Category: Study Skills

Book Review: How to Take Smart Notes

This review relates to the book ‘How to Take Smart Notes’ by Sonke Ahrens. It is available on Amazon here and you can also download the first chapter, free, here and learn more about the book.

Introduction

‘Imagine if we went through life learning only what we planned to learn or being explicitly taught. I doubt we would have even learned to speak. Each added a bit of information, filtered only by our interest, is a contribution to our future understanding, thinking and writing. And best ideas are usually the ones we haven’t anticipated anyway.

Ahrens

I can’t remember how I first fell across this book. No, actually I do. I was recommended Roam Research (I’ll come back to that in another post) on Twitter when I was asking for advice about note taking apps and then through trying to learn about Roam and how to best use it, I came across discussion of the Zettlekasten technique of note-taking. This book is an explanation of the Zettlekasten technique. That’s the name of the ‘one simple technique’ which is referred to on the front cover, that will ‘boost writing, learning and thinking – for students, academics and non-fiction writers’. And being of a curious mind, I bought the book.

Context

‘Studying does not prepare students for independent research, it is independent research’

‘Zettlekasten‘ is a note-taking technique devised by Niklaus Luhmann, a well -known sociologist in Germany who wrote vast numbers of papers. He used this method of note taking and storing and it has been debated ever since. This book explains the system that Luhmann used and refines some of the discussion around in as times have changed and notes are more likely to be digitised now.

The book doesn’t just describe a system though, it seeks to provide an understanding of what note taking is used for and how and particularly to challenge those who might (and I include myself here), underline vaguely interesting paragraphs while I was reading something and rarely return to it.

The idea of the Zettlekasten is that notes would all be linked to each other by topic so you create notes from everything you read/watch/discuss/learn around topics and draw links together in themes which you might not have seen, if you create ‘book’ or ‘lecture’ notes in a traditional way.

By not restricting notes to the book or the paper you are making notes about and linking by ideas, you might fall across links that the authors haven’t and find your own topics or see things you didn’t know you didn’t know, that you want to follow up.

Summary

The initial premise of the book is interesting to start with. It is that the skill of good note-taking has been left out of many study skills books. When we might have books about how to write essays or dissertations and how to think critically, there is little literature available and far less teaching, about how to take good notes. While, considering this, it is important to understand that writing and taking notes isn’t the ‘end-game’ for a writer (and we are all writers). But taking and storing notes well, means you don’t need to rely on memory, or scraps of post-its or chronological notes that don’t make sense in context so you can’t remember what it is you were trying to remember anyway.

In order to think, the premise goes, you need to write. That writing usually starts with notes. There are some simple guides the author ‘teaches’, which is about always having a pen or something to write with (it might be a smartphone app or a notebook) especially when you are reading.

You make three types of notes with this ‘system’. There are the fleeting notes, which are these notes you might make as you write. These are notes about initial thoughts and feelings and responses. You ‘decant’ these notes to your ‘literature notes’ which are the notes which are about particular texts or pieces that you might watch or listen to. The literature notes shouldn’t be verbatim, nor should they contain any quotations. They are about your recollection of the text and how you interpret it through writing about it.

Then from the literature notes, you develop permanent notes. This is where the ‘Zettlekasten’ sits, the repository of themes and ideas that have developed from the literature you read. You link these together as you understand them and it helps you to build connections or locate gaps more easily. Permanent notes should be notes you return to. They are the ‘memory’ you don’t need to retain, because, the idea is, you will come back to the permanent notes and have those connections and references all in place which will make writing about them, more useful.

Ahrens is very much focussed on moving away from too much planning when you are approaching texts and research and to find where you are going, by doing. Perhaps I’m not explaining it as clearly as he does but when I read it, it made a lot of sense.

“A truly wise person is not someone who knows everything but someone who is able to make sense of things by drawing from an extended resource of interpretation schemes’

Ahrens p119

Reflections

There were parts of this book that made a lot of sense to me, and made me cheer as if a curtain was being removed in my mind. Yes, I thought, why DIDN’T I think about being more flexible about note-taking, about adding my thoughts and commentary alongside the key ideas. Do I write too many notes that I will never return to? And particularly, summarising books or articles as I read them, in my own words so I will be able to come back to them. I also enjoy making links between articles and I use Roam to do that.

I am not sure I’m a purist though. My ‘permanent notes’ are as refined as I think they are ‘supposed’ to be, but the book has given me ways to think about note taking and using notes that I think will be useful. I see it as giving me tools and ideas, some of which I will use and some I will not.

Use in Practice

This book has changed some of my practices regarding making and considering notes as I have mentioned above. I’ve created ways of storing and taking notes which have adjusted on the basis of the writings even if there are parts I have discharged. I love making links between what I am reading and thinking though.

For example, this is my note about the book on Roam – you can see the blue links which take me to other pages – each hashtag is also a link and this is how my ideas are pulled together.

And some of the links I have made between these ideas look like this

In a work context, I have started using OneNote through Microsoft 365 for which I have a work account, to make ongoing daily notes as things happen and then link them to other things which are going on at work but also ideas I have as they pop up.

Conclusion

I have been really inspired by this book and even though I’m not following the Zettlekasten method religiously, it has helped me to understand how to gain a different perspective on studying and note-taking. Studying isn’t a means to an end, but can be an end in itself. The good thing about this book is that while it will ‘click’ with some people and won’t with others, the first chapter is available free (see link at the top of the page) and that will be more than enough to make a decision as to whether it’s a book you want to buy or not.

Book review : Critical Thinking

This review relates to Critical Thinking by Tom Chatfield. Available here on Amazon

Introduction

I bought this book a couple of years ago and it had been sitting on my bookshelf until recently. In my desire to move away from books and articles written from my discipline, I started to read with an idea that I probably knew what I was going to be told. I was fairly confident I’d had experience of critical thinking and analysis, after all, how can I do my day job without it? The time spent reading though, was invaluable and has adjusted many of my assumptions – and after all, isn’t that what critical thinking is about?

Context

This book is written by Tom Chatfield, whose bio describes him as a ‘writer, broadcaster and tech philosopher’. I came to this book having read another of his books, (How to Thrive in a Digital Age). I bought the book when I was having a bit of a crisis of confidence at work but put it on the shelf and only recently returned to it.

It is a book which is aimed at a student market, although definitely not exclusively so, but there are references to literature searches, writing including academic writing specifically and understanding academic papers and research which marks the primary audience but there is a sufficient breadth and style that moves beyond that.

The book is written with the intention of being easy to understand. It is not one to come to that expects any prior knowledge of philosophy (because after all, critical thinking is pretty much applied philosophy) or reading about reading, writing and thinking critically. It is not a book for the Kindle, either. It is designed as a workbook, with exercises, room to scribble in margins and notes added with liberal use of illustration and bullet points.

With my new energy for mindmapping as a form of note-taking, I even mind-mapped a few chapters in the margins but I did transfer one of them electronically to give an idea of what I did – it might be small but it relates to different types of fallacy in thinking – and it was written as I took notes from this book.

Summary

So what does the book say? It is divided into two sections. Part 1 is called ‘The Art and Science of Being Reasonable’ and it is occupied primarily with logic and forming arguments where argument means a conclusion based on reasons. It provides a gentle introduction to philosophy for people who may not realise that is what it is doing but it is a useful reminder that there are ways to form arguments that are strong and to be wary of statements without reason. The key areas covered include the ways that deductive (where conclusion is based on factual premises and is therefore, certain), inductive (where conclusion is based on most likely outcome and evidence needs to be examined, for example around probability and sample sizes) and abductive arguments (where conclusion is based on theories and is the most likely conclusion) are formed and the place for each of them as well as what lies behind them.

The second part of the book is called ‘Being Reasonable in an Unreasonable World’. This part covers the use of rhetoric including specific rhetorical devices which might try to pull emotion from fact, like the use (or rather, misuse) of jargon to alienate and complicate or exclude, use of euphemisms or hyperbole to add emotion to an argument. This is not to say there isn’t a place for rhetoric, it is useful to know, but it is also useful to be able to spot.

The book also covers spotting fallacious arguments (see the mindmap above because this was the section I used to take notes from!) and being aware of the bias in arguments presented, including confirmation bias, where you seek views that agree, but also ‘survivorship’ bias which tends to mean that success is more commonly reported because it is the history that ‘survives’ and linked to this is publication bias where journals may be more likely to publish research which has positive results. There was a lot more to it than I’m able to list but some key points about being aware of how statistics can be used to say lots of things in different ways and the choice of what data to include or exclude can display biases.

The writer concludes with a chapter, unsurprisingly, given his background in technology, specifically about ‘thinking critically about technology’. Starting with the different between data, information and knowledge and looking at how, having access to far more knowledge at our fingertips, can expose us to ‘false news’ and echo chambers which we need to have an increasing awareness of.

There are a couple of chapters that specifically draw the learning within the book to an academic context, looking at how to find information and writing up information in a cohesive way, to ensure arguments have premises and are not confused with opinion.

Reflections

The book is eminently readable. There is a lot in it and it can feel like you want to highlight everything to come back to but it is also flows easily and presents the information in an interesting way.

I found myself distracted, at times, by some of the typeface and the notes in the margin. It may be that I am slightly (cough) older than the average reader and I know it’s done to make the book more ‘fun’ but I would have preferred using the space for my own notes. Saying that, I love having large margins that are large enough to make notes in and I thought the exercises presented were very helpful. I can’t say I worked through them all but I can see it being a really useful space.

The book reminded me of the core essentials of pulling back arguments and determining how they are constructed when I read books and journal articles but also newspaper articles, blog posts and websites. It’s a helpful way of thinking and while I would have liked to have thought I was a critical thinker, beforehand, I think I would be better at it now for having read the book.

It is a clearly presented introduction to a subject that can put people off or if you are a student thinking ‘I need to read up on my subject, I don’t have time to read a book about critical thinking’, it is something that can save a lot of time.

It may be basic if you have a good understanding of the topic and it is written for people coming at it from a beginners level. Saying that, I like simple writing styles. I’ve studied logic at undergraduate level and honestly, I prefer it when it’s simply presented.

Use in practice

This is one of the more practically and immediately useful books I have read. Already I am thinking about reports I write at work where I am asked to give an opinion (social circumstances reports, I’m thinking of you) and ensuring that I provide evidence in the form of clear argument rather than lists of facts.

In terms of my academic writing, it has helped focus me on how I identify good papers, in particular from poorer ones. Recently I have read a few papers that I have instinctively thought ‘how on earth did this get published in a respectable journal’ and this book has given me the language to determine why I was uneasy with them (law of small numbers – where small data sets are more likely to provide extreme variation and fundamental attribution error where outcomes are disproportionately linked to an event!).

I’m going to practice using the language of the book, which is the language of logic to identify fallacies where I spot them so in that sense, this is immediately useful and used.

Conclusion

This book was a pleasure to read and I was genuinely sorry to finish it. That doesn’t happen often with me so in conclusion, that has to be a strong recommendation. I’d definitely recommend the paperback rather than the kindle because I’m not sure how the formatting would work electronically and it’s the kind of book that needs to be flicked through rather than read from beginning to end (although that is the way I covered it).

It reminded me how important philosophy is, to social work. Not just the ethics part which is most commonly covered at university, but the logic and the rhetoric as well.

Learning about Learning

This week, on a day off from the full-time work, I took a day back at the university to attend a couple of workshops they set up for postgraduate students. I was wondering beforehand if this had been something of a luxury. Unlike my previous job, I don’t get any days off for study leave (welcome to the NHS!) anymore so all the leave I take is annual leave and I am a bit short on AL this year due to the changes in job where the dates didn’t quite line up.

So despite my reservations about whether it would be better use to sit in a library, I went to the workshops to learn with a mixed group of doctoral and post-doctoral students about learning techniques.

The first session was about speed reading, or as the tutor told us, repeatedly, better reading. He was right. Noone really teaches you how to read effectively after the first few years in primary school unless there is a specific reason or at least, that was my experience.

We started with some fun activities, testing our reading speed and the importance of understanding that memorising (as we did in reading comprehension tests at school) and understanding is vast.

In some ways, I expected a lot of what he said to be obvious, but it really wasn’t. I can say that I have a few more ideas about how I read (and have been reading) and how I can be more effective in reading through information more quickly but also making sure the notes I make about what I read are better (this might be counter intuitive about learning in a class about reading but it is what I took from it).

While I came away eager to practice new techniques, I thought that it was probably, for me, anyway more about reading efficiency than reading speed. How can I get the information I need from a text in the quickest way that ensures I remember and record (if necessary) what I have read. One of the key techniques that I want to practise is about extending my peripheral vision when I read so that I read more ‘at once’. This was something I hadn’t considered before learning about it.

The second half of the day was about mind-mapping. I probably wouldn’t have signed up for it if it hadn’t followed on from the morning because the speed reading was what I had been most interested in.

I’ve tried a bit of mind-mapping, particularly on software (iThoughts if anyone is interested – I’ve tried a few and that’s my favourite) and thought if there is a ‘way’ to mindmap, it might be useful to know. I used it when I wanted to gather my ideas in a different way.

Fortunately, this is how it was presented to us. This isn’t a panacea. It won’t make you cleverer or quicker or more imaginative, but it is a tool that can help with taking notes and recording information in a clearer way. I tend to doodle a lot and make notes with lots of arrows in them, so it could be the method I didn’t realise I wanted. I hadn’t thought of mindmapping to summarise or take notes.

Having attended the course, I’d say that learning from someone who knows, is useful. I have tried any number of mindmaps since the training. The next morning, at work, I arrived and drew my day’s to do list as a mindmap (which I then had to explain to a colleague who was intrigued), it took no longer but it was visually more pleasing – although that is not the point.

What has been more useful were my brief attempts, over the weekend, to link up the speed reading and mindmapping and creating a ‘mindmap’ notes of book chapters and articles. I’ve been able to jot mini-mindmaps after chapters of a book I am reading, (have been trying to speed read!) so I remember what the key points are. I’ve used post-its or pieces of printer paper which I have then popped into the book at the required chapter or scanned and saved with the paper on Mendeley entries. For the first few I’ve done, I’ve written some more conventional notes afterwards, using the mindmaps to test if I have learnt or remembered more or at least, noted down the key useful points and I think it may work as a technique when I need to remember things I have read.

I’m still at the early stages of this. I am mindmapping everything. As we were told though, it’s often about practise and getting better at it. It may not change the way I learn and think in the long run, but it was an enjoyable session that helped me think differently. And I think it helped when I went back to work as well because this isn’t just about helping my learning at university but also at work.

Even if I don’t persist with mind-mapping as a note-taking technique, at least I know a bit more about it and why I would reject it which is a better place to be. As for the speed-reading, I can’t see any situation that won’t be useful so I’m going to continue to practice and if I do get better, I might write up more about the specific techniques. It is good to have a day out from the usual though, particularly if we are able to challenge our own thinking.

Book review: How to Write a Lot – A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing

I read ‘How to Write a Lot – A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing by Paul J Silva published by American Psychological Association – I have a copy of the 1st edition (2007) which is the one I am reviewing below but I have linked to a more recent 2nd edition (2018).

Introduction

To write well, you need to choose good words.

p61

This is a short and accessible book from the US Psychology Academic. The background of psychology becomes more important through the book and it is intended to be a ‘tap on the shoulder’ type book nudging reluctant academics and people who need to write in academic contexts, towards writing. I can’t remember how I came across it, if it was on a reading list or a recommendation (mostly how I decided what books to buy).

Context

As mentioned above, the author, Paul Silva is an academic psychologist based in the US. He has taken the approach of writing in a conversational manner and the book is intended to spur writers who may not see themselves as writers to ‘get on with it’. It would be of less use to experienced writers who have their own systems in place.

Of course, it also serves as a means to delay actually starting writing because you are writing it but fortunately, it is a short book which does not need a lot of time to cover.

The author covers a broad range of topics at a steady pace, including starting out and just writing as well as, more specifically, writing for publication including journals and books. The book itself is 132 pages.

Summary

Delete very, quite, basically, actually, virtually, extremely, remarkably, completely, at all and so forth. Basically, these quite useless words add virtually nothing at all ; like weeds, they’ll in fact actually smother your sentences completely

p64

The book is divided into chapters that cover the areas you would expect, including knocking down those barriers, including the excuses like ‘I don’t have enough time’ or ‘I need to read more about X before I start writing’ as well as ‘I don’t have any space/working PC etc’. They’ll be all the usual ones you can think of. Silva comes back at the reader with responses, some more helpful than others.

Ultimately, the reason is often related to time or alternative priorities with work or life, to which the answer is, unsurprisingly, just write and allocate protected time to write. This isn’t a wonderful relevation but it is a message which can keep being knocked on the head to make sure it has a difference.

Silva may claim to not always have been a planner but a planner and a scheduler you need to be if you are going to write effectively and productively. Planning your writing, counts in the writing time and setting achieveable goals is important as well and give yourself deadlines if noone else is going to. He also talks about prioritising projects and how those priorities can differ and that needs to be fluid.

He likes monitoring progress by word counts or meeting specific daily goals which might work if reading is writing.

To Silva, ‘writers block’ is not something that happens to academic (as opposed to creative) writers. It is just ‘not writing’ and by ‘not writing’ you have ‘writer’s block’. The way to cure it is to write. This is about approaches, attitudes and excuses. It might be that some writing needs more editing than other writing because of the flow that develops but it can be progress and it can be measured all the same.

There is a chapter specifically about style and the importance of clarity in writing. This includes a good reminder to write for audiences that may not have English as a first language. The best writing is accessible and readable. Use jargon when it is necessary but don’t import it in if it does not add to the understanding of the reader. This may be a good discipline in all writing exercises and tasks. He reminds us, as writers to think of the meaning of the words you use, each one having a function to increase clarity. This is a lesson which stuck to my heart as I often write with excess verbosity.

Strengths and Gaps

Silva writes unapologetically as a psychologist and the book is published by the American Psychological Association (APA) so examples about journals and book are based on psychology. I don’t think this is a weakness or a gap so much as a ‘thing to be aware of’.

As he goes through the different parts of a paper and how to construct them, he includes a section on the importance of references and what the reference section means. I have not seen this in a book of academic writing previously but that might say more about my reading than about what is out there but I found this helpful.

It was useful to see a differentiation in the way writing would be approached when considering papers with empirical research and ‘review’ articles, both of which he covers.

This is, though a small book. It probably won’t teach you information you have not come across before regarding how to start writing and get writing but it is concise, clearly written and accessible. It is quite pricey though so might be worth tracking down in a library or getting a second hand copy (as I did).

Use in practice

This is an eminently practical book which has immediately led to some changes in behaviours and ways I think about writing. While it isn’t about innovative new methods, the point about writing is you just have to do it and the way to get better at it is doing more of it, so the book serves to grant permission to believe in yourself and your ability to improve by doing.

For myself, I tend to schedule writing time anyway. I write and study at weekends because I work during the week but it has made me consider how much time I may be able to add to weekdays before work and how to quantify the writing I do. For example, I am now editing this post at 5.45am when I usually get up for work at 6am. I’m also writing a blogpost instead of academic writing though, so swings and roundabouts. Writing is writing!

Silva makes writing – including articles and books, accessible. It seems like the ‘I can do it and so can you’ attitude prevails to the extent that I almost begin to believe it. More importantly, it is a fun book to read. It wasn’t difficult to sail through it quickly. It wasn’t an effort to read which some texts can be.

Conclusion

This is a useful addition to the toolkit for someone who is new to academic writing. It can also serve as a cheerleader in the resources to give more confidence to do what you do regarding writing and to feel better about writing than not-writing. Style is essential but practice embeds style. I would recommend this if you come across it, particularly in a library.

The link to buy it is at the top of the page – this is not an affiliate link. I bought this book for myself.

Book review: Developing Research Questions

This review refers to

White, P. (2017). Developing research questions : a guide for social scientists. 2nd ed. Basingstoke England ; New York: Palgrave Macmillan which is available to buy on Amazon here (non-affiliate link). I was not paid to write this and bought the book myself.

Introduction

This is a book which I picked up quite early in my ‘research journey’ and I picked it up because it was one of a number on a reading list. It was written by Patrick White who is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester.

Content

This is a book that is best suited to the beginning of a research project as you start out. It’s focus is entirely the start of the process and how to build both effective research questions but while doing that, identify the key areas to focus on when starting with a topic and trying to narrow it down. As well as focussing on the process of defining a clearly focussed topic with an answerable research question, which is the starting point in terms of the aims of the book, it also covers aspects of this including what a good research question looks and sounds like.

For experienced researchers this is probably more than they need but it helps to clarify some of the confusion which can start at the beginning of a project when you have an idea but want to make from it, questions that are not just interesting but answerable.

When I bought the book, I read through it start to finish, which probably isn’t necessary, but I also tried the suggested exercises as I went, saving my initial thought processes into my research diary to return to and to help me understand and then reflect on my thinking early on in the process.

White gives frequent examples, which are taken from a range of disciplines, about what might make a good research question and the different types of questions one can ‘ask’ or at least, identify in research. It is written very much from a social science perspective and as that is where I am coming from, I’m not sure how translatable it is but it makes sense.

Summary

This is a book very much aimed at novice researchers but it highlights the importance of clarity of purpose in research from the very start in the building of research questions that might well be dipped into from people at different stages of their careers. As well as an explainer of types of questions in the context of research questions specifically, and how ‘answerable’ they need to be, the book covers broader areas around research design and levels of evidence, information required to answer them.

Starting from a premise that literature reviews, lead to identification of areas in need of research in order to justify the research questions being asked, White writes, taking a logical order to offer clarity in the face of what can be an surplus of information and studies and cleverly helps the reader find a path through the jungle of information to read the end goal.

While the focus is clear in the title of the book, there are some excursions into later stages of the project including whether and how one manages to answer the given research questions and use of hypotheses and what ‘counts’ as evidence and linking evidence to claims which can help to answer these questions.

This is a practical text which refers to the answerability of a question which can depend on time, resources and level of research projects. Each chapter ends with exercises and has chapter bibliographies for further reading. Personally, I found the earlier exercises in particularly, helpful in narrowing down some of my initial thoughts.

Key strengths and gaps

I enjoyed this book. The strength was in the narrowness of it’s aim, in a way. I have other books which talk about research processes from start to finish but this was focussed solely on identifying research questions which work. It is a cross disciplinary book which a focus on social sciences and the research methodologies used predominantly in social sciences.

There are some useful conceits introduced, or were for me in any case, including the ‘literature funnel’ which models broad reading across a topic, through a funnel of contemporary issues, debates and findings to establishing a relevant and useable research question.

One of the suggested exercises was to reduce your topic to 140 characters. It can provide focus but it was other similar exercises that allowed me to think about things in different ways.

Of course, many of the issues raised in this book which will very familiar to experienced researchers so this is a book aimed at novices and primarily aimed at novices in universities with access to libraries and wide ranges of reading materials.

The examples given are from across social sciences and some of the exercises might not be useful. I like the key points which were set out at different points and above all, it is clearly written and concise which only works to its benefit.

Use in practice

I’ve mentioned this previously but this was one of the most useful books I found around methodology towards the start of my research. ‘Research questions’ can be frightening and establishing a good mix between pertenant and manageable is not always easy, especially if it is a first time research project. It might be that these are the things you learn early in university careers but if not, I’d recommend finding this book.

As well as clarity of scope and purpose, it has some useful glossaries of research terms which help when learning the different professional language needed to become a researcher. Even if you are not doing the research yourself, some of the exercises and background information about types of questions can be useful in appraising and understanding the research of others and identifying distinguishing research questions in papers that you read to keep up with the subject area in which you are working.

Conclusion

I both enjoyed reading this book and found it useful. It is a short text and it is written with a style that is conversational and therefore not too intimidating. It has provided an additional confidence in understanding what might make research both good and logical. It has definitely helped me along my journey.

Paper Review: An Australian perspective on Community Treatment Orders

A review of  ‘Using Social Work Theory and Values to Investigate the Implementation of Community Treatment Orders, Australian Social Work, 66:1, 72-85, DOI: 10.1080/0312407X.2011.651727‘ Lisa Brophy and Fiona McDermott 2013

Introduction

By looking at this paper, I am reviewing some of the content to make it more accessible and combining a summary of what I find to be the key points, with my own understanding and interpretation. I am no expert and I am no academic. I am interested and with that proviso, I will continue.

I came across this paper as I was looking at the way that ethics and values reflect on social work decision-making and while my focus is more on decisions made about best interests and mental capacity, there is a clear line in comparison with studies completed in other areas, particularly the use of compulsion in social work and how we, as practitioners respond to it. I found the explanation of the methodology and the theoretical approach clear and helpful in my own thinking on two levels.

I’m interested in research design and comparing the robustness of the evidence gathered and different approaches taken, and secondly, when looking at how I integrate theory, both social work theory and broader social research theories into both my own practice and my research work, the most useful learning is reading papers where it has been done and other doctorate level theses available through EThOS (British Library free repositary of over 500,000 theses – and worth checking).

Background to the study

This is a paper written for Australian Social Work. It is looking at the use of community treatment orders specifically in the state of Victoria, Australia. It seems that CTOs have a longer history than their use in the UK and at the time of writing, the authors claim that there are around 5000 current CTOs. The paper looks at how compulsion links with social work values and practice particularly around theoretical perspectives. It is useful as it links the use of theory to practice in a setting where compulsion is used and reflects the tensions in the social worker’s role. It was definitely something that spoke to me, not just in terms of the research, which is useful for my own work in this area, but more interestingly, perhaps, for me when I go to work on Monday to consider with people I work with who do not choose to work with me and, indeed, are compelled to do so.

Methodology

Looking at the methodology, it is a mixed methods study. This means that there are both qualitative and quantitative aspects to the study. I tend to enjoy reading the methodology parts of papers. To me, it is what distinguishes research from opinion and most of the papers I read are pure qualitative studies, not by design, but because I am trying to learn more about qualitative research so approach this by reading more papers where these approaches have been taken.

This project started with a broad-ranging cluster analysis of 164 people who were on the community treatment orders used in Victoria, Australia. Cluster analysis is a specific quantitative methodological approach to using statistics to establish common ‘clusters’ of data, in this case, types of people who would be subject to community treatment orders. The specific methodology may be related to creating clustering algorithms and assigning different features so that the types or clusters emerge from the data. With some biographical and socioeconomic factors being allowed to emerge from the data, this allowed researchers to use the emerging key ‘clusters’ to identify a smaller group of people, reflecting some of the key ‘clusters’ identified, to be interviewed in more detail using semi-structured interviews. This was followed up with additional interviews of family or carers, case managers (presumably, although this is not explicit, who would be for the most part, social workers) and doctors involved.

There were then follow up interviews conducted after 6-12 months with people involved around the use of CTOs including those subject to them, professionals involved in working with them and family or carers. Additional interviews were undertaken with those involved in tribunal (or equivalent) hearings, senior managers and those involved in policy.

This is a brief summary so does not include all the complexities but it does reflect the thought process behind the choices of methodologies involved and reflects back how social work theories have led to each of these steps, including the involvement of people who are subject to these orders being at the heart of the process of researching about them.

Outcomes

The paper identified ‘significant clusters’ relating to being ‘connected’, ‘young males’, ‘chaotic’. The research team used these differing clusters to recruit for the interview stages of the research study.

The researchers, linking back to previous studies which had looked at the use of CTOs, identified five principles which could improve practice based on the interviews. While, they identified that these principles reflected some of the guidance currently in use in practice, the difference that the research was able to tap into was to highlight diversity within the groups of people subject to CTOs. I think these principles are valuable to reflect on and while this research is about a specific intervention in Victoria, Australia. It isn’t an enormous leap to see how they may reflect some potential to improve practice in areas where compulsion is used by and with social workers.

The following are identified on p78 of the paper:

  • Use and develop direct practice skills
  • Take a human rights perspective
  • Focus on goals and desired outcomes
  • Aim for quality of service delivery
  • Enhance and enable the role of key stakeholders

Theoretical perspective

The paper establishes it’s focus on the framework of critical theory, which allows a discussion about the role of power in social work and particularly in areas of social work where compulsion is used. This is also carried through to understanding the role of power within research. The authors have acknowledged this and reference their awareness of the principles of emancipatory research by ensuring that those who are subject to CTOs have been central to the research design. One of the principles the authors reflect, is that of empowerment and by giving people a voice through research carried out about them, it is enabling change to be made.

Additional reflections and gaps

I think of this research both in connection to my own studies and my own work. The first thing that jumped to my mind is that the need to have an international perspective when it is relevant but to be aware of the differences as well. This study is very much about one system of compulsion within mental health with adults. I don’t know the age range or diagnosis types of those who were interviewed and didn’t need to for the scope of the study. One thing that struck me, which may, very well reflect differently to a social worker based in London, is the analysis of race. This is not as a criticism of this study but one which might have different focus in different settings. Critical theory looks at the differing, sometimes competing and often co-existing ‘labels’ determined by studies and organisations to typify people who receive different types of input and I am particularly interested in where internal biases from professionals might impact outcomes.

Learning for practice

The key learning that I have taken from this study is an understanding of how we work within paternalistic frameworks of compulsion as social workers and I found some of the discussion around theoretical approaches and particularly the use of critical theory, to be most useful in both identifying this tension and acknowledging some of the hypocrisy between values which say they promote empowerment but work within frameworks which can be the most oppressive. The authors acknowledge this tension in trying to pull out ‘best practice’ guidance using the input of those subject to these interventions, while also acknowledging the purpose of the study was not to challenge the existence of CTOs and frameworks of compulsion, but that doesn’t mean we can’t and shouldn’t, indeed, we should, continue to constantly challenge the way we work with compulsion in mental health care and look at other options.

Regarding the specific good practice identified, as listed above, some are about organisational needs, such as ensuring that social workers have specific training and space to reflect on the use of compulsion in practice, rather than just being expected to ‘pick it up on the job’. As social workers in the UK, if we are trained as AMHPs, there will be a focus on this as part of the training, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for more learning as this training is not necessary to work with people who are compelled to work with social workers. And it is not enough in itself to give people training at key points and then leave them too it. This is the way one can become overly familiar with compulsion as a tool and desensitised to it. We need to guard against this which can be done through supervision and reflection.

An interesting aspect of the human rights perspective, was identified as well – which recommended ensuring people who are under compulsion are aware of their rights and why the limitations to liberty have been imposed. The study refers to procedural fairness and thoughtful decision-making being a key factor. This phrase is something we can always work harder on.

Involving other stakeholders, and in my role, I am thinking particularly of family members, friends, carers, is something that I can always do better. It is true that sometimes the conversations are not easy and there are issues of confidentiality around information sharing but support can be offered and must be in order to work best for people. There are other stakeholders in the form of commissioners, regulators etc but for my own work ‘on the ground’ the involvement of those people around the person I am working with is the key learning.

Finally, the importance of being able to deliver a quality service when people are compelled to have treatment is something that I might not be able to change individually, but it is key factor and it certainly reflected my concerns as an AMHP when I was practising as one (I am no longer warranted). If we compel someone to a hospital admission but the hospital care is poor, we can be complicit in harm rather than help. It is difficult to justify compelling someone to treatment when the treatment is of a poor quality. This is something we must always challenge and complacency can be easy.

Conclusion

I am no academic, but sometimes finding papers which can speak to me in practice can provide a real motivation to the value of research and the importance of being aware of what research is and has happened around the world that can lead to better outcomes tomorrow. What’s more, we can tell our managers that we can link our need for additional training (for example) to evidence.

I’m not pretending my analytical skills are on a par with any academic, they aren’t. But by trying to portray what I can take from this paper, I am hoping that it will encourage others to read more where the papers are accessible, at least, and learn about the profession and how it has and will continue to grow.

I’m absolutely sure as I’ve read through this paper, there are key points I’ve missed, misunderstandings and poor analysis. I am not setting myself up as a font of knowledge but rather, in my ramblings, hoping to take an opportunity for others to try to learn with me but the original research is always the best place to start, rather than any commentary I might be able to ramble through.

Finding research questions

When I started along this journey, I had a topic which I wanted to cover. I had some ideas about the direction I thought my research would take me. I didn’t have a particularly well-developed ‘research question’. As I’ve read more over the last year or so, it has been relating a lot to the importance of a robust research question and that the research question itself needs to be at the core of the topic but also focus on what the purpose of the research is.

At the end of the last academic year, I was pretty happy with the way my research questions looked. I’d been tinkering with them for a while. Then I read a few more books about the process of research (I’ll post some reviews of the books I’ve been reading at some point) and reflected on how the topic I was focusing on had changed through political developments (Mental Capacity amendments going through Parliament at the moment and the discussions around that) and realised that maybe the questions didn’t do quite what I wanted them to do in the way I wanted them to.

I have tweaked them pretty much on a weekly basis since then. I started with some exercises suggested in some of the books I read and worked on some ‘brain storming’ processes where I wrote down (or typed because I actually did this on OneNote – so I could go back and ‘remember’ my workings in the weeks/months/years to come).

Sometimes I tweeted my random thoughts as well – when I was considering how to approach the topic and refine the detail. One of the books I read suggested as an exercise to ‘encapsulate’ the core of the research in a ‘tweet’ of 140 characters (pre-twitter changes!). I tried that along the way – even thought the exercise wasn’t meant to be an actual tweet – rather getting to the core of the issue you want to explore in a few characters. The responses I got from the tweet led me thinking along different lines.

While I’ve never been one for mind maps, or at least, I didn’t think I was, I transferred my brainstorming into a mind map. The mind map grew and actually being able to visualise where the branches and connections were, really helped me make sense of what I knew, what I wanted to know and how to try and make connections between them.

Mind maps and doodles and notes can be very personal. I mention it because it was something I hadn’t really used more than superficially but making sure I ended up with more than a bundle of random scribbles was important to me as I needed to be able to refer back to all the dead-ends and the paths which I decided not to go down. I should mention as well, as context, that at this point, I had done a lot of reading around the topic areas and reading recent research to check for ‘gaps’ so it wasn’t entirely taking a stab in the dark.

The mind map has become a central document now to my approach to this piece of work. I have refined questions and am still tweaking. I expect more tweaking constantly, but I like to know I have a starting point – even if that starting point can change.

So while I’m pretty sure that I still haven’t ‘found’ my research question/s as they will look in a year, or two years or three years time – I’m relatively happy with the work in progress that I have and by reading about the importance of robust research questions in research design, which is very much the point at which I am focusing now, I am happy to work with that.

Learning to ‘research’

I have been focussing my reading very much on methods and methodology recently. This might have come a bit later than it should have considering I am in my second year of a five year course, but I am still in on a very sharp learning curve. Trying to divide my time (alongside a full-time job, of course) between reading about the subject matter of my research and reading about research as a new knowledge area to develop may not be quite as well-balanced as I’d ideally like at the moment.

Through my reading, I came across a couple of books, for I am mostly focussing on books rather than articles for my methodology reading, which have been a bit snotty about interviews as a primary research method. One was very much referring to interviews as secondary data which is constructed as opposed to ‘real life’ data which is found ‘in the wild’ (my terms between the inverted commas but I think that was the meaning). Interviews were, perhaps dismissed as ‘too easy’ or an obvious choice which create data that might not have the same validity.

The other approach was very much about a ‘hierarchy of research methodologies’ where the evidence-based quantitative/positivist research was more rigorous by nature than smaller scale qualitative interviewing.

I’m planning on using interviews as my primary way to gather research data. I have already scheduled (kind of – waiting for it to be confirmed) a pilot interview or two. I am not yet knowledgeable enough, I don’t think to challenge the authors, but I think there’s a fair case to be made for interviews – not least because it is the best way to access the information and language that I want to analyse in order to better understand the research questions I have provisionally settled on (for today – I have to say that my research question/s are currently being tweaked on a daily basis).

Thinking about interviewing in particular, it came to me that really that’s all I’ve ever been doing in my years of social work. I started my MA in social work in 1998 so for about 20 years or so, I’ve been ‘interviewing’. Interviewing people to complete assessments and reviews, interviewing people to understand the circumstances of their lives which have led to interactions with the state embodied in the social worker. I have had to interview in difficult situations, when people have not wanted to speak to me because they feared me or my role, because they despised me and/or what I represented or because they were unable to.

On my first placement at University in 1998/9, in a local authority older people’s team, I remember going out on a visit on my own to ‘review’ a relatively straightforward care package. When I returned and spoke with my practice teacher, she asked me a lot of questions, about what I’d heard, seen, smelt – how I had felt, what observations I had.

The words were only one signal to me, the frayed carpet remained in my mind, thinking about the impact of mobility and potential harm a fall might cause. It reminded me of the importance of observation skills and listening skills in the role I had.

Later, when I went to see people at home for the first time, I would look around rooms and try and find a connection – one house, where a man had many paintings and sculptures of horses (which was unusual in inner London) and it had started a conversation where he reminisced about his life as a jockey, photos of family which were admired to start conversations that people felt comfortable with. Often when I visited people at home, and I worked in older adult’s mental health services, I would offer to make them a cup of tea or coffee when I arrived (when I knew them – it obviously, depended on the context and wasn’t always appropriate) but it allowed me to check the contents of the fridge and the shelf-life of the milk without making an explicit statement. It was these observations that allowed me to build up pictures. I also relied on feedback from family members, paid carers and staff at day centres or community groups who would feed back. This was all giving me pictures from which to form judgements and create a view about how to interpret a situation.

This made me think about the research methods I have been reading about, mostly qualitative, to be fair – the interviews, the observations, the focus groups even – all activities I carried out and still do carry out every day (well, most days) at work. I speak to people mostly, but then I interpret and explain the information that has been given to me in a format that makes sense to the state – it might be a report I’m writing or an assessment or a review, it might be about presenting my interpretation at a ‘panel’ or explaining my position to my manager.

But also, in my work, I need to understand data. I need to look at information from audits of services and staffing levels on wards. Information about the use of restraint, seclusion and incidents. This needs to be interpreted and understood.

Basically, all those skills I have to be a social worker, they aren’t that dissimilar to research skills I am learning about. Of course, I’m not saying I would interview a research subject in the same way I’d speak with a person who I was working with – but there are some analogies. When I practised as a AMHP, we had to be clear about the purpose of our assessment and the implications of it from the start. When I completed a continuing care assessment, I had to explain how that information would be used and ensure that I used criteria which were established to provide evidence to support my interpretation and judgement.

The skills we learn to practice are research skills. The differences between being a social worker and being a researcher of social work, is, perhaps the impact of the theoretical approaches we take. When we interview and interpret for social work practice, we use social work theories and methods. When we are interpreting and understanding practice for research purposes, we have other contexts in which to understand.

But maybe learning to research isn’t quite as alien as it seemed to be to me, and what I am really learning is how to interpret the data I gather in different ways and in different contexts.

Organising study notes

Near the beginning of my studies, I realised I needed days to make sure I remembered what I read. I tried many different things. I like writing notes into notebooks as I read – so started with different exercise books (the ones from school but A4 size) to make notes about the books I was reading and making sure I kept up with the references.

Then I realised this might not be the most effective. I have lots of notebooks I use for work and am not the tidiest person in the world. I decided to go ‘electronic’.

So each book or paper I read, I made notes on a different Word document with thoughts as I make my way through the relevant reading. Sometimes with useful quotes added. It’s like creating a précis that I can go back to.

I saved each one as a separate Word document with the name of the article, paper or book/book chapter into a folder called ‘articles read’ (it’s not just articles of course). Because I got a bit paranoid about losing data, I back it all up to a USB stick, DropBox and OneDrive – cos I just can’t trust only one cloud storage space!

I have another folder with all the papers I have collected along the way, mostly in PDF – that’s the ‘articles PDF’ folder (they aren’t all PDF but this is just in my head!). When I started, I printed all the PDFs off and had them in separate paper folders depending on the topic – so one for ‘Human Rights’ and one for ‘Mental Capacity’ etc – but the numbers of articles grew and the printer ran out of ink…

That’s when I started to think about reference management software. I bought EndNote at student discount rate and used that the first year including for my initial literature review work. I liked a few things about it and I’d never used reference management software – but my organisation wasn’t very good from the start. I liked that it ported Harvard style referencing (and lots of others) into my essay but I did have to do a bit of tweaking as well. EndNote synced well with my iPad as well.

In year two, I kept EndNote (because I bought a copy!) but decided to try other reference managers. Not quite sure how I ended up with Readcube Papers, it certainly isn’t the best known or most well-used (that must be Zotero/Mendeley), but I ported my library over and quite like it. That might be because I am only comparing it with EndNote but I’ll stick with it for a bit. I like that I can (although I can do this with EndNote as well) store my PDFs within it. Probably because I started when I was in year two, I was able to ‘organise’ from the start. I imported all my links from EndNote but was able to tag and sort them into topics that made more sense. It was like ‘starting afresh’. Of course, it was also entirely unnecessary. But (did I mention my obsession with backing up), I also went back to my Word document summaries and copied and pasted them into the ReadCube ‘notes’ so when looking at my references, I don’t have to go back into the Word documents I’ve created and can read my summaries, thoughts, relevant quotations etc directly from the references.

I don’t know if this is the system I will continue to use. I also use OneNote as my ‘research diary’. I started a paper-based research diary where I made notes on my thoughts and feelings and different approaches (including ongoing tweaking with research questions – ideas about developing methodologies and methods). Then I lost my paper-based notebook. I’m sure it’s still in my house somewhere but got lost in a ‘tidy’. So I use OneNote. I have a ‘notebook’ called research diary and add a page for each day I write in it. It’s just thoughts as I go along. I also have notebooks within OneNote for tweaking research questions and I like it because it is accessible from my phone and iPad but also because I can import links, documents, webpages and PDFs into it. It’s a bit messy but it means it won’t be ‘lost.

I have also played with Mindmaps. I struggled a lot to make sense of my research topic and research questions. I knew the area I wanted to delve into but was having difficulty breaking it down and identifying specific research questions that worked. The mind mapping really helped – just a bit of brainstorming and putting words and ideas together and seeing how they fit together visually. I use Apple infrastructure – I have computer that runs MacOS and have a iPad and iPhone (I know, I know). I tried Mindnode but didn’t get along with it so well (that is entirely about how my mind works and the things I wanted the software to do). Eventually I settled on iThoughts – and putting out my ideas and plans on a Mindmap really helped. I’m sure I’ll come back to that as a specific post later.

I can’t ‘advise’ that any of these systems ‘work’ because I honestly don’t know but sometimes it’s a difficult terrain to navigate, especially coming back to studying after many years when technology, apps and programmes are much more well-developed than they were when I last studied.

But this was a basic run-through on what I do to try and remember things at the moment!

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