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Passionate in ensuring systems are simple, and relationships are based on open communication, trust and mutual respect, I work to engage clients and students and to smooth their path to success. Focusing on personal development, my skills lie in career development, leadership, coaching, strategic planning, new ventures, and governance. I love learning, constantly adding new ideas and theories to my knowledge kete. A professional member of CDANZ, and a member of CATE, APCDA, NCDA, I teach on the Career Development programme at NMIT, and on the AUT Bachelor of Sport & Recreation programme.

What's New on My Blog ↓

Friday, 13 June 2025

DOTS to SODI

The DOTS model, developed by UK educators, Tony Watts and Bill Law (1977) proposes four task quadrants which we must each develop; those of decision learning, opportunity awareness, transition learning, and self-awareness (read more here). Today this model has been reorganised as the SODI model, in order of where the learning is likely to arise first: self-awareness; opportunity awareness; decision-making (and - potentially - planning); and implementing plans (Graduate Careers Australia, 2023; Mi et al., 2021).

Interestingly, the four DOTS components (Watts & Law, 1977)  - opportunity awareness, self awareness, decision-learning and transition learning - were created four years before publication (Andrews, 2014, p. 33) and was not called DOTS until "someone thought about rearranging the four elements into an order that produced an easily remembered acronym" (p. 33). Earlier, DOTS was known as "the NICEC objectives" (p. 33). 

The DOTS model is now past its 45th birthday: and while the names evolve - "self-development; learning and work exploration; career planning and career management" (Andrews, 2017, p. 12) - the model's premise remains largely the same. We need to know ourselves; know when to make a move; be able to make a balanced decision, and know how to plan. 

And speaking of planning, Bill Law (co-founder of the DOTS model) thought that the model was shy of planning, and needed strengthening (Andrews, 2027, p. 12).  He also thought that we ask students "to deal with quite challenging and complex ideas before we have helped them to acquire more basic knowledge and skills", and that "we ask young people to make career choices before they have enough to go [i.e. make an informed decision] on (p. 12). True. And remains true.

What others have done - and I have been unable to find an original source for this work - is to reorganise and rename some DOTS elements so there is better 'flow'. We still lead with self-awareness, and next comes opportunity awareness; followed by decision-making and planning; and lastly, implementation (Mi et al., 2021). This is the SODI model. More straight-forward naming still is to "know yourself", "explore options", "get focused" and "take action" (p. 5), though I don't think that KEGT is going to be a winner.

New Zealanders use SODI. The Australians call it SODA (implementing becomes "Acting and planning"), which you can read a little more about here.

It would be interesting to know who did the reorganisation/renaming. If anyone knows, please message me!


Sam

References:

Andrews, D. (2017). ‘A giant from whose shoulders we might all see further’: Bill Law’s contributions to careers work in schools. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 39(1), 11-15. https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/nicec/redactor2_assets/files/63/NICEC_Journal_39_Oct2017.pdf

Andrews, D. (2014). Careers education: Tony’s legacy. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 33(1), 31-36. https://hubble-live-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/nicec/redactor2_assets/files/80/NICEC_Journal_33_Oct_2014.pdf

Graduate Careers Australia. (2008). A Career Planning and Development Model: Using the SODI Model for Self-Assessment. https://www.graduatecareers.com.au/files/content/view/full/372/

Law, B. & Watts, A. G. (1977). Schools, Careers and Community: A study of some approaches to careers education in schools. Church Information Office.

Mi, N. D. Q., Giang, D. T. T., & Duy, P. N. (2021). Empowering learner autonomy by data-driven career development planning. In T. Dieu, N. Minh Hung, N. Xuan Huan, L. Thi Kim Hoa, L. Huu Son, D. Phu Hung, L. Hung Tien, & L. Dinh Phung (Eds.), The 1st Van Lang International Conference on Heritage and Technology Conference Proceedings 2021 (Vol. 2406, No. 1, Article 020035). American Institute of Physics. https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0067047

read more "DOTS to SODI"

Wednesday, 11 June 2025

Burdening factors

I read an interesting article recently which mentioned the concept of the "burdening factor" (Oksa et al., 2023, p. 1740). The implication being that over time, a task becomes too onerous for the benefit it conveys. A burdening factor - effectively a stressor - has been subdivided for the world of work into three psychological burdens: those of "overload, monotony and non-specific factor[s]" (Truhlarova et al., 2020, p. 4). This is where: 

  • overload includes "time pressure, [...] high responsibility, [... and] problems and conflicts. 
  • monotony includes "low contentment, [...] mind-numbing work, [...and] monotony. 
  • "non-specific factor[s, or] stress response[s]", effectively a catch-all for hard to define items, and includes "nervousness, [...] mental satiation, [...] exhaustion and [...] long-term bearability" (p. 4)

German research found that nurses "wanting to do even more for the patients [...were met with] such a burdening factor that they [could...]not realise their own demands", due to the burdening factor of time (Bernburg et al., 2023, p. 10) - or overload, if we are to use the groupings by Truhlarova et al. (2020). 

Burdening factors may fall more on women than men; as more women are nurses, teachers, and career development practitioners (Furbish, 2002; Lowery-Kappes & Young, 2023; Phillips, 2011); which are also lower paid fields (Phillips, 2011), and where time is not generally made during work hours for staff to undertake professional development (Bernberg et al., 2023; Phillips, 2011). In order to stay in our professions, our work duties expand beyond the paid working day.  

Not only is PD yet another burden in an already busy life, but logging the PD becomes an additional burdening factor. Thus "[r]ecord keeping [is...] seen as a chore and these employees also felt that the employer was the beneficiary and not" the person who had undertaken the CPD in the first place (Phillips, 2011, p. 56), with "many [being] discouraged and put off by having to record their own CPD", and that "since having to record the activities they actually did less" continuous PD (p. 57). What is interesting is that the PD being reported here is being reported to the employer, not to a professional organisation; so it is easy to see why having to again log the PD hours feels even more burdensome for the individual. 

We need simple ways to undertake and to record PD. Make it easy, not hard, professional organisations! 


Sam

References:

Bernburg, M., Harth, V., Groneberg, D. A., & Mache, S. (2023). “Always Look at the Clock”: Psychosocial Working Conditions in Outpatient Care—A Qualitative Study. Healthcare, 11(23), 3043, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11233043

Furbish, D. S. (2002). A Snapshot of New Zealand Career Practitioners. Australian Journal of Career Development, 11(2), 13-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/103841620201100204

Lowery-Kappes, H., & Young, S., (2023). The Shape of Career Practice in Aotearoa NZ [slidedeck]. CANNEXUS23 Conference 23-25 January 2023. https://cannexus23.gtr.pathable.com/meetings/virtual/q32dbm9cxwNqDYAnd

Oksa, R., Kaakinen, M., Savela, N., Ellonen, N., & Oksanen, A. (2023). Social media use in professional organizations: boosting and draining workforce. Behaviour & Information Technology, 42(11), 1740-1757. https://doi.org/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2094833

Phillips, M. (2011). The role of self-direction in Australian sonographers' professional development. [PhD Thesis, Deakin University]. https://dro.deakin.edu.au/articles/thesis/The_role_of_self-direction_in_Australian_sonographers_professional_development/21099964/1/files/37440574.pdf

Truhlarova, Z., Stech, O., Voseckova, A., Klimova, B., & Kuca, K. (2020). Assessment of mental burden of family caregivers of persons with health disabilities in the Czech Republic. Social Sciences, 9(6), 95, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci9060095

Image created with https://deepai.org/machine-learning-model/film-collage-generator

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Monday, 9 June 2025

Why Choose an Ethical Framework?

When we are new to a field, or when we need to deliberate about an unexpected dilemma which has arisen in the course of our work, using a framework guides us. Using a framework that is new to us can help us to consider- examine - issues we may not have taken the time to have considered, without having had that framework to take us on that unexpected journey. And when those dilemmas get wound up with ethical principles and values, we need to explore what has occurred and use “professionally accepted decision-making models” that fit our context (Parsons & Dickinson, 2017, p. 213; Swanson & Fouad, 2020).

We tend to repeat what we know: we are predictable beings, and we can simply 'rinse repeat' when doing familiar tasks. But when we take the time to see situations from another's perspective, our focus can shift, and we may suddenly see our field, problem, or opportunity anew. That has immense power. If there are frameworks in this post which we have used before, trying one we are unfamiliar with may help us to reach a destination at "the end of all our exploring [we] will [...] arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time" (Gardner, 1985, p. 897).

That is a very powerful aspect of reframing which gives us new insights, changes how we think of our rights and responsibilities. These shifts allow us to grow.

I have explored three ethical frameworks that we can consider, as follows: 

  • Welfel (2016) with the model detailed here
  • Bond (2005), which the 6 step model used in the CDANZ (2020) webinar (here), and which you can read more about here; and 
  • Velasquez et al. (2009), where we can explore the six lenses here, and the ten questions to ask here. Further, there is a simple set of four questions which we can ask, which was based on the very early work that Velasquez was involved in by Cavanagh et al (1981), which can be explored here.

If anyone finds other ethical frameworks, please share them with me: it is always great to collect new tools for our kete! 

The choice of which to use, though, as always, is ours.


Sam

References:

Bond, T. (2005). Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action (Counselling in Action series) (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications Ltd.

Cavanagh, G. F., Moberg, D. J., & Velasquez, M. (1981). The Ethics of Organizational Politics. Academy of Management Review 6(3), 363-374. https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1981.4285767

CDANZ. (2020, October 29). CDANZ Webinar: Ethical scenarios in career practice [video]. Career Development Association of New Zealand. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f7-cmGvGxUGK9KZraXheRaR6En2N57HE/view

Parsons, R. D., & Dickinson, K. L. (2017). Ethical practice in the human services from knowing to being. SAGE Publications Inc.

Swanson, J. L., & Fouad, N. A. (2020). Career theory and practice: learning through case studies. Sage Publications

Velasquez, M., Moberg, D., Meyer, M. J., Shanks, T., McLean, M. R., DeCosse, D., André, C., Kirk, O., & Hanson, K. O. (2009). A Framework for Ethical Decision Making. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/

Velasquez, M., André, C., Shanks, T., & Meyer, M. J. (2015). Thinking Ethically. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/thinking-ethically/

Welfel, E. R. (2016). Ethics in counseling and psychotherapy: Standards, research, and emerging issues (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

read more "Why Choose an Ethical Framework?"

How to cite and reference TV shows

Ah, the tricky work of correctly APA citing TV shows! It was only when writing a recent post that I realised that I hadn't written an entry on how to formulate the reference for these! And while we think this might be quite simple, in practice, it usually turns out to be slightly more difficult than it appears on the tin.

But the APA 7th edition publication manual will guide us (American Psychological Association, 2019). In the Reference Examples chapter, Audiovisual Media section, the notes suggest that we could use specific writers and/or directors for particular episodes of a series; or we could use the Executive Producer for an entire series (American Psychological Association, 2019). Or - I am guessing - whatever is the simplest to find and use.

So, if we keep our main objective front of mind: that we aim to give our reader a guide back to the source, then keeping our reference as simple as possible will assist us in making an optimal decision. But there is another consideration: what are the conventions for other media types? In the last post, explaining how to reference films (here), we might remember that the director becomes the 'author'. That is something to consider in finding our components for referencing TV shows.

So let's look at the components for citing the series, Get Smart. I turned to Wikipedia (2025) and the Get Smart Wiki (2025) and found the following information:

  • Directors: Gary Nelson, Bruce Bilson, Don Adams, James Komack, Earl Bellamy, Howard Morris, Paul Bogart... and the list goes on
  • Producers: Jay Sandrich (1965–66), Arnie Rosen (1966–67), Jess Oppenheimer (1967), Burt Nodella (1967–69), Chris Hayward (1969–70)
  • Executive Producers: Leonard B. Stern, Arne Sultan (1968–70)
  • Writers: Mel Brooks, Buck Henry, Gerald Gardner, Dee Caruso, Stan Burns, Mike Marmer... and this list too goes on and on
  • Dates: 1965-1970
  • Title: Get Smart
  • Production Company: Talent Associates; CBS Productions

My best guess for a simple reference for the entire series is:

Stern, L. B. (Executive Producer), Sultan, A. (Executive Producer, 1968–70). (1965-1970). Get Smart [TV Series, 1-5]. Talent Associates; CBS Productions.

Thus the citation would be:

(Stern & Sultan, 1965-1970)

I hope this helps!


Sam

References:

American Psychological Association (2019). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.). Author.

Get Smart Wiki. (2025). Get Smart. https://getsmart.fandom.com/wiki/Get_Smart

Wikipedia. (2025). Get Smart. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Smart

read more "How to cite and reference TV shows"

Friday, 6 June 2025

Soft skills? Non-cognitive skills

I have posted about Zeil before (here), but a blog post last year suggests their "data reveals what in-demand personality traits are worth in the New Zealand job market", noting that "A good place to start when looking for a rewarding career is to look at your personality strengths, often referred to as ‘soft skills’" (Mowbray, 2024).

Now, "soft skills" is an interesting term. What are they, really? Well, they are also known as "non-cognitive skills", "socio-emotional skills, soft skills, transversal competences, social competences, ‘21st century skills’, [k]ey competences, generic competences, or even basic and life skills" (Cinque et al, 2021, p. 7); to which we could add "flexibility, team spirit, communication, motivation, critical thinking, adaptive, multi-tasking and innovative responses, well-being, social and collaborative problem-solving abilities" (Staboulis & Lazaridou, 2020, p. 3943); and "a variety of behaviours, personality characteristics, and attitudes with academic skills, aptitudes, and attainment" (Gutman & Schoon, 2013, p. 8). So quite a list, then.

From these definitions, it appears that non-cognitive skills aren't really 'soft' at all: these are personality characteristics which employers seek in employees. Characteristics such as punctuality. Lateral thinking. Initiative. Attention to detail. Dedication. Persistence. Trouble-shooting. These skills are the difference between 'a pudding that takes up space on a seat' compared to a 'go-getter who drives projects forward'. It seems obvious which person appears more employable.

The ten highest average salaries containing a corresponding non-cognitive skill identified by Zeil are listed as follows (Mowbray, 2024):

$103,676Ability to work in a team
$100,960Being able to take charge
$91,239Flexibility
$87,506Problem Solving
$83,328Listening
$79,226Communication
$72,047Interpersonal skills
$69,063Managing your time
$61,271Customer Service
$56,230Strong Work Ethic

It would be helpful to know how Zeil put this list together. Most of us are more likely to work on our team work skills as the return is twice as high as the bottom-most non-cognitive skill (work ethic). I also find it interesting that a strong worth ethic only aligns with roles where the average salary is only slightly more than minimum wage. Perhaps employers may say that while they want a strong work ethic, they are not willing to pay for it...? 

Anyway, an interesting list!


Sam

References:

Cinque, M., Carretero, S., & Napierala, J. (2021). Non-cognitive skills and other related concepts: towards a better understanding of similarities and differences (No. 2021/09). JRC Working Papers Series on Labour, Education and Technology. https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/236541/1/176491032X.pdf

Gutman, L. M., & Schoon, I. (2013). The impact of non-cognitive skills on outcomes for young people. A literature review. The Institute of Education [UK]. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10125763/1/Gutman_Schoon_%202013%20Non-cognitive_skills_literature_review_.pdf

Mowbray, A. (2024, February 24). 10 highest paying soft skills. Zeil. https://zeil.com/blog/articles/10-high-paying-soft-skills

Staboulis, M., & Lazaridou, I. (2020). Non Cognitive Skills as the new metric in recent labor markets–Case Study: The impact of social media in promoting and developing skills. In INTED2020 Proceedings (pp. 3943-3950). IATED. https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/63049452/stab_laz_INTED2020_912020200422-93961-m2nhd4-libre.pdf?1587554861=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DNON_COGNITIVE_SKILLS_AS_THE_NEW_METRIC_I.pdf

read more "Soft skills? Non-cognitive skills"

Wednesday, 4 June 2025

No body to incarcerate

There is a saying attributed to UK peer and - as Lord Chancellor, head of the courts - Baron Thurlow, which I had heard along the lines of corporations having "no soul to save and no body to incarcerate" (Stibbe, 2013, p. 126; Achbar & Abbot, 2004, 12:46). When I went looking for that particular quote, I ran across the following - also presented as a quote: "Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?" (Coffee, 1981, p. 386; King, 1977, p. 1); and even more stirringly, Baron Thurlow reputedly whispered an aside, "[a]nd, by God, it ought to have both" (p. 386, citing Menchen, 1942, p. 223). 

But I was confused. Which was the actual quote? 

"no soul to save and no body to incarcerate" (Stibbe, 2013, p. 126);

Or

"no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?" (Coffee, 1981, p. 386).

First I went looking for Coffee's sources (1981); Mencken (1942), and King (1977). I found King, who had simply listed, as quote on page 1 of the text, exactly what Coffee had cited. I could not find a 1942 version of the Mencken book. I found a 1962 edition, which contained the following:

"'A corporation is just like any natural person, except that it has no pants to kick or soul to damn, and, by God, it ought to have both!' Ascribed to an unnamed Western judge in ERNST and LINDLEY: Hold Your Tongue, 1932" (Mencken, 1962, p. 223). 

So this one was apparently not Baron Thurlow; but an anonymous judge (who could be Baron Thurlow, but perhaps the author themselves was unsure so erred on the side of safety). In seeking Mencken's sources I hit a dead end; when I went looking for the Ernst and Lindey text I could only find an updated edition, from 1950, which did not contain this quote. Hmm. Perhaps Coffee had conflated the two entries, and ascribing the King source to the Mencken quote?

So I went looking for the quote which I had remembered: roughly no soul to save or body to incarcerate, this time using Wikiquote. And I found:

"Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like", citing Poynder (1844, p. 268) with the clarification that "This is often misquoted as 'Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?'"

Ah. Now this sounded roughly right. I went looking for Poynder (1844, p. 268) in the Internet Archive (here) and checked the entry. It read as follows:

"LORD CHANCELLOR THURLOW said that Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned; they therefore do as they like", citing "Miscellaneous".

It is worth noting here that, in the preface, Poynder said "Where an entry is marked as 'Miscellaneous' it may either be referred to the desultory reading which had only left its impress on the memory, and where the precise authority could not be recovered; or else may be considered as original matter now first commended to notice" (1844, p. iv). Brownie points are owed to Poynder for admitting the potential for the vagaries of memory. However, I still think I will go with his account, as Poynder made a business of collecting quotes, publishing two volumes, and he was a partial contemporary of Thurlow (who lived 1731 to 1806; Poynder 1779 to 1849; Wikiquote, 2025). I could be wrong, of course in my assumption, and will keep my eyes peeled for any earlier evidence.

We do need to be careful in attributing sayings, but having so many out of print books searchable online is an amazing assist for quote-hunters everywhere.


Sam

References:

Achbar, M. (Director), & Abbott, J. (Director) (2004). The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power [documentary film]. Big Picture Media Corporation.

Coffee, J. C. (1981). "No soul to damn: no body to kick": An unscandalized inquiry into the problem of corporate punishment. Michigan Law Review, 79(3), 386-459. https://doi.org/10.2307/1288201

King, M. (1977). Public Policy and the Corporation. Chapman and Hall.

Mencken, H. L. (1962). A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources. Alfred A. Knopf.

Poynder, J. (1844). Literary Extracts from English and Other Works; collected during half a century (Vol. 1). John Hatchard and Son.

Stibbe, A. (2013). The Corporation as Person and Psychopath: Multimodal metaphor, rhetoric and resistance. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines (CADADD) Journal, 6(2), 114-136. https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/681/1/The%20Corporation%20as%20Person%20and%20Psychopath.pdf

Wikiquote. (2025). Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edward_Thurlow,_1st_Baron_Thurlow

read more "No body to incarcerate"

Monday, 2 June 2025

More on catchphrases

Our family were collectors of catch phrases from popular media which somehow managed to anchor in our collective psyche. As we have created our own families, those habits have endured. I have written about catchphrases before (here), but that post reminded me about our family habit, and I began to note some favourites as I encountered them. I have collected some of these phrases in this post. 

Such as this line from The Castle where the Kerrigan family are served rissoles at the dinner table: "Yeah, but it's what you do with it" (Sitch, 1997, 11:23). I always impute a 'darl' onto the end of that particular line, although the 'darl' occurs in the earlier exploration of the sponge cake "What d'you call that, darl?" (2:40). Not to mention the classic place to store precious presents from the family: "This is going straight to the pool room" (8:20), "Looks like everybody's kicked a goal" (18:06) about seasoning on chicken, and "We're going to Bonny Doon" (23:36). 

I also love the phrase "A fish goes rotten from it's head" (from the Turkish, "the fish stinks first at the head", Porter, 1768, p. 27). Why? Because it implies that as the leaders are, so shall the followers be. Good leadership will inspire good followership. A stink will create a stink throughout. 

"I love it when a plan comes together" (Hasburgh & Cannell, 1983). Ah, the A Team. Gone but not forgotten.

Which leads me to "Ah, it's the old [XXX] trick" from Get Smart (Stern & Sultan, 1965-1970); the "cone of silence" (which morphed into the 'cone of shame' for pet post-op self-harm prevention); and "Sorry about that, chief" the latter being our father's favourite stock phrase. 

Then there was the Fabergé organics shampoo: the ad which had Heather Locklear saying "I told two friends about it, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on" while the screen divided into two, four, eight, sixteen and so on Heathers (ewjxn, 2020, 0:07). 

Or how about "Thunderbirds are GO!" (Anderson, 1966). Nothing like telling people that, to galvanise us all: darned near sixty years on.

And then there is the often mis-quoted opening crawl from the first Star Wars movie, "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....", which I always remember as long, long "ago, in a galaxy far, far away...." (Lucas, 1977). 

Not to mention from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, John Cleese's French Maitre'D character offering Terry Jones's Mr Creosote: "And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint" (Monty Python, 2025), before Mr Creosote explodes, first verbally, then physically. 

And the Life of Brian (1979). So many to choose from here! John Cleese as a Roman Centurion "Wha's this then" and proceeds to give Brian a Latin grammar lesson (24:47). Mandy, mother of Brian, saying "He's not the messiah! He's a very naughty boy!" (1:05:34). "Only the true Messiah denies His divinity!" Brian retorts "What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!" whereupon his followers say "He is! He is the Messiah!"(1:01:50). And finally, where Eric Idle sings "Some things in life are bad, they can really make you mad; and other things just make you swear and curse. When you are chewing on life's gristle; don't grumble, give a whistle! And this'll make things turn out for the best -" (1:29:43).

"...and always look on the bright side of life" (1:30:04).


Sam

References:

Anderson, S. (1966). Thunderbirds Are Go [puppet film]. Century 21 Productions.

ewjxn. (2020, March 4). 1984 Fabergé Organics shampoo "Heather Locklear told two friends" TV Commercial [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Hyxmj1Yf6Dk

Hasburgh, P. (Producer), & Cannell, S. J. (Writer). (1983). The A-Team Series 1 [Lt.Col. John "Hannibal" Smith catchphrase]. NBC.

Jones, T. (1979). Life of Brian [film]. HandMade Films; Python (Monty) Pictures.

Lucas, G. (Writer, Director). (1977). Star Wars [Episode IV: A New Hope]. Lucasfilm.

Monty Python. (2025). The Meaning of Life Script - Part VI: The Autumn Years. http://www.montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Meaning_of_Life/10.htm

Porter, J. (1768). Observations on the Religion, Law, Government, and Manners, of the Turks (Vol 1.). J. Norse Bookseller.

Sitch, R. (Director). (1997). The Castle [film]. Working Dog Productions.

Stern, L. B. (Executive Producer), Sultan, A. (Executive Producer, 1968–70). (1965-1970). Get Smart [TV Series, 1-5]. Talent Associates; CBS Productions.

Wikipedia. (2025). Monty Python's Life of Brian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python's_Life_of_Brian

read more "More on catchphrases"

Friday, 30 May 2025

Writing and reflection

If we aren't familiar with reflective writing, but want to give it a try, there is a simple exercise we can do. Over four days, taking maybe quarter of an hour each day, we write our deepest feelings - i.e. expressive writing - about an emotional or challenging time we have experienced (Pennebaker, 2004). That's it. 

If you haven't read Pennebaker's 2004 book, it is worth getting a copy. The practical techniques it contains in what is largely a workbook range from Julia Cameron-esque morning pages to writing using a mirror; from dancing prior to writing to close handwriting examination; from covering our writing as we go to using nonverbal expressions (Pennebaker, 2004). If we write about our crises - effectively confide to paper/screen - that act seems to improve our health (Pennebaker, 2004). After trauma, the research appears to show that the act of 'confiding' is very beneficial for us, leading to fewer doctor's visits (Pennebaker, 2004). The research indicates that even this type of short-term focused writing is beneficial: strengthening immune systems, improving scholarly performance, and potentially improving lives (Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016).  If you want to dig more into the research, read Pennebaker and Smyth (2016).

While I know there is value in actually writing by hand, I am not someone who will do that. I have been a keyboard warrior since 1989, and I know I will not hand-write if I can possibly avoid it. So for me, using 750words to write each day provides my safety valve, and my confidante for emotional processing (read more on my 750words experiences here). 

The founders of 750words, Buster and Kellianne Benson, designed a web platform for us to pour in our daily Julia Cameron-esque morning pages, also drawing on the work of Pennebaker (2004). A hand-written page is roughly 250 words; morning words are three pages: hence the 750word daily target (Benson, 2024). Most days I would write maybe twice that amount. But I have managed to write pretty much every day, and when I wrote this post I was on an unbroken 2100 day streak.

The interesting thing is that people who write on the 750word platform often write testimonials and inspirational notes. Buster has collected the 11,000 notes written by members of the platform, analysing them, and found that they fell into roughly four categories: observations; orientations; decisions; and actions (Benson, 2024). They make an interesting collection of feedback to read on Medium (here). 

If you can't keep a diary; if you struggle with writing reflection that goes deeper than the superficial; have a crack at 750words. You may unleash your untapped trauma processor.


Sam

References:

Benson, B. (2024, December 4). I analyzed 15 years of testimonials from users of 750words.com to learn how their private journaling habits have helped them: Or, how I plan to get around the task of marketing my site by letting people speak for themselves. Medium. https://medium.com/750-words/i-analyzed-15-years-of-testimonials-from-users-of-750words-com-to-learn-how-journaling-helped-them-9665c93814e8

Pennebaker, J. W. (2004). Writing to Heal: A guided journal for recovering from trauma. New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

Pennebaker, J. W., & Smyth, J. M. (2016). Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain (3rd ed.). The Guilford Press.

read more "Writing and reflection"

Wednesday, 28 May 2025

UK Bitesize Careers

The BBC has a series of podcasts on careers, called "Bitesize Careers" targeted at school leavers, which can be listened to on BBC Sounds (here; Thistledon, 2024). BBC Radio 1 presenter Katie Thistleton interviews a range of interesting and inspiring people - including students and career practitioners. As well as on BBC Sounds, the Bitesize Careers podcasts can also be found at a range of locations, including Amazon (here) and Podchaser (here). 

However, this is not simply a series of British career-oriented interviews. The podcasts themselves are beautifully supported by a wide range of career resources (BBC, 2024a) including information about jobs using particular school subjects; careers in a range of sectors; skills and attributes (called 'qualities'); paths from secondary school (University, Apprenticeships and other post-secondary options; BBC, 2024c); and a great section called tips and inspiration (BBC, 2024d). There is a list of careers from "A to Z"; a range of quizzes which students can select from; and toolkits for putting together CVs, application letters, and preparing for interviews.

Yes, some of the material is so context-specific to the UK as to be of little value to school leavers in Aotearoa (such as the section on choosing a University, which bears little resemblance to the New Zealand system; BBC, 2024d) but other sections are fabulous (such as five questions to ask yourself about your future job; BBC, 2024b). Many of the sections are supported by video, and I was very interested to see just how specialised the UK apprenticeship system is, and what professions can be entered in this way (BBC, 2024d; scroll further down the page for the apprenticeship section). More of this type of job entry here would be fabulous for so many of our rangatahi.

All in all, this is a rich site, and well worth a stroll around.


Sam

References:

BBC. (2024a). Careers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/careers

BBC. (2024b). Careers: Help! What am I good at?. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z4t3qyc#z9xsdnb

BBC. (2024c). Careers: Help! What am I good at?. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/groups/cm5m6rkdwyvt

BBC. (2024d). Tips and Inspiration. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/groups/cj13rxxpq0vt

Thistleton, K. (2024). Bitesize Careers [podcast]. BBC/Redbrick Media. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0h80c73

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Monday, 26 May 2025

The Barnum Effect

The Barnum effect, named after the US circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum, is where we take general personality statements as being uniquely and specifically attributable/applicable to ourselves (Mugglin & Frederickson, 2024). So - for example - this is where we read a horoscope published in a newspaper and manage to make it meaningful to our own lives via mental gymnastics and a forced-fit.

We are so good at buying in to a test, and 'believing' what we are told... rather than taking the sales pitch with a grain - or gob - of salt (Gonthier & Thomassin, 2024). We most often find the Barnum effect appears in those who are invested in the results of astrology, numerology, tarot, and those 'personality' tests which lack scientific rigour (Gonthier & Thomassin, 2024). By rigour, I mean research attributes such as validity, reliability, replicability and generalisability (Maula & Stam, 2020).

We humans are born with credulity: we are programmed to believe. The analogy is clear: the prediction of such personality test instruments is alike to fortune-telling, and there is indeed a "sucker born every minute"- a phrase which, although attributed to P. T. Barnum, cannot be verified as being said by the man himself (Saxton, 1989, p. 335).

Research has found that we "tend to believe in bogus personality profiles", and even worse we are "often unable to distinguish between bogus feedback and [our] actual profile on a test" (Gonthier & Thomassin, 2024, p. 1). As we get older, we tend get more cynical; perhaps because we realise that there is only a 'man behind the curtain' (Baum, 1900), as opposed to some mystical insight into our own nature. Because of our tendency to 'believe' when told something confidently, we must deliberately apply our BS-detector, and consider whether what we were told is actually true, or whether we would like it to be true.

Factual reality is more enduring - and useful to our own development - than enjoyable fakery.


Sam

References:

Baum, L. F. (1900). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. George M. Hill Company.

Gonthier, C., & Thomassin, N. (2024). Getting students interested in psychological measurement by experiencing the Barnum effect. Teaching of Psychology. Advance online publication, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1177/00986283241240454

Maula, M., & Stam, W. (2020). Enhancing Rigor in Quantitative Entrepreneurship Research. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 44(6), 1059-1090. https://doi.org/10.1177/1042258719891388

Mugglin, G., & Frederickson, J. (2024). Personality statements and the Barnum Effect [Poster Presentation 49]. Science Research Symposium, Bethel University, Arden Hills, Minnesota, 11 April 2024. https://spark.bethel.edu/science_symposium/spring2024/schedule2024/49/

Saxon, A. H. (1989). P. T. Barnum: the Legend and the Man. Columbia University Press.

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Friday, 23 May 2025

A tax on hope

I read a great phrase last year that lotteries were a tax on hope. So I tried to find out where that came from. However, it proved to be a very tricky phrase to track to the source.

A GoogleScholar search found a number of articles which used the phrase, including:

"lottery tickets are like a tax on hope: secretly we all dream of winning the jackpot, and when we don’t, we feel cheated or unlucky" (Iñiguez, 2023, p. 48-49)

That while governments have a range of tools to raise capital, a "common factor remained cashing in on gambling to generate revenue" with the "state as gaming house keeper" which could then "lev[y] a 'tax on hope'" (Zollinger, 2016, p. 35); with a footnote "This notion, however, was usually applied to lotteries" (p. 35)

"State-run lotteries are sometimes referred to as a 'stealth' tax, a 'tax on hope,' or a 'tax on the poor.' A breakdown of the revenue distribution from each ticket shows that a significant percentage is almost always taxed by the state" (Hadzi-Miceva-Evans, 2009, p. 77). Sadly, the footnote for the quote points us to a rotten link (Hansen, 2005)

Lottery ticket sales are ubiquitous in Italy, with Italians considering "them as a sort of tax on hope [...] and we all have hope" (Waugh, 1997, 692)

US magazine, Taxes, explained that charging citizens taxes based on their future share returns was a "tax on hope" (Richard, 1957, p. 818).  

So the earliest I found was the 1950s. I was so sure there must be earlier appearances: largely because this phrase sounds so very Victorian. That kind of judgy-holier-than-thou sanctimony that people in long skirts can carry off so effectively. Interestingly, it seems that "the more states [or governments] need money, the more tolerant they are of gambling" (Zollinger, 2016, p. 35); presumably as that means to raise funds which are outside the income or GST/VAT system. Those who gamble may not think through to the logical end: that state-sanctioned gambling is still a form of taxation; instead, gamblers see it as a 'chance'. 

However, I think my desire to associate the phrase with the Victorians is misplaced. It seems that the source may well be Bertrand Russell. While he was a Victorian baby (born in 1872), in 1951, he presented a talk to "the corporate customers" of a printing company called Hazell Watson & Viney, "comparing the reach of books to that of broadcasts" (Leal & Marraud, 2022, p. 2, citing Blackwell & Ruja, 1993, p. xxxix), hoping that:

The BBC's new "Third Programme [might] so stimulate the intellectual life of the nation that it will read more books than ever before. Let us hope so, since as yet there is no tax on hope" (Blackwell & Ruja, 1993, p. xxxix; Leal & Marraud, 2022, p. 2). The 'third programme' was an educational channel tasked with delivering science and factual information to the nation, funded by the taxpayer. So it appears that 'a tax on hope' may not have originally referred to lotteries, but to the use of public money to develop the intellect of the national UK population.

Bertrand Russell had such a gift for language that I am happy to attribute this fine phrase to him. Of course the saying may pre-date him: I will stay vigilant for an earlier version in print, but I feel that I may have found the originator

"I love it when a plan comes together" (Hasburgh & Cannell, 1983). 

 

Sam

References:

Blackwell, K., and Ruja, H. (1993). A bibliography of Bertrand Russell (Vol. I). Routledge.

Hadzi-Miceva-Evans, K. (2009). Lottery Proceeds as Tool for Support of Good Causes and Civil Society Organizations: A Fate or a Planned Concept. International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, 12(4), 71-79. https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/ijnpl12&i=376

Hansen, A. (2005). Lotteries are another state tax—but with better marketing. The Tax Foundation. https://taxfoundation.org/lotteries-are-another-state-tax-better-marketing/

Hasburgh, P. (Producer), & Cannell, S. J. (Writer). (1983). The A-Team Series 1 [Lt.Col. John "Hannibal" Smith catchphrase]. NBC.

Iñiguez, S. (2023). Philosophy Inc: Applying Wisdom to Everyday Management. Palgrave Macmillan.

Richard, D. (1957). In This Issue. Taxes - The Tax Magazine, 35(11), 818-821. https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/taxtm35&i=838

Waugh, D. (1997). The Die is Cast. Canadian Medical Association, 156(5), 692. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1232840/pdf/cmaj_156_5_692.pdf

Zollinger, M. (Ed.). (2016). Random Riches: Gambling past & present. Routledge.

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Wednesday, 21 May 2025

More on effective slide decks


Following on from the last post (here) on putting slide decks together, I thought I would put a few tips together for writing academic presentations, as they are a bit different to business presentations.

Firstly, if, when we are creating a presentation, and are 'write a script first' person, once we have the first rough draft of our script, we can work out how many minutes our script might convert to. As a general rule of thumb I tend to present at 2 minutes per slide, but with a new presentation it can be hard to gauge. However, we can simply go to https://wordstotime.com/ and load our word count in. The site will give us a rough conversion to minutes. Yay!

Secondly, In academic presentations, we need to flag what sources we have used in constructing our slide AND our script. We may verbally cite important sources within a presentation, but we also need to cite on the slides themselves, and in the script so we know whose expert views we have drawn on; and so we can connect our audience to other research. While we should get into the habit of including a multiple works citation on each slide, there are two methods for citing on slides:

  • Where only one source applies for a single bulleted line, manually add the citation bracket at the end of that line (see image accompanying this post above);
    AND/OR
  • Add all citations in a multiple works citation bracket elsewhere on the slide... being consistent about placement so our audience knows where to find it. But definitely include a multiple works citation bracket for all other sources used in presenting that slide on EACH SLIDE.

However, if we are quoting, the citation should be beside the quote (see the top and middle slides above for details). We should also have a reference slide - or slides - at the end of our presentation so our audience can see our sources. It should be listed in alpha-numeric order, with DOIs for all journal articles in full APA 7th edition manner, for all the sources cited on any and all of our slides (as per the bottom slide above).


Sam

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Monday, 19 May 2025

The 93% non-verbal communication myth

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away there was an academic called Albert Mehrabian, who - aside from lecturing at California's UCLA and writing a number of tomes and papers - also wrote a book called "Silent Messages". And in that book, he happened to briefly detail some research, where his team had explored how we act alongside what we say in order to accurately get a response from the person we are talking to (1971). As he says, "in our culture, we are excessively sensitized to words" (Mehrabian, 1971, p. 41), and it is "very difficult, unless we have some audio-video record, to identify and to cope with nonverbal expressions of hostility that are cloaked by simultaneous verbal expressions to which we cannot legitimately take exception" (p. 41). In the study, a researcher read single words to university student participants - e.g. 'love' etc - using different tones and expressions, then asked the participants if they felt they understood what the researcher meant (Morgan, 2016). The study aimed to see if the audience could get the researcher's intent despite the difference in tone and delivery (Morgan, 2016).

"One interesting question now arises: Is there a systematic and coherent approach to resolving the general meaning or impact of an inconsistent message? Indeed there is. Our experimental results [...] show [that] Total liking = 7% verbal liking + 38% vocal liking + 55% facial liking. Thus the impact of facial expression is greatest" (Mehrabian, 1971, p. 43)

So the participants "decoded the intent behind the speaker’s words from 'visual clues' 55% of the time, and from 'tone of voice' 38% of the time. Only 7% of the time did the audience go to the actual words" (Morgan, 2016). 

An example given was that of "The fast-talking auctioneer [who] is a champion of inconsistency [. Their] voluble and almost incessant speech shows a great deal of responsiveness, but [their] bland expressions and monotonous voice are at the other extreme — completely unresponsive" (Mehrabian, 1971, p. 43). Perhaps auctioneers were once quite atonal. Not so much these days!

So 55% of meaning comes from the face of the speaker; 38% from the tone; and 7% from the words (Mehrabian, 1971). If we look deep into someone's eyes, while smiling (55% of the message), with a caressing tone of voice (38%) and say we love them (7%), they will get the full force of our consistent message, body language and tone. Yay!

Poor old Albert did NOT mean that only 7% of the message is non-verbal; he was talking about where his participants felt meaning transfer was coming from: the words, the tone or the face. If the message lacks congruence, do we lose sense of the message that the sender is sending us. How we say it is important for message clarity; tone as well as words. If everything is congruent, then our message is better understood by the receiver (Mehrabian, 1971). Perhaps we might be better to say that 45% is what we say and our tone, versus our facial expression?

We should note that the original study was pretty unscientific: it was self-reported; meaning-transfer was not checked for understanding; and the most significant finding was that if "words and non-verbal messages [...] conflict, people believe the non-verbal every time. For example, when a spouse asks, “Are you still angry with me?” and the injured party responds 'No,' with folded arms and an angry tone, only an idiot doesn’t realize that in this case 'no' means 'yes'" (Morgan, 2016).

So if someone tells you that 93% of meaning is non-verbal, remind them that actually it is words, tone and expression. 

Nice to put this myth to bed, too. 


Sam

References:

Mehrabian, A. (1971). Silent Messages. Wadsworth Publishing Company, Inc.

Morgan, M. (2016, May 20). Build Real Impact: Mehrabian’s Myth – Speakers, Misinformation, Untruths. Presentation Guru. https://www.presentation-guru.com/mehrabians-myth/

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Friday, 16 May 2025

Four open access journals

Continuing with the series on open access journals (read more here), this time we consider one not-for-profit membership organisation publication, and three for-profit publication house periodicals.

Firstly, there is the publication of the Asia Pacific Career Development Association: the Asia Pacific Career Development Journal. This publishes career development research from around the Pacific rim. The journal is open access (here; click on the headings in each issue to view each article). The association was established in 2009, and the open access journal in 2018 (APCDA, 2025). Consider becoming a member of this organisation: the membership fee is inexpensive (roughly $50 per annum), and the benefits of membership are sound. The annual APCDA conference is VERY good (around 100 hours of PD), and - as a member, there are two monthly webinars; one free, one paid. 

Secondly, we look at the Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology (here), a SAGE open access journal where most of the articles that I have wanted to read have been freely accessible. If we search the journal using "career" there are a substantial number of articles (e.g. here). Much of the research is from Asian universities, but it should be noted that both Stuart Carr and Kerr Inkson have published in this journal. This can be a useful source for the career development field.

Thirdly, we consider the Journal of Vocational Behaviour (here), an Elsevier journal. Most of the articles in JVB are open access. Again, if we search this journal using the "career" search term, we get 200-odd hits (e.g. here). This is a lesser known journal, but does contain some interesting articles.

Finally, we can also explore Social Sciences & Humanities Open (here). This is another hybrid journal where most articles I found are open access. Again, the "career" search generates 300-odd hits (e.g. here). This is a ScienceDirect journal, owned by the Dutch publication giant, Elsevier. 

I hope you find these open access journal sources useful!


Sam

Reference:

APCDA. (2025). History of the APCDA. https://asiapacificcda.org/history-of-apcda/

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Wednesday, 14 May 2025

The reverse virgule

Diacriticals are interesting. I have written about the forward slash - or solidus - before (here), but I have not talked about the reverse virgule, or backslash.

The reverse virgule should not apparently be called a reverse solidus, because the solidus is solely for dividing currency or numerical elements. When not referring to currency, the solidus has an alternate name - for when used to divide lines poetry for example - the virgule.

Who knew that the solidus, peculiar and fringe enough, had yet another name for another function? Well, not me, obviously. Anyway, I digress. 

The virgule arose in medieval manuscripts, so is quite deep rooted in English. It is a "thin sloping or upright [forward-sloping] line", to "mark for the cæsura" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989b, p. 670). A caesura is the end of a line of poetry, or a "metrical pause" (Simpson & Weiner, 1989a, p. 764; so cute). However, with the formalisation of rules which arrived along with the printing press, the diacritical more commonly used to indicate the caesura tends to be the bar: "|". 

And just to add another complication, the bar is also "used in the syntax of some computing languages and scripts, and is sometimes referred to as a pipe" (Waddingham, 2014, p. 92).

But the virgule is still has common uses, often in messaging apps where we write in shorthand; "w/e" for weekend, for example. The use in providing equal alternatives, such as "she/him", even though we are now being encouraged to use the Oxford gender neutral, "they" (OED, 2024).

So now we have dealt with the virgule, we FINALLY get to explore the reverse virgule, or backslash. It mostly used in computer coding, to show a file path or folder hierarchy within a computer system; or to indicate escape - or special characters (Love English, 2024). 

Fascinating.


Sam

References:

Love English. (2023, August 10). Forward Slash vs. Backslash: Differences and When to Use Each. https://loveenglish.org/forward-slash-vs-backslash/

OED. (2024). A brief history of singular ‘they’. Oxford English Dictionary. https://www.oed.com/discover/a-brief-history-of-singular-they/?tl=true

Root, R. L. (1991). The Virgule Variations: Learning/Language/Literature. English Journal, 80(6), 18-27. https://doi.org/10.58680/ej19918250

Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (Eds.) (1989). Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., Vol II BBC-Chalypsography). Clarendon Press.

Simpson, J. A., & Weiner, E. S. C. (Eds.) (1989b). Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed., Vol XIX Unemancipated-Wau-wau). Clarendon Press.

Waddingham, A. (Ed.) (2014). New Hart's Rules: The Oxford style guide (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.

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Monday, 12 May 2025

Ah, the first or third person again

Some researchers talk about the clunkiness of academic writing, suggesting that it is overly "complicated; pompous, long-winded, technical; impersonal, authoritative, humourless; elitist, and excludes outsiders" (Hartley, 2008, p. 4). Part of the cause is, I think, the use of the third person... which has been called "a ‘god trick’, in which the researcher is nowhere and everywhere" in academic writing (Kamler & Thomson, 2006, p. 59).

Text written with the third person voice "effectively write[s] out the presence of the researcher and renders them invisible –there is no 'I' in such reports" (SAGE Publishing, 2022, p. 13, citing Lazard & McAvoy, 2020, p. 162). Most academic journals seem to increasingly prefer the third person. US professor, Eric Brennan wrote of his frustration in trying to have a first person article published, suggesting that "Writing in the third person is [...] a form of deception in which the thinking of scientists does not appear, and they are obliterated as active agents in the construction of knowledge" (2024, p. 2, quoting Webb, 1992).  

There is a growing dislike of the third person. Originally we found "The third person with the passive [voice was...] considered desirable because it resulted in a detached, scholarly tone that hid the writer and seemed to connote objectivity. It also resulted in a wordy, lifeless style illustrated by this sentence: 'It was decided by this researcher that the effects of socioeconomic status should be investigated as a factor that might possibly affect the amount of reading done in the home' " (Joyner et al., 2013, p. 187).

Yet writing in the first person can be highly effective, providing we connect via citations to our scholarly community, so illustrating that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Engagement is a key reward for researchers. There is a warmth in the first person, "We suggest that" as opposed to the far cooler third person, "This paper suggests that" (Hartley, 2008, p. 183). Some authors decide on the first person voice in the hope that their readers will be more likely to challenge the research "process since writing in the third person is more suggestive of a single correct interpretation" (Johns, 2010, p. 274, citing Freshwater and Rolfe 2001). And, interestingly, if we are undertaking an action research project, we should write in the first person; to create immediacy, and probably because we are the collection instrument (Herr & Anderson, 2014, p. 49).

However, we must be judicious, not studding our writing with too many personal pronouns. Consider the following example: "Whilst I may make efforts to restrict my data to [...] interviews, there is no doubt that my prior knowledge of the participants through my daily work with them will impact upon the meaning that I make of what they tell me. That I might be considered a peer [...] could [mean...] they will tell me what they think I want to hear" (Kamler & Thomson, 2006, p. 61). As the authors note, each sentence contains two to three pronouns, making this a bit of a 'me'-fest (Kamler & Thomson, 2006); without the balance that linking to evidence provides. Scholarly research becomes conspicuous by its absence. 

And we should remember that sometimes the third person IS the most appropriate format to convey information (Hartley, 2008). Using the third person can help us to focus on the results gathered, rather than on the participants who provided the data (Wise, 2022, citing Watts, 2014). 

Choice is the key.


Sam

References:

Brennan, E. B. (2024). “I” versus “the author”: The power of first-person voice when writing about science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(22), e2316966121, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2316966121

Hartley, J. (2008). Academic Writing and Publishing: A practical handbook. Routledge.

Herr, K., & Anderson, G. L. (2014). The Action Research Dissertation: A guide for students and faculty. SAGE Publications, Inc.

Johns, C. (2010). Guided Reflection: A narrative approach to advancing professional practice (2nd. ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Joyner, R. L., Rouse, W. A., & Glatthorn, A. A. (2018). Writing the Winning Thesis or Dissertation: A step-by-step guide (3rd. ed.). Corwin Press.

Kamler, B., & Thomson, P. (2014). Helping Doctoral Students Write: Pedagogies for supervision. Routledge.

SAGE Publishing. (12 August 2022). Common challenges in Thematic Analysis and how to avoid them with Virginia Braun & Victoria Clarke [handout]. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/606f09be9fd45e6380f33b68/t/62fb7fcd712f726fd10c3ce5/1660649431880/Thematic+Analysis+webinar+slides+-+Aug+22.pdf

Wise, C. (2022). I’m old enough and I’m young enough: Semi-Retirement and Career. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 49(1), 3-9. https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk/index.php/nc/issue/view/49/49

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