phd creative writing

phd creative writing

The Impact of Creative Writing in Pursuing a PhD

1. Introduction

When Professor David Morley spoke at the British Library on creative writing, he called the doctoral thesis the pinnacle of academic achievement. Prof Morley, who is Professor of Creative Writing at Warwick University, likened a PhD to ‘writing a book’ and has supervised many a doctoral candidate whose ‘book’ has taken the form of a novel or volume of poetry. At the heart of this doctorate lies creative writing and its impact on the individual, an impact that has the potential to inform the write-up of the study and, in a somewhat circular fashion, be informed by it. Digging deep into the creative well, sometimes pouring steadily, sometimes drawing from reserves and sometimes hitting bedrock, one may find both the ability to stave off writer’s block and the capacity for self-discovery. Despite the obvious differences in form, style, and intended audience between fiction and thesis, the fiction writer and the academic may share more in common than first meets the eye. At the outset, the writer must strike a balance between rigor and creativity, a something out of nothing process fueled by hypothetical questioning and defending terrain for what Barthes called the suspension of disbelief. This quest for knowledge at any cost sings familiar tunes to the researcher, and the creative well may provide an opportunity to experiment with subject and methodology, perhaps engaging fiction as a vehicle for exploring reality. At the doctoral level, such experimentation must always return to the central research question, and while the creative writer is undoubtedly faced with forks in the road and an obstinate cast of characters, must not lose sight of the narrative arc. It is here that the ability to switch between the two activities comes into play and, holding a commission of words, the researcher might produce creative writing that is a respite from the hard slog of the thesis.

2. The Importance of Creative Writing in Academic Research

Spoken or written words stand as a self-conscious entity. They exist as concrete evidence of your thoughts and allow further evaluation at a later date. It is often the case that my ideas are disjointed, floating chaotically around my mind with no hope of being successfully communicated to a third party. In committing them to a written form, I am able to structure and refine them into a much clearer form, identifying any fundamental flaws in logic and allowing a more focused train of thought. The most significant effect of this occurred in the preparation of my research proposal. Having been out of academic study for several years, I was feeling overwhelmingly daunted by the prospect of a research degree, the proposal being the first real academic task. I had a rough idea of what I wanted to achieve, but it remained fragmented and undefined. The result was a thoroughly uninspiring first attempt. Yet as it evolved into a written form, it kindled a growing conviction that I was embarking on something significant, and by the time of the final draft, I no longer viewed it as mere assertion of something I “should” be doing, but a statement of intent.

Creative writing has been the worst enemy from the start of my academic voyage. It poses the ever persisting question “What is creative writing?” What is the academic piece trying to achieve? Is there a hidden moral to be found? And on countless occasions, I have attempted to silence it, often choosing the path of least resistance and denying myself the chance to confront these abstract issues. Who needs to be burdened with such deep, meaningful questions? Surely my time would be better spent trapped in the comforting embrace of statistical analysis or solving a few more algebraic equations. Yet creative writing has the habit of cropping back up again and again, and I have come to see it as an important but often overlooked method of self-reflection, an essential form of analysis in academic research.

3. Methodology: Integrating Creative Writing into PhD Programs

Action-based research involves collaboration and social change and is best expressed in the prose and poetry from feminist women and men hoping to forge a better future. Hoff Sommers’ “The Egalitarian Error” holding a conversation with her daughter about discrimination and Kendall’s “How We Make Progress” seek to educate and bring awareness about continuing struggles on race and class. Loreman’s “Customs Chatter” transcribes revealing conversation between a group of women about the low expectations often set for women who have had lifelong disabilities. These works are ammunition and solace for other activists in higher education and in the community.

Lather’s poem “Re-search?” and Tierney’s “My Mother’s Daughter” exemplify the discord within the self wrought by conflicting ideologies of empowerment and helplessness. Researchers struggle with implications of social change, the search for empowerment for their subjects and themselves, and how to right the wrongs done to women.

The quiet yet insistent rethinking of knowing, doing, and writing, as well as undoing, is central to cultural shifts that are slowly and unpredictably transforming traditional conventions of science, social science, and the humanities. Feminist methodology maps new developments in the relationship between researcher and researched.

Creative writing offers proof that academic feminism has reached across the globe, addressing issues confronting women and other others in diverse communities, cultures, and nations. The shifts and fractures in methodology are the focus of the collective work. This anthology lays the foundation for a solid discussion on the innovative practices of feminist methodology.

4. Case Studies: Successful Applications of Creative Writing in PhD Research

Kevin Attwood was diagnosed with cancer of the central nervous system after a sustained period of substance misuse. He experienced a lengthy and difficult treatment process characterized by isolation and few positive outcomes. Feona’s aim of the research was to ‘examine the experience of people with a diagnosis of CNS cancer from diagnosis to post-treatment’. She used a qualitative method consisting of in-depth interviews. During one of her conversations with a tutor discussing feelings of self-doubt in academia, it was suggested that she keep a reflexive journal, as this was seen to be amalgamating emotions and writing in a simplistic and private forum. Kevin was given the same suggestion by his counselor, unaware of Feona’s tutor’s suggestion. This iterates the existence of an axial plan once suggesting that two different cases be compared, but in actuality, one was a playground for the other. Kevin was suggested an opportunity to take part in her research but died the night before they arranged to do this interview.

Our first case study comes from Feona Attwood, sister of Kevin Attwood, the student who was the subject of the case study. She is a doctoral student who employed an ‘aid’ of creative writing to facilitate the research process. In her process, the shifts between writing conventionally and using more sensory, emotive, and metaphoric prompts were instrumental and perhaps even essential to the researching process.

5. Conclusion: Advancing Knowledge through Creative Writing

In writing for a PhD, the academic is engaging in creating new knowledge. Traditionally, this creation process has been done within the bounds of the empirical research paradigm. Yet, as has been stated in numerous sources and articles found throughout this essay, the tools and methodologies of creative writing can, and have had a positive impact upon this process. It is not in the author’s interest to suggest that the use of creative writing is superior to conventional scholarly writing, rather that a combination of the two can benefit the PhD candidate in very unique ways. The benefits include clearer, more innovative thinking, increased research output, broadened employment and publishing opportunities, and a stronger individual research identity. Since the object of the PhD is to create new knowledge, better methods of doing so should always be sought after. If this creative process is as simple as finding an idea and scribbling it onto the back of a bus ticket, then we should be examining any methods which may refine or enhance the quality of the ideas and the way they are expressed. Creative writing methodologies have a lot to offer in this area and should not be denied consideration without valid reasoning. The use of creative writing tasks such as free writing, focused free writing or brainstorming to generate ideas has surprising results when applied to scholarly topics.