{"id":46127,"date":"2018-11-28T11:40:32","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T19:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=46127"},"modified":"2018-11-28T11:40:32","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T19:40:32","slug":"narrative-of-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/narrative-of-ideas\/","title":{"rendered":"Narrative of ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I\u2019ve just been reading a Fellowship application. The applicant is brilliant. She has a great project idea that is urgently needed, and had excellent potential to lead to both theoretical developments and real changes in practice.<\/p>\n

I was excited to read her application, because she has done great stuff in the past. She has an amazing international network, both in her research field and across academia generally. She has developed really innovative methods and theoretical developments, as well as doing exemplary work with the community and the profession that her research serves.<\/p>\n

Perhaps you can imagine my disappointment when I couldn\u2019t find much of that great stuff in her CV. There was one specific question that asks for research achievements and contributions. She had answered that question correctly, but\u2026 it didn\u2019t sparkle.<\/p>\n

All the amazing things that I knew she had done were listed in her CV, but I had to dig for them. I found the fact that she had been offered two different international fellowships at once buried in a discussion of opportunities to do research, along with the fact that she had chaired an international committee auspiced by the UN. I found some of her theoretical contributions and the translation of her research into practice buried in her list of ten best publications. Her leadership work with African researchers was listed as an interruption to her research career.<\/p>\n

To help her turn this around, I suggested that she provide a narrative of ideas.<\/p>\n

What is a narrative of ideas?<\/h4>\n

Ideas are the currency of research. They find form in different ways \u2013 books, referred articles, conference papers, data sets, industry reports, artworks, all sorts of things. But in the end, it is your ideas that other researchers are interested in.<\/p>\n

However, by themselves, ideas can be hard to understand. It can be difficult to grasp how different ideas come together, or what effect they have had. A narrative can help to clarify all those things. It sets out what ideas you have developed, and why. It puts those ideas in context by talking about some of the projects that you have done, and some of the choices that you\u2019ve made. It provides the reader with a path through your career, so that they can understand how you have developed your ideas.<\/p>\n

How does it work?<\/h4>\n

There are lots of different ways to present a narrative, but two of the easiest are:<\/p>\n