This is another one in a series of request blogs, and one I was hesitant to tackle. Even now I am not sure I am really answering the question.
I want to start by saying (a) I do not claim to be an expert in neurodiversity and (b) I am not neurodiverse myself. I do have many neurodiverse clients and I have had neurodiverse students in my 17 year academic career. Due to the demand for this kind of specialised support, I have undertaken specific training on how to support neurodiverse students, particularly students with dyslexia.
When this blog came in as a suggestion, I felt hesitant about writing about it. I sought clarification and advice from my own clients (some of whom are neurodiverse) about the kinds of things that I do in my coaching that help them specifically with regard to their individual circumstances. I think we can all benefit from some of these writing hacks and techniques.
Take control
One of the most important things I do for clients is to allow them to tell me exactly what they need, rather than me trying to control the process from my end, and this becomes a flexible and fluid arrangement depending on what they are working on. I get out of the habit of trying to do what I would always do with students. Sometimes, for example, a client’s needs might be time focused - managing what happens when (and why) in a rigid and structured fashion provides clarity, especially if this is followed up by repeated engagements with the planning process. Some clients however hate working this way, and prefer to flit from one thing to the other, so we try and come up with methods of ensuring progress on the main things whilst allowing dipping in and out of other chapters. Working in short sharp bursts enables progress without feeling like I have imposed rigidity. Some clients need quite close editing of their work because there is a tendency to skip over sentences and paragraphs. Citation practices, never explained, can be especially problematic; unexplained assumptions about what we ‘just absorb’ from reading others’ work are to be avoided.
There are plenty of resources out there on the internet, in the form of books, scholarly articles and websites, that are dedicated to supporting students at all levels (including PhDs) who are neurodiverse, and I am not attempting to collate them here (see here for a website that does this).
I want to concentrate on a few simple things that students can do themselves and should flag up to their supervisors as soon as possible.
Disclosing your neurodiversity
This will give you access to resources in the University you otherwise cannot access.
Of course disclosure is your business, and you do not have to disclose. But if you do, UK Universities will have an array of resources, including dedicated 1-1 support, for students which you will greatly benefit from. You are entitled to this support and should absolutely take it. It can include:
Writing support tutoring
Particular equipment you might need
Funds for particular software (eg voice to text software)
Support for organisation of your time
Funds for editing support services
My experience is that some students are hesitant (even when they have disclosed) to take up all of the resources available to them for a variety of reasons. My advice is take everything there is and figure out what works best for you. This is arduous, but it is worth the endeavour.
Be explicit in stating your needs as you discover them
Flag up to your supervisor exactly what you need (when you know what that is) in order to get the most out of your supervisions. Don’t expect them to be trained, or even mildly aware, of the kinds of things you might need; training in this area is woeful. I was never trained as a lecturer, and never offered training.
This might include:
Very regular meetings dedicated to organisation of time as well as the ‘intellectual’ side of the PhD
Recording of in person meetings to capture feedback so you can process and retain it at your own pace and in your own way
Small text turnarounds that are frequent and very detailed
Email clarifications on what you didn’t understand as and when
None of these requests are unreasonable and you are entitled to them. They may however mark a departure from how your supervisor is used to working. Tough for them. Explain to the best of your ability why you need these particular working patterns, or have a support officer do it on your behalf. Get this documented in a learning contract at the start of your PhD, whereby the supervisor is explicitly informed and agrees. I’m afraid this might need reiterating again and again and that burden will fall (unfairly) on you.
Make sure your particular needs are met
Institutions like one-size-fits-all people and they design policies around that concept. There is no one size fits all solution here. Some of the things that are helpful in moving your writing forward are:
Reading. You might find reading long articles a challenge because of the amount of time it takes, but software that enables the computer to read it out to you will help a great deal and you can do it in bite sized chunks.
Note taking. Get a good structure of note taking. Ensure you separate out the facts, from the author’s argument, from your argument or analysis. Use colour coding and headings in your notes. This is good practice for everyone and will help you define your ‘voice’ in the PhD.
Writing. You can also get software where you dictate your thoughts into it and it is converted into written text. Everyone’s first draft is garbled rubbish. I find neurodiverse students are really very tough on themselves and the ‘standards’ they imagine they should be writing at straight out of the gate. My own first drafts are a train wreck. That is what first drafts are for.
Editing. You may need more structured and definitive advice on how to push your text forward: ask for it. It might be about sentence construction, how you insert citations correctly, paragraph construction, creating flow in an argument, or chapter or section structure. Ask your supervisor to explain what is wrong and why and show you how to fix it. Supervisors can be poor at this, and you may need to be a little dogged - the truth is it might be ‘instinctive’ for them, and they have to think hard about the ‘why’ before they can tell you. This is very important for you to incorporate feedback properly and will need to be done repeatedly.
Ask them to edit a section to show you how it is done. Ask explicitly what do they mean when they say ‘level’ or 'voice’ or it’s not ‘scholarly’ enough, or the structure just isn’t quite right. Don’t let them get away with this kind of bland commentary: it is lazy and not helpful to you. I should note here that not all academics have this skill set. Thinking about writing, and analysing the how, why and what is not something many academics take time for. They just do, rather than think about it, and hence their explanations might be poor.
Organisation of text, of paragraphs and sections, might be a difficult challenge. Editing techniques like reverse outlining can really help to clarify a long piece of work so that it is digestible and easy to reformat. I do this with my own work; it is a common editing technique that helps everyone.
You might need to print out your chapter and physically cut it up with scissors rather than on screen - so be it.
Try using diagrams as another way of visualising the text to check for flow.
Lastly I ask my clients to repeatedly use title separation (literally copying the titles out of your chapter and placing them in a blank document) to check (a) do they tell a story that flows on their own (b) are they descriptive (wrong) or analytical (right) and (c) are they in the right order?
Neurotypical people don’t understand how you learn
Essentially, neurotypical people think it’s about spelling, grammar and paragraph organisation. They don’t understand that they learn in one way, and you in another. For example, many neurotypical people learn by osmosis or mimicking. We mimic what we see in academic writing - there is an ability to see a thing (on paper), intuit what was done and why, and put that learning directly into our work, without really thinking about it too hard. Academic writing is ‘learned’ though this process. If your supervisor learned how to write through this absorption method, they will expect you to do it too, unless you tell them explicitly what you need.
Academic writing takes a particular form and is does not come naturally to anyone. It is learned, one way or another. Citations are required to show that we are not making unsupported statements. There is a formality to academic writing; it is not conversational. Whilst academics can and do write for a number of different audiences (and so adopt different writing styles) purely academic writing is for an academic audience and as such should conform to the requirements imposed by that discipline. All of this ensures that your work can enter the conversation with others - the form and content is recognised by other academics and is therefore deemed of an appropriate standard to contribute to the discipline. Find the form of help that enables you to make this transition in academic writing.
Get support
Writing hacks are all well and good, but proper supervisory support is essential, especially for micro planning (or getting help with micro planning) all the steps you need to take on your PhD journey, and in particular, close editing the individual chapters so they are organised correctly. This accounts for (by a long way) the highest proportion of my work as a coach. I try to create a predictable and stable architecture where there is stability of process, and lots of feedback on your written work. This is a really important first step in feeling like you are in control of the PhD text and not vice versa.
For more information on the various ‘genres’ of academic writing, (Analytical, Descriptive, Critical, Persuasive), check out Tara Brabazon’s excellent video series of three which deals with genres, quick fixes and jargon.