door.

The School of Environmental Studies, being a broad and interdisciplinary department (political ecology, ethnoecology, and ecological restoration being this department's three main pillars of research), certainly has students producing both styles of theses.

There also seems to be some departmental difference between the preference of thesis styles. In some, like biology (from what I understand) and other hard sciences, it is most common to write a manuscript style thesis. Sometimes the monograph style is said to be 'out of fashion', (and I've heard of a few stories where supervisors disparage the form that way) but again, keeping in mind what can be achieved with both styles is important, and will be helpful for deciding which will be more suitable for your work. Again, your supervisor will undoubtedly weigh in on this discussion. The goal for both forms of theses is to report your research findings; from there, it's choosing the best form. I think this is a good perspective to have: you will learn slightly different skills with either form, both of which will be valuable.

(PS: This post is not meant to be overly prescriptive: there will be differences among forms. A monograph style thesis may turn out with the results section being almost cut-and-past ready to drop into a journal article. Or, a manuscript style thesis still needs re-shifting, editing, cutting, to make the articles a better length for a target journal; depending on the journal, you may have a manuscript style thesis with two article chapters, each 10,000-12,000 words in length, but the target journals for each article have a maximum word count of 6,000-8,000 words. So, editing is still needed.)

As a graduate student, it is well worth the time to find theses from previous grads in your program. They can offer a guide and example of the kind that you'll be working towards. I've also found it extremely valuable and am grateful to the colleagues that have had long conversations with me about their process, tips, and advice. SO GOOD! :)