Tips from the HASS Faculty Research Office

Making connections virtually
We are all used to Zoom now, but plenty of other ways to connect digitally exist (WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, and many others, not to mention the old-fashioned non-digital ways like telephone). If your fieldwork is partly about making contact with new research subjects or collaborators, perhaps also focus on building virtual relationships.

Alternative sources of data
Consider publicly available data sets, systematic literature reviews, or online interviews, surveys, or discussion platforms. For example, a crowdsourced document provides some great methods for social researchers who conduct face-to-face fieldwork.

Keep on conferencing
Many conferences are now offering virtual options. Perhaps instead of cancelling all together you can still get involved. For international conferences, it may mean getting up in the middle of the night to attend, but the jet lag might be slightly easier to recover from!

Be part of the solution
The usual twenty-minute conference paper in a traditional thematic panel is being upended; research engagement is taking place on different platforms that can reach wider audiences; and researchers are using their knowledge to create hope in dark times. It’s a good moment to think creatively about your research and how it can reach its different audiences.

Ask for help: The HASS team are always here to support you.

How do you find research funding outside the ARC? Prof Kim Wilkins talks to Prof Cameron Parsell (School of Social Science) about making yourself more competitive for categories 2, 3, and 4 research funding.

Pivot- RP is now the primary tool provided by UQ to researchers to find competitive research funding opportunities. Follow the steps listed on the UQ Library website- 'Find Funding and Opportunities using Pivot-RP' to set up your account. For information on UQ Research Office Support on funding schemes see the UQ Research Management page. For more information or assistance from the HASS Faculty Research Office please contact us at research@hass.uq.edu.au.

Adam Bowles and Geoff Gin Presentation

Maybe it’s been a while since you did any writing. It’s one of those tasks that can slip during busy teaching times. Sometimes when you’ve been away from a project for a long time, it can be difficult to find your way back in. The following four steps are a proven method to get you writing again. 

Plan: Don’t even think about sitting down to write until you are sure what you are going to work on. The more structure you can give your writing session the better. Do you need to settle on which project or chapter or section to tackle first? Write up a dot-point skeleton? Transcribe notes into a document outline? How about sketching down topic sentences, like you used to in high school? Anything you can do to make the task of writing easier is worth doing. 

Schedule: Open your diary, find a one- or two-hour block and schedule in your writing session and do not give this time away. Set an alert half an hour beforehand so that you can gather your materials, turn off your email and other distractions, make coffee or tea, and get in the right mindset. Set a modest goal. Anyone can write 500 words, right? (For reference, this tip of the week is about 500 words). Perhaps you’re behind on a deadline and 500 words seems like nowhere near enough. Remember: big projects get written in regular small blocks. Next time you schedule a writing session, you can aim higher. For now, just commit to starting.

Write and see what happens: Rather than pressuring yourself to write deathless prose, try to remain curious about the process, and about what you can do if you try to write today. If you find you can’t get the words on the page, say a sentence aloud but simply: the way you might explain something to a smart teenager. Then transcribe that. You can always fix it later. Can’t think of the right word? Don’t try to force it out: put a pair of brackets around a not-quite-right word and come back to it. See if you can get to 50 words. When you’re there, see if you can get to 100. By the time you’re at 200, you should have the momentum to achieve your goal for the session. 

Celebrate: When you are done, don’t just rush back to your email. Stop and look over what you’ve written and notice what you like about it. Plan where you might go next time you schedule a writing session. Then go and reward yourself with some chocolate or cheese (or chocolate-covered cheese if that’s your thing). You did it! 

Is your writing sinking to the bottom of your list?

Prof Kim Wilkins talks to Dr Suzanna Fay (School of Social Science) about how to change your mindset around writing, so you look forward to it instead of dreading it.

Prof Kim Wilkins talks to A/Prof Rhonda Faragher (School of Education) about the "hows and whys" of working with researchers from other disciplines.