Stories from Beyond Academia #4: Malini Devadas
PhD in Neuroscience
Writing is tough.
And maybe the level of difficulty associated with writing leads to a certain level of procrastination (if you’re anything like us, at least).
But writing is critical for success in academia – there’s even that whole ‘publish or perish’ thing. It’s a pretty big deal for many roles beyond academia too.
So writing is hard, so we procrastinate; but writing is important, so we feel a tad guilty about not writing; and then we procrastinate a little more, we start to avoid writing and maybe even start feeling bad about ourselves (as writers, or more generally). And so emerges a ‘bad hamster wheel’ of writing. Sound at all familiar?
We talked about this bad hamster wheel with Dr Malini Devadas, a PhD in Neuroscience who is now a professional writing coach. She’s seen this pattern a lot, and in her work she helps people to step off the bad hamster wheel, and step on to a good hamster wheel instead. A good hamster wheel where people write most days, feel good about writing, and so feel inspired to write more.
In this story from beyond academia, Malini tells us how she found her way to this role following her PhD and what being a professional writing coach actually entails. And we ask her for some writing tips too!
Jonathan McGuire: Hi Malini, thanks for joining us. To start the conversation today, I'll ask you to cast your mind back to your PhD. You did a PhD and then a postdoc in neuroscience and from there you transitioned out of academia. Could you tell us a bit about what inspired that shift?
Malini Devadas: So I think it’s important to remember this was a different time. I started my undergraduate degree in 1990 and I finished that three-year degree in ‘92. There were no jobs around, so I decided to do an Honours year. I really loved the Honours year. I particularly loved the research, so I stayed on to do a PhD. I was fortunate to get a scholarship, and the cost of living back then also was really low, so it was a relatively stressless time. And then towards the end of the PhD, I realised that actually I didn’t really want to be an academic. I talked to my supervisor about it and he suggested I do a postdoc and go and live overseas, have that experience, work in a different lab, and then I’d know if it’s the project, or if it’s the academic career that I didn’t want. I was lucky to get a postdoc in Japan and ended up staying there for three and a half years because I got a fellowship and my boss also had some funding. But pretty early on there, I realised this was not what I wanted to do, even though I had a great time living there. So when that postdoc came to an end, I had to think of something else to do and, in those days - at least in Japan - it was all about a career for life. So when my boss said ‘you better start looking for a postdoc’ and I said, ‘I’m actually not staying on’, everyone panicked, asking me what I was going to do. I didn’t know, but I came back home to Canberra (Australia). It was a pretty tough few years, just trying to get any kind of work. It wasn’t easy for me to even know what I wanted to do. Because I was in Canberra, I was looking at government roles, but I didn’t have any experience in the public sector. So it was quite hard to address the selection criteria in a way that sounded relevant to public sector roles. I did a few odds and ends and then I fell into editing through a series of lucky coincidences. But for me, I think it was more just wanting to get out rather than having any idea about what I was going to do afterwards.
JM: So those government jobs you were looking at, was that just a function of geography?
MD: Yes, it’s funny, I came back to Australia in May 2001. My parents were from Malaysia, I was born in Australia, but I have a lot of family overseas, and I remember one of my cousins saying ‘Well, why don’t you just come and hang out in Malaysia for a few months?’ But my identity was so tied up in having a job that I didn’t go, which I regret now. And so I just applied for lots of things. A temp agency sent me to the National Australia Day Council for six weeks to work on the Australian of the Year process. There were only five or six people there in this tiny little office in Old Parliament House and I didn’t tell them that I had a PhD. I didn’t want anyone to know because it was just such a low-level admin job. But one day we were wrapping packages in brown paper and somehow it slipped. I remember the other people saying ‘You’ve got a PhD, what are you doing wrapping?’ I think they felt guilty that I was doing this menial kind of job. I was like, ‘Yeah, this is why I didn’t tell you’. Then I was really lucky again because, at that time the Australian Research Council was recruiting people with academic backgrounds, so that’s how I got my foot in the door into that job, which led to another admin job at the Australian National University (ANU). It was just really looking around for anything at that point, trying to get some money without any consideration about careers.
JM: You remained in ‘research-adjacent’ roles for a while there, and then moved into editing. What was the inspiration behind going into editing? Did you do anything in particular to prepare for that switch?
When I talk about my career pathway, it’s easy to make it sound like it all led neatly from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. The reality was a bit different.
MD: When I talk about my career pathway, it’s easy to make it sound like it all led neatly from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. The reality was a bit different. I always loved reading and writing, so writing the thesis was the easiest part of the PhD for me. Getting data was difficult, but writing the thesis was quite straightforward. When I was in Japan, I was doing a lot of language editing for my colleagues but I had never thought about the production of a book, how books come into being. Even as an academic when I was editing journal articles, you send off the article, you get the reviewers’ comments, you make the changes, the page proofs come back – I still didn’t really understand that process. When I was working at ANU, funnily enough, I organised a careers evening for PhD students. It was a similar thing to what we’re talking about here, and someone who was on the panel owned an editing agency in Canberra. I was interested in science communication, but all the science communication jobs I’d seen were at Questacon or on TV or radio, which didn’t appeal. But this agency edited reports, commissioned by scientists or by government departments that were meant for general public audiences. A lot of the work she was doing was making these enjoyable to read and understandable – plain language while keeping the science correct. The agency only had one employee at that stage, so I wrote to the owner and said that I’d love to work for her if there was ever any opportunity, and just by luck she was looking for staff. She said she would rather find a scientist and train them in editing because she didn’t have the capacity to train someone in scientific thinking. So again, it’s just meeting people and opportunities come up, and that’s how I sort of fell into editing. And a lot of people come into editing that way, through other careers; they’re interested in words but never really thought about it as a career. And so I think I’m just one of many that found themselves there, not really realising how that happened, with no particular plan.
JM: It can be really hard when you’re from a technical or scientific background to take yourself out of that headspace and ask what might a reader who’s not from this background understand and how might they need it explained. Is scientific editing the domain you’ve stayed in since?
MD: I was there for about 10 years, I had two children in that time, and it was getting really difficult to fit working in around everything else. I thought I’d like to work for myself: I think sometimes you just get to that point where you like to do things your way and try things out. And because the kids were little, I decided to set up my own freelance editing business. Because my background was in science, and I had connections from my academic days and other jobs, that’s where I started. I was editing PhD theses, journal articles and grants, mostly for scientists. But then I started getting inquiries from government agencies, all word of mouth referrals. My specialty ended up being health and medicine, I guess because that was the thing I found easiest and most interesting, and I had the best understanding of. But even to this day, I get requests from people in all different disciplines. Because when someone hears about you, they just contact you; they’re not really that fussed about what else you’ve done. They just want to know if you can help them. These days, I don't do much editing and I work as a writing coach. But for the editing part, it is the same skills whatever you’re editing. It’s acting as the reader’s advocate: Who is the reader and will they understand this? If something isn’t clear to me, it might not be clear to others. And it’s really a partnership with the author. Because the author is so close to the words and they know so much about the topic, it’s harder for them to put themselves in the reader’s shoes, whereas for an editor, as an outside person coming in, they don't know as much, if anything, about the topic, it’s a lot easier to be objective.
JM: I’m interested to learn more about what starting out on your own was like, because that must have been challenging?
MD: I was lucky. I was pretty conservative about making sure I had some savings. I was still doing some consulting work for the agency, so that was paying a significant proportion of my income and that meant I wasn't going into it totally cold. That was 10 years ago and the world’s changed a lot since then. Now I have a side business helping freelance editors find clients because that’s tricky for a lot of people. Most people who are self-employed are very good at the technical skills; they’re the experts at what they do, but they have severely underestimated the marketing component. At the beginning it’s just using your networks, telling everyone you know about what you’re doing, asking them to tell other people. And it’s hard at the beginning as you don’t necessarily have the experience or the confidence, so it’s good to have another source of income or some savings for that period. I was lucky to have those things. Otherwise, yes, it’s a bit daunting.
JM: I’m also quite interested in hearing more about mentoring writing, because a lot of the time people seem to think that being a good writer is this innate and immutable thing. I’m guessing as a writing coach you’d disagree with that characterisation?
MD: Some people naturally find writing easy and write naturally well, so I do think there’s a level of innate skill. But I also think it’s something you can learn and the best way to learn is by doing it. What I see is people not doing it because they think they can’t do it. And then they’re not writing so they don’t get better at writing. I got into this because, while I was working at the agency, I was delivering workshops to academics on how to write a draft and self-edit. And what I noticed over the years is that there’s a lot of information on how to do things, but people still weren’t actually publishing. If you Google ‘how to write a journal article’, as I did the other day, I think it was 1.3 billion hits. So there’s no shortage of information on how to do things. So my question is, why are people not submitting and publishing? In the business world it’s the same thing. Everyone knows what to do, there’s no shortage of information on how to do marketing. Some people take it and run with it and are very successful. Other people don’t do anything. And those people may both have the same skill level. And so the way I think about coaching is helping people do the thing that they say they want to do, but they’re not able to do on their own. When I work with people, it’s really going ‘Okay, what’s the actual problem?’ Everyone’s busy, people know what they need to do, usually they’ve written papers before, but what’s the block? Why are you not doing it? How can we create a regular writing practice? Because otherwise writing falls to the bottom of the list. So my goal is to help academics and students create a writing practice where they do a little bit most days and chip away at the thing and actually submit, not just hold on to the draft because they’re too scared of rejection. Because otherwise we get to Christmas, and suddenly the year is finished but all those papers still haven’t been finished. And that’s a huge disadvantage in academia if you’re not publishing. So to get back to your question, I think it is something everyone can get better at. Part of it is also just reading widely, and doing the writing and seeking feedback. It’s possible for anyone.
JM: In your experience, working with your coaching clients, is it lack of confidence that tends to be the main blocker for people?
MD: Yes, I think it is. People don’t believe that when they come to me. A lot of people come to me asking how to write efficiently – they want a strategy. I do have strategies and tips, but for a lot of people they come to me because they’re desperate, they’ve tried everything and they don’t really want to acknowledge that it might be a mindset thing because academics don’t tend to talk about personal development or mindset. But they know nothing’s working. And so usually, when we have a conversation, it turns out there’s a limiting belief like imposter syndrome. They don’t feel that they belong: they didn’t go to the right school, their parents had this type of job, they’ve come from a practitioner background, they’re not a real academic, they’ve changed discipline and they don’t feel confident. There’s all these things, and then they’re also giving away all their time. They are too busy helping everyone else so they don’t actually have time to write. They leave it for six months, they haven’t touched the paper and it’s really hard to get back into it. So the first part of working together is to work out the real problem. When you can acknowledge that, then you can do something about it. Then we implement the strategies so that they’re actually making progress. The way I think about it is that my clients come to me when they’re stuck in a cycle of not writing, feeling bad about it, so then they don’t write because they feel bad about it. And they’re just stuck in that loop. And I want to get them into the other loop, which is writing most days, feeling good about it, so you keep writing. So I think of it as my job is to help you make that leap from the ‘getting stuck’ hamster wheel to getting into the positive spinning cycle, which can require some help.
JM: That sounds really helpful for people who are struggling with moving from the bad hamster wheel to the good hamster wheel. I’m wondering how much exposure you get to what people are researching when you're doing this work?
MD: I love hearing about all the research my clients do. That’s one of the good things about the work I do, I'm still connected to the academic world just by looking at the research. For some of my clients, we talk very little about the actual manuscripts. We talk about all the other things and it’s not even just about the writing. It can be personal things and things at home and other stresses in their life or just clashes with people. And then for other clients, it’s much more strategic, like let’s look at the document. Let’s work out the story you’re trying to tell. Let’s look at the structure. Here I get to know more about the topic, and I think it goes to show that you can still help people knowing zero about their research. Actually sometimes that’s an advantage because I will ask them really basic questions, like ‘what are you actually trying to say in this journal article?’ and if I can’t understand it then I’ll just keep asking and forcing them to really think about the high-level message. I think for a lot of academics, they’re too caught up in the details of their data or their findings and they haven’t thought about the story they’re trying to tell in the piece of writing. But we have to start with that. My clients all have one thing in common, which is they’re all in it to help the world be a better place or to help people out in the real world with whatever they’re doing. And so it’s really rewarding to be able to be connected to that somehow, and to see them putting their work out there.
JM: You mentioned earlier that the first person you worked with in the editing world said it was easier to train a scientist in editing than vice versa. I’m wondering what skills or knowledge or experience from your academic background have transferred or are helpful in the editing and mentoring world?
MD: I think it was because the editing in that particular job was all scientific material. Now a lot of the things I edit are not scientific, but the work was scientific for that agency. The clients trusted us more if they knew we were scientists – a lot of people were very nervous about things being ‘dumbed down’ and the meaning being changed. When I work with academics, they care about the fact that I have a PhD and a background in research. They don’t necessarily care about my editing qualifications or certifications, even though I say that’s actually the more important thing! But they care about the fact that I understand the scientific process. They feel more confident that I’m not going to make changes to things. And also, I certainly feel much more comfortable editing things in health, medical research, biological sciences. When I’ve tried to edit things in chemistry, physics, engineering, other spaces, it’s harder – when things get very technical in those disciplines, I do find it’s more difficult. And these days, I don’t take on jobs if I don’t think I’m the best person to do them. But I think it was also more a comment about the scientific way of thinking and that’s not something that’s easy to teach somebody in a week. But having done a degree and done research, I guess it’s just understanding that process. I don’t know that they’re necessarily relevant to the work I’m doing now. But when you’re marketing a business, you’re trying to build a connection to your potential clients so you’re always looking for ways that you can connect and have something in common with them. So when I say to people that I did a PhD and postdoc, they don’t care that it was 20+ years ago; they just feel some sense that we are similar, that we’ve got something in common. So I think that helps as well.
JM: When you mentioned switching between disciplines it occurred to me that not only are there differences in the content, but there might be characteristic writing styles that differ between the fields. And then you move over into business and it is going to be different again. How do you navigate switching between all these different contexts?
MD: I’ve been a huge proponent of plain language for many decades now. What I’ve noticed over time is that there’s a more progressive point of view now; people are much more open to simplifying things using plain language in academic contexts. But it’s interesting that different disciplines have different ideas about it. Different journals have different rules about it. Sometimes there’s a clash between supervisors and students or between co-authors, where one person’s got a much more plain language style and the other person’s got a very sort of old school ‘academic’ style. My advice is just go to the journal first. Usually in their instructions to authors they’ll put some indication of where they sit on the spectrum of impenetrable to super easy to understand. My take on it is that you’re already writing about complex content, and you should be confident that you know what you’re talking about. You don’t need to hide behind big words. You don’t need to make it harder to understand for the reader. Readers these days are already doing ten other things at the same time and skim reading and wanting to process content quickly. Make it easy for them.
JM: You speak so passionately about the coaching work, you can really feel your excitement about that. What’s the most rewarding part of those coaching relationships for you?
MD: It’s seeing your client see themselves the way you see them. As a coach, you always see the best in people. I can see their potential, I can see that they’re experts – these are often people who are quite senior in their field, who still have impostor syndrome, who are doubting themselves and talking themselves down. And when they start writing, they start to realise, ‘Oh, I do have something to say. I do know things’. And they start to put it out there and so that’s really rewarding. Just to see people actually make progress on something, having something accepted, having the confidence to stand up for themselves too in debating things with their co-authors. My approach to coaching, which is quite common, is that my job is to become redundant as quickly as possible. I don’t want someone working with me forever and feeling like they need to check in with me all the time. My job is to get them going and be able to do the thing on their own. Basically, when people come to the sessions, and there’s nothing to talk about because they’re doing their writing, then that makes me happy. And then you see them, not just publishing in the academic literature, but writing for ‘The Conversation’ or being interviewed and just getting their message out there because they really want to help people with their research. And the best way to do that is to talk about it and write about it.
JM: We’re nearing the end of the conversation now, and normally here I would ask for one bit of advice. But I’m going to ask you for two bits of advice. First off, is there a particular bit of writing advice that you’d like our readers to take home with them?
MD: I think it really comes down to confidence that you’re qualified to say the thing. And this is a struggle for a lot of students, because they don’t feel they’re qualified. So I think you just have to look at the facts. Like, am I qualified to write about this? Yes, I’ve done the research. Yes, I’ve done my analysis. I’ve had it checked by someone. Yes, I’ve read the literature. And that means yes, you’ve got something to say, and you’re qualified to say it. And then also just being really clear on what the message is. What is the story? I don’t think it works to tell people to try to write their way out of being stuck. You just end up with thousands of words that don’t say anything, and it’s really hard to edit that. So my approach is to get really clear on the story, who you’re talking to with this piece of writing, and what you hope your piece will inspire in the reader. How will they think or act differently? Have they learned something? Have they changed their mind on something? Are they motivated to change policy? What is it you’re trying to achieve? And when you start with that, it’s a lot easier. Most people just start with ‘I need to publish in this type of journal, and I’ve got all this data and I’m going to include everything’ and they’re coming very much from their point of view. Whereas I think it’s better to always be thinking about the reader and the purpose. And then just make sure you remind yourself you’re qualified. And just practice as well. So there’s three tips– it’s very hard to just pick one thing!
I had a conversation with someone the other day, who said, ‘I've just spent two and a half years on this PhD and I kind of feel like that’s a waste if I don’t stick with it’. My approach is that it doesn’t matter, don’t do it for that reason. It’s not been a waste. If I look back on my career, all these different random jobs and experiences all feed into what I do now.
JM: It is, and I love that phrase you used earlier about being an advocate for the reader, that definitely came out for me there. So my last question, what advice would you give to someone who’s from an academic background and is considering switching into some form of non-academic work?
MD: I talk about this a lot because I do a lot of career talks and things locally. I’m old now, so I can say this, but when I finished I was lucky my postdoc just sort of turned up. But the internet we had back in the ‘90s was really limited. Email, PubMed abstracts, that was my exposure to the internet. When I came back to Australia in 2001, you could look for jobs online, but we only had a dial up internet connection at home, it was all just really hard. There’s just so many more avenues now to find out about what’s out there. But the thing that can be helpful is to just think about the things you like doing, and then start to narrow it down. Do I want to work for someone else? Do I want to work for myself? Do I want to stay within the discipline or am I happy to do something completely different? I think another advantage today is social media: you can find out about jobs, you can connect with people, you can talk to people who are in a similar boat to you. On Twitter, there’s a lot of conversations about people moving out of academia. It’s also just making connections. Don’t be shy about connecting with people, whether it’s on LinkedIn or whatever it is, because if people know who you are, they’re more likely to think of you if a job comes up or if you apply for something and they’ve at least seen your face. Another thing is to not feel bad, don’t feel guilty about moving out of academia. I had a conversation with someone the other day, who said, ‘I've just spent two and a half years on this PhD and I kind of feel like that’s a waste if I don’t stick with it’. My approach is that it doesn’t matter, don’t do it for that reason. It’s not been a waste. If I look back on my career, all these different random jobs and experiences all feed into what I do now. Worked in academia, I’ve got academic clients. Worked at the ARC, I help people with their grants. I was an editor and now I can do writing coaching. And you know, you don’t have to have the perfect job straight out of the PhD. I’m in my early 50s: it’s taken me this long to get to a career that I find really enjoyable and fun. And who knows what I’ll be doing in ten years’ time, but I think just look ahead one year and think about what you’d like to be doing. There are endless opportunities, which can be daunting, in a way. But then I just think there’s so many great things and jobs that haven’t been invented yet. So start with connections and your own skills and take it from there.
JM: I love that idea about these seemingly disparate experiences building on each other and coalescing and that becomes a path, rather than there being some predestined, perfect job out there that you’ve just got to orient towards.
MD: I just did a panel recently to an audience of PhDs and undergraduates. And I think there were five or six of us on the panel and every single one of us had just fallen into our jobs. Literally every single person went through their career story, and it was all just random. This thing happened and then this thing happened and I ended up doing something completely different to what I thought. So I think that’s a theme there. When I write a bio for something, I can make it sound like it was all very planned, but none of it was: I didn’t know coaching was a thing six or seven years ago; I didn’t know editing was a thing before I worked at the agency; obviously, I didn’t know anything about research before I ended up doing an Honours year. So just be open to new things and follow what you enjoy!
And with that, we thank Malini for sharing her story.
We also thank her for flying the flag for what we call ‘research-adjacent’ roles (one of our careers includes quite a few such roles). These roles probably don’t spring to mind when you think of universities and research – presumably that’s academic roles on the ladder from Associate Lecture through to Professor. But these are the roles that keep research running smoothly and efficiently – things like administering grant funding schemes, supporting grant applications, facilitating grant management (including contracts), coordinating ethics review panels, providing research training. These roles are maybe something like the managers, coaches or organisers of sporting teams – they are the people in the background, coordinating and facilitating – and, as you can probably see from this story, the value of these roles in contributing to the research endeavour should not be underestimated!
Do you have a story to share? If you are a PhD who has moved beyond academia and you are interested in sharing your story, please get in touch with us via our LinkedIn pages - Sam, Jonathan - we’d love to hear from you.
Interviews have been edited for length and clarity. Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by persons interviewed in this series are solely that of the persons interviewed and do not reflect the views, opinions, or position of Sam, Jonathan or Sequitur Consulting.