What happens when a researcher wants to publish differently?

Research publication is one of the threshold concepts of research practice, and therefore of teaching research. The notion of publishing one's research is constantly shifting in response to technological and philosophical debates. From the Medieval studia generalia, in which prospective applicants had to orally defend themselves against vocal members of the audience, through to the current REF processes that puts impact value on individual research publications, research publication is in constant flux. The OECD redefinition of research in 2002 to include performative work was just another critical incident in a constantly changing notion of what counts as research publication. As with other educational practice, the hegemony associated with research and research publication often inhibits creativity. Students may need to be encouraged to constantly question the unchallenged assumptions associated with both research and research publication. This presentation, in a performative mode of a 40 minute cabaret, models one of the creative ways in which research and in fact any topic can be disseminated or taught. 'My idea of academic cabaret involves a spoken monologue around a specific topic interspersed with songs chosen to advance the central theme of the cabaret topic through their lyrics' (Hill, 2015, 153)

Cabaret for research and as research dissemination.

Donald Schön’s (1983, 50) notion of ‘troubling’ is the catalyst for this action inquiry. ‘Troubling’ is linked to Lewin’s (1948) suggestion that action inquiry begins with a general or initial idea and Zuber-Skerrit’s (1993) suggestion that inquiry is initiated by a problem. Strauss and Corbin (2008, 23) articulate ‘troubling’ about practice by suggesting that one’s professional experiences often lead to ‘the judgment that some feature of the profession or its practice is less than effective, efficient, human, or equitable’. This inquiry was initiated in ‘troubling’ around the hegemony of research dissemination. Research dissemination is influenced by the scientific paradigm’s impact on research and limited to journal publications and conference presentations. In proposing a presentation for the Inaugural Storytelling conference in Prague in 2012, I offered something different in the form of an auto ethnographic cabaret. This proposal was the initiating cycle for my inquiry

A palimpsest of practice-led inquiry: A conversation

This paper aims to interrogate a writer-researcher’s journey through practice-led inquiry (Gray, 1996) within a broader discourse that acknowledges academic writing as contested. Indeed, the quest of a migrant writer for recognition of their writing in another land requires a deep understanding of the many layers that make up the provenance of their writing practice: A second language, and both their cultural identity and literary background, provide layers of knowledge and experience that fuse to form a 'style' and ultimately a writing ‘niche’. The readership of their writing carries its own provenance and therefore the additional bias of ‘the home ground’.   As it reads in the title, palimpsest, in its figurative sense, is a notion that implies levels of meaning in a literary work. Although not the first writer to use the concept figuratively, it was Thomas De Quincey who wrote an essay entitled “The Palimpsests” (1845), which would inaugurate “the substantive concept of the palimpsest” (Dillon, 2005, p. 243). Similarly, Barthes (1989, p. 99) referred to a text as a layered discourse, an onion, a superimposed construction of skins (of layers, of levels, of systems) whose volume contains, finally, no heart, no core, no secret, no irreducible principle, nothing but the very infinity of its envelopes—which envelop nothing other than the totality of its surfaces. As a writer surfaces, discriminates, and understands the different layers that fashion their writing, and wields their particular use of English as a second language, their practice becomes more authentic. That authenticity becomes a dual threshold element of an exegesis argument, representing faithfulness to the practitioner, and translating or bridging the gap between first language readers and second language voices

Structuring storytelling in management practice

This paper reports on an inquiry undertaken to analyse the use of storytelling in leadership/management practices. The aim of the inquiry is to identify one or more structural commonalities which drive or contribute to change in business professionals’ perception and practice of leadership. The contrasting approaches to investigating management practice between modernism and post-modernism have divided the discourse. Encouragement for soft attribute management in contrast to scientific management has led to a range of alternate person centred ways of investigating management practice. This includes the use of practitioner stories. A structured questionnaire was used as a consistent method of data collection in this inquiry across different groups and in different international locations. The findings have identified a clear and easily understood structural divide which can be simply applied when considering a story in a leadership and management context. It identifies and explains the Eley-Hill FACE Switch (Fundamental Associated Change in Emotion). In so doing it contributes to knowledge in this area and facilitates management practice and thereby potentially performance impact

A practice-led inquiry into the use of still images as a tool for reflective practice and organisational inquiry.

This paper is twofold. Firstly, it posits a reflective practice model for the initial stages of practice-led inquiry, a qualitative research and professional practice inquiry methodology. Practice-led inquiry is generally associated with areas such as creative industries and arts and humanities (Gray 1996; Haseman & Mafe 2011; Wilson 2011). From our respective experiences and research interests we see the potential for the application of practice-led inquiry in other professional disciplines such as business and management. Our understanding is that practice-led inquiry is a natural extension of reflective practice, but in undertaking practice-led inquiry, we were challenged by practical ambiguities presented in the literature around practice-led inquiry, and what we perceived as a theory-practice disjuncture. Initially we found it challenging to know where to start. We have sought to find a way (or an approach) to help other professionals navigate this terrain. Our model is based on the premise that the inquirer is knowledgeable about the practice they are investigating and that starting an inquiry based on their existing knowledge and experience affirms their current practical experience. We see this as a useful and empowering springboard from which to launch into a deeper inquiry to enable further understanding and change. In the second part of the paper we apply our reflective practice model to an inquiry common to both our professional practices. This entails a practice-led inquiry into the use of images to facilitate reflective practice in organisational settings. Our intention in this application phase is firstly to provide understanding of the power of images as a reflective and interpretive tool. We believe that images provide a powerful process for reflection and inquiry that is useful to professionals working in a range of disciplines. One particular tool called Photolanguage iscommon to both our practices and in this inquiry we seek to make explicit our tacit knowledge of this tool and the broader practice of using images to facilitate reflective practice. Secondly our intent in applying the tool to a real practice inquiry helps to illuminate some of the pitfalls of our model and into undertaking practice-led inquiry with multiple inquirers

H. N. Werkman

A piece commissioned for COLDFRONT – Singular Vispo :: First Encounters. Artists were asked to talk about their introduction to Visual Poetry and the piece of work that changed the way they saw language

Pedagogy of feedback on student academic writing : research supervisor practices for the end of the research degree candidature

All academic writing is advanced with the benefit of feedback about the writing. In the case of the academic writing genres of the research proposal and the dissertation, feedback is usually provided by the research supervisor. Given that academic writing development is a process, and in the case of the research proposal and dissertation, writing which develops over time, it seems likely that the nature of feedback on drafts written early in the candidature may be different from feedback provided by the research supervisor later in a student’s candidature. ----- ----- When a research supervisor has been reading a student’s writing over a period of time, their own familiarity with the writing generates a risk to their ability to provide critical and objective feedback. Particularly by the end of a student’s candidature, the research supervisor’s familiarity with the work may cause them to miss elements of writing improvement. ----- ----- The author, as a research supervisor, has developed a feedback grid to facilitate feedback on the final drafts of a dissertation. This feedback grid is generated by the embedded promises in the early sections of the dissertation, which are then used to audit the content of the final sections of the dissertation to ascertain whether promises made have been fulfilled. This provides a strategy for the research supervisor to step back from the work and read the dissertation with the agenda of a dissertation examiner. ----- ----- The grid is one strategy within a broader pedagogy of providing feedback on writing samples