Themes, Taste and Loneliness
Paging Professor Braun and Associate Professor Clarke...
Hey friends!
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Lots of things to share, let’s get to it.
Articles of the Week
In last week’s newsletter, we spoke about autoethnography as a research process and method. This week, we wanted to stick with the qualitative chat and throw some reflexive thematic analysis (TA) your way!
So many of us on the server work with TA that it’s easy to forget how alien the concept may seem for our quant-led friends or for new researchers. When it comes to TA and reflexive TA, Braun and Clarke (all hail our true leaders) have paved the way in making this method robust, accessible and highly dynamic. The first article we want to share this week is their paper on Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.
Braun and Clarke’s work on TA has been applied, adapted and expanded upon across disciplines and we think is one of the best places to start your journey through TA. Their 2022 book ‘Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide’ is probably the book I’ve returned to most over the past year - so good.
Photo Credit: AJ (TheStrainngStudent on Mastodon). Stickers from Lighthouse Bookshop, Edinburgh.
Next up - social media and social support for postgraduate students. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again - research can be a lonely space. Even if you have a great research department with lots of friendly students, it’s not always easy to find your tribe or to be your authentic self in these spaces. We built the Postgraduate Research Hub with exactly this in mind. Sure, physical connection and real-world relationships are important, but fostering connection in an online community can jump far beyond the bounds of conventional 9-5 research routines. Our Discord serves as a good example of this in action - no matter the time, day or night, our community members are coworking, sharing papers and collaborating on projects.
In this article, McLaughlin & Sillence (2023) offer a good exploration of postgraduate students’ needs and some potential buffers against academic loneliness. While social media can be a fickle friend, this piece offers a compelling illustration of the power of digital networks on individual well-being. Delving into this paper will also give you an opportunity to witness the practical application of thematic analysis firsthand!
Lastly, keeping to our promise, we’re trying to give you something that, depending on your discipline, you may not ordinarily come across in each newsletter. Lately, some of our community members have been requesting watch-along parties or community movie nights - we LOVE this idea, stay tuned for updates but until then, here’s an article on feminism and film!
Community Spotlight
Our community only works because members engage with us and each other. This week, we wanted to highlight Gabriel Coelho Soares, also known as “Batata” (potato in Portuguese).
Gabriel (@ogabrielcoelho) is a well-known and very active member of our Discord community. We wanted to give Gabriel the Community Spotlight this week in recognition of not only his incredible work ethic but also his friendliness and helpfulness across the community.
Gabriel can often be found leading coworking sessions in our virtual study rooms and is regularly on hand to help new users navigate our digital space. Thank you, Gabriel!
Gabriel is currently on a break from his research in History but is very much still immersed in his own research activities. He’s currently using his research skills working in local media and hopes to return to formal study soon.
Q1. What part of your academic journey are you at?
Currently (paused) in my final year. However, while on this pause I’m spending a lot of time researching Liturgical Music in Brazillian history, especially focusing on my own region.
Q.2 What made you join the PGRH and what do you get the most from the community?
I was searching for good Discord communities to share knowledge and to work together on digital calls.
Q.3 You’re always very active in the server coworking space, what keeps you motivated?
The best motivation for me is the coworking sessions themselves. I love sharing these digital spaces with people from all around the world and I love being part of that for other people too. I would say that’s my biggest motivation - connections and friendships with other people.
Q4. What’s your go-to research snack at the moment?
Definitely Waffle Cookies - these are known as “Bolacha” in my region of Brazil. In my honest opinion, these are the best snacks in the world. You’ll probably get to see these snacks in the coworking rooms when I forget to turn off my camera to eat 😂
Latest from our Community
It’s been a busy week across our networks between events, challenges and updates, here’s a roundup:
Book Club Meeting
Our next book club meeting is scheduled for August 2nd (Wednesday). If you’ve never joined us before, we’d love to have you. If you’re a regular, we can’t wait to catch up with you!
We’ll be in touch via our book club channel to set an exact time.
Reminder: We’re reading Crying in H-Mart by Michelle Zauner.
New Channels on our Discord Server
We’ve been watching the chatter over the last couple of weeks and have been taking note of community interests. We’ve added a couple of more fun channels based on your conversations!
Arts & Crafts: So many of you folks are talented artists and crafters! What a nice way to wind down from research activities too… Share your creations with us and chat with other crafters in #arts-and-crafts
Current Song: Share what you’re listening to in our new #current-song channel. This reminds us of the good ‘ol MSN days when you could share your current song as your status. Spread the musical love!
Daily Puzzles: Over the last week, our #Wordle channel has gotten huge engagement! We hadn’t realised all of the other daily puzzles people play until the channel blew up with different puzzle results! So, like any good admin team, we created a new channel for these puzzles and we’re currently working on putting together a puzzle repository for you! Come check out #daily-puzzles and find more ways to procrastinate with us 😭
Sprint Olympics
We’re testing out a couple of different bots right now for our Sprint Olympics. One of the bots we’re currently playing with is called WriterStats. This bot lets us track our own writing goals but will also allow us to set a writing goal for the whole server - how cool is that?
We’ll keep you updated on this through the relevant channels but for now, come check out our #writing-sprints channel and chip away at your goals!
Coworking
Last week we ran two organised coworking events which worked really well for those who attended! We’re a friendly, easygoing bunch who meet weekly to work in silence together, we’d love to have more people join us!
Here’s the flow of our sessions:
- Camera on (if appropriate)
- Mic off (let’s not disturb others)
- Chat function is open
We’ll be in our virtual study room this Thursday (tomorrow) at 10 am (GMT). Research can be lonely, drop in and work with us -here’s the event link.
Also - our coworking/study rooms are open 24/7 for drop-in sessions. If you want some company outside of coworking events, you can tag the group in the chat lounge using “@coworking” and whoever is around will usually join for an hour or two.
Research Resource
Connected Papers. We love Research Rabbit, but sometimes it’s nice to switch it up. Connected Papers gives you a graph view of literature that can be traced back to your search term/topic etc.
Connected Papers search function is quite powerful and should bring you some interesting and relevant reads in graph form. Be careful though, you get limited searches!
You just can’t beat a good graph…
Bonus Bits
Here are some things you might find useful for the rest of your week:
Thematic Analysis Website: Keeping in line with the theme (see what we did there?) here’s a useful website (by Braun and Clarke) that serves as a nice accompaniment to the TA lit.
Reverse Pomodoro Timer: Last week we gave you a Pomodoro timer, this week we give you a Doropomo timer. Just like the Pomodoro method (work, break, work) but reversed! This timer lets you ease into work and rewards compounding efforts (break, work, break). Enjoy!
Playlist: Our moderator, Moria (who we introduced last week), has shared a private playlist with us this week, just for you. Just a heads-up, here’s a direct quote from Moria as she shared the playlist with us:
“My music taste is garbage, enjoy”
See You Next Week
We hope you find some value in this newsletter. If you did, consider sharing us with a friend… We’d love to hear from you on what you like and what you’d like to see more of!