 Hi everyone, and welcome back to my channel here, the London Writing Academic. It has been a little bit of a while, I've just been very busy, but I'm back today with a PhD study day. I'm on a PhD study day, and I've just had my midday meeting. So if you are new to my channel and you don't know what a PhD study day is, the PhD study day is basically where we zoom in from wherever we are, and we join with other PhD students who are working on whatever they're working on, and then we have intervals during the day where you can join, and we have meetings, we discuss things to do with our research and our writing, and then we go off, do our work, and then we come back. So I was teaching this morning, I finished and joined the one o'clock meeting, which was really, really useful. Now, my reason for, specifically one of the reasons why I love the PhD study day is because I've said this before, PhD study is isolating. If you are doing PhD research, most of the time it's something you work on alone. Of course you've got your supervisor, but of course it is a loan project for most part of it. And of course it can be lonely. Now I don't particularly, I'm not bothered by the loneliness. It's not something I think, oh my God, I'm so lonely. I need to have classmates or something that, you know, the way your undergraduate study is. It's not like that because I know that I'm at a very different stage in my life, both professionally and academically. So it's not that I need to be attending lectures and, you know, hanging with my friends for, you know, group study or anything like that. It really isn't like that. But it's very, very interesting to get together with other PhD research students and to discuss things about my research, their research, and just general things about our own academic fields basically. So that's what this PhD study day does allow for. People are at different stages as well if they're PhD studies. So there are people who are just literally joining. They're in their first year. And then there are people like me who have been confirmed and we are PhD candidates. And we are at the thesis writing stage. And then there are people who have actually defended and either have are doing their post-viva corrections or are preparing for their viva. So it's very, very interesting. Sorry, guys, I just ordered food and my delivery is just outside my house. So yeah, that's another thing. I'm actually really hungry. It's the time here in the UK is 1.47 p.m. So it's just almost two o'clock and I haven't prayed Zuhur and I haven't eaten lunch. So that's something I'm going to do immediately. So this isn't going to be a long video. So as I was saying, the PhD study days, apart from knowing that you are working towards a goal for the day, it also is very beneficial in the sense that we get to talk amongst ourselves and we share ideas, which is of course really useful. Share ideas, share tips, advice and experiences as well. So all of that is really, really useful. And then we have our lead academic who is the person who runs this PhD study day. And she touches base with you and you tell her basically what your aim for the day is what you're working on. And of course she's a PhD supervisor to many other people and she's herself a PhD. So that really helps to just have that support in place in addition to your own supervisor. So what I'm working on today is the I'm revising my literature review, which I will be submitting to my supervisor tomorrow. And I have a supervisor meeting during the week, the upcoming week. So I know what I'm working on. And I've said this before. My videos are repetitive, but that's the nature of, oh my God, I just noticed that mess there. It's absolutely terrible, I just noticed the mess there, like excuse that mess. That's actually my teaching mess. And it shouldn't be there. That's like, oh my, it's just ignore that, sorry, ignore that. But back to the point of the video. Yes, so what I'm working on today is basically it's not so much the content of my literature review. It's just, and I've said this before, it's my way of writing. So I, you know, have said to you, you know, my, my default position of writing is a legal way. And this is interesting because two years ago I blogged for an education. What they called an education company. So they were called study news international and I wrote a couple of blog pieces for them. And when I submitted it to the editor, the editor came back to me with saying, you know, your sentences are really wordy and I was writing way too much from like, you know, it was very legal type writing. And she wanted it to be short and punchy because I'm writing a blog for people to, you know, read and understand. I wasn't drafting any kind of legal document or it wasn't a legal essay. And that's, that's just by default my writing because even though I do blog like I used to blog even though I do blog as a hobby. So when I read my own blogs back I realized how wordy it is. And if you know if you have seen my recent blog, The London Writing Academy, which is available at blog.nafisa london.co.uk. I have to check that when I read back that my sentences are short and to the point because I know people are reading this and they don't want to, they don't want to be reading a legal article or anything like that. So just to the point facts straightforward, easy to understand. Now, at this stage of my PhD, I am really on, I would say unlearning and unlearning to learn is a concept which is something that I have discovered and developed on this PhD. I've presented on the concept of learning to unlearn and unlearning to learn, which I'll probably link below if you want to know a little bit more about that but I think the concept of unlearning to learn and learning to unlearn is something that is really beneficial that everybody should learn and adapt that there are different stages of your life where you can unlearn information or unlearn ways of doing things to relearn new ways of doing things because I guess when we are taught things from a very early age we're taught that that is the one and only way to do things. And you know we just taught this rigidity where it's not the case there are many ways of doing things and there are many ways that suit different ways that you know what it's basically not a one fits all. And I think that's where the overlap within you know my legal background and then my teaching experience they overlap and I really see how things are done and how they could be done in different ways. And one of them is actually just communication. So the way I write. And it's something that I'm developing as a PhD researcher that my writing needs to be clearer and more communicative. People need to understand what I'm writing without having a PhD in education and social justice, people need to be, you know, they need to understand and with legal writing it's not like that legal writing, as I've said before is for lawyers. And most of the time people aren't going to get their head around the legal jargon, the even the grammatical structures. So for me I'm unlearning, because I know that the legal writing doesn't really serve what I'm doing right now. It doesn't mean like I'm never going to go back to it really depends if I need to do something legal at a certain point in my life, then I'm going to go back to that. So unlearning and relearning it's something that I love the concept it's something that I talk about I write about and it's something I promote basically. I teach my students that they can learn and unlearn certain skills, certain techniques at different stages in their professional and their academic lives. Basically the focus of my literature review revision is basically you know making my writing more coherent, more communicative easier to understand. And because my research looks at smart target driven learning in the form of what we call individual learning plans for students. I'm looking at a tripartite approach. And basically what it means is there are three aspects of it. So there's the government policy. There's the, there are the teachers or the teaching professionals and then there are the students and I'm looking at the interrelations between these three so think of it for try, think of this as a triangle, and I'm looking at the interrelations so that's why it's the tripartite. Basically, you know the triadic, you know, think of the triangular, because it's three different three, three. There are, there are three people there are three key parties involved to go when I explain it I have to think to myself does this make sense, you know, it's all about communication and effective communication so there are three parties involved government, teachers and learner. And in my literature review, I need to talk about the three different parties, but I don't want it to seem bitty, and I don't want it to seem disjointed. I want it to be coherent I want to be clear that my research involves looking at this tripartite interrelations, but I want it to flow I don't want it to be like okay. I want a bit of this, a bit of that and a bit of this and it's disjointed, you know, so that's what I spoke to our lead. Dr Anne Marie who is fantastic she's she, every time we get on this PhD study they she comes up with when you say okay this is what I'm working on, she will give you like the perfect bite size advice, which if you apply you will see like great results so it's it's her advice is invaluable. So, what we discussed is basically she suggested that I do a diagram because obviously I've got this tripartite approach and what the diagram will help me do is say the relation between these three things. And I'll look at my starting point where it leads me to, I can present an overview of what I'm saying. I can explain the why and the how of things and basically keep things all together she said to me you know you can I can remove the diagram, but the diagram is a guide for me, you know. And she said to me always imagine writing for someone who likes things kept kept simple, and that is the focus you know, because like I said in law it's all about sounding complicated sound smart and confusing everyone except for people who are not lawyers, except for lawyers, confusing everyone who isn't a lawyer, which of course is snobby it is snobby, and I guess that's what the legal profession is but education and social justice is about not being snobby and not being elitist. So it's about simplifying things down and it's not about you know trying to infantilize the reader it isn't about that it's just basically saying. So what I'm going to do in social justice research in education and we want it to be out there. So it makes sense for anyone to be able to understand. So I still want to write to a high standard, but I want it to be understandable. So that's what I'm working on today coherence, and I'm going to be, I've got my notes and everything. So I'll be using those but I'm going to incorporate a diagram, and I'm going to use that diagram to navigate through what I'm saying. But just check in that it makes sense to the reader. So I'm trying my best to be as reader focused as possible. So that's my advice for now. Now I will be back. So I have another study meeting in our, you know, zoom, zoom conferencing three. So between now and three I'm going to praise her and then I'm going to eat my lunch and then I'm going to join the PhD meeting again. And I have so I have two more meetings, I think three actually I have a three o'clock for 30 and quarter to seven. Those are the three meetings so I'm going to do all of those meetings but I'm going to do it off camera. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to be back here possibly around 730. And I'm going to do a live study. And I think I'm going to do that until possibly midnight or the early hours of the morning so I'm going to do a full live study with me so today. There's going to be two videos on my channel that's going to be this one. And then there's going to be my live study. So that's going to be at 730 GMT. So do I hope to see you there. And I hope that yes I'll be obviously following up with a more simplified version of what I've said, just to make it more comprehensive if you are somebody who wants to develop strategies or coherence and to make your writing simpler and to the point. Okay, so join me 730 today Saturday the 20th of March on my channel here the London Writing Academic I will be here doing a live study with me. Okay guys. See you then.