Published papers
Our Understanding of Mutuality When Reflecting on our Values and Experience of Caring. Dyke, A. and Hutchison, S. - published Dec 2017
In this paper we answered the question ‘How can we gain a better understanding of our own values and where they come from and how this has influenced our work together and in our interests in improving outcomes for carers? We have evidenced our claims of knowledge in answering this question in the areas of
- Shared values and how we came to these
- Our learning through writing the paper
- Our ability to give to hope to others
In analysing our claims we found areas of mutuality which we had not predicted which we then analysed further to understand our relational dynamics. In the paper we introduce the reader to our living-theory of mutuality that emerged.
The paper also provides guidance on a way of writing a collaborative paper that enables both authors’ voices to be of equal value. Recognising both the unique and the shared perspectives.
We welcome any help to improve the clarity of our paper.
Amy and Sonia
(Edited by Marie Huxtable - original submission Saturday, 15 April 2017, 7:45 PM)
Hi Amy and Sonia,
My name is Sadruddin, one of the reviewers of your paper.
It is very nice to read your living theory of mutuality that has been an inspirational piece of paper for me to know about your joint venture towards creating your collaborative living theory account. Starting with a relationship of mentor mentee to becoming equally contributing partners in an innovative way of collaborative method of inquiry highly engages reader to make sense of understanding the concept of ‘co-evolving’ with shared values of your practice.
I think, your living theory account better demonstrates how you both came to realize, over a period of time, your common/similar values of love and hope as your embodied values of practices that depict through very long engagement of emails and Skypes. However, somewhere sometimes the reader may get lost in these long narratives/discussions and dialogues that might need to reduce to a desirable level to just maintain its explanatory principles of living theory account rather writing unnecessary details, sometimes, with repetitions. Probably, you can reflect critically on your additional sources used to justify your claims.
For example, if few of the selected and relevant explanations of your (Amy and Sonia’s) lived experiences (of love and care for self and others) come within the text to explain your living theory of mutuality would be more engaging for readers to develop better understanding of your claims rather letting those details in appendix (pp. 24 to 46).
Probably, you can better engage your readers even by inserting textboxes within your script to provide desired evidences on the site of text that could increase more engagement of readers instead to going back to appendix for getting details.
Moreover, if you reflect on your definition of spirituality that to me appears to be embedded within your collaborative embodied values of love and care. In other words, to me, it is the spirituality that engages you both to generate love and care for self and others.
I have given few comments within the text that could be a point of reflection for you. I guess, references part also demands to fix few of the issues here and there.
However, if these views on your paper make no sense and you might get hurt, I must say sorry for that.
With best regards and
Love
Sadruddin
Thank you so much for your review, Amy and I will go through and take on board your comments. I'm sure they will be helpful and not hurtful, it has been a big learning process writing this paper together in the way we have, so we are keen to gain views on how to improve it. Sonia x
I am battling computer glitches so will keep this short (and upload the file I've been working on pronto! my screen died altogether this morning and I feared all the work would be lost, hence the 'Pip's comments 2' in the file name). As I usually do, I have done track changes through the document. I have not, however, looked at all at the appendices. With a dodgy computer that is a step too far.
First, congratulations on a lovely first draft. Your claimed value of mutuality is very evident throughout the work. There are places where I have suggested you may wish to spell this out more clearly, such as indicating the 'novelty' of setting aside the power differential between a supervisor and a student in order to writing in such an equitable way.
You need to be more specific about aspects of your methodology, specifically the way you use 'data'. It is unclear what these data are, although you subsequently draw almost exclusively on written communication, with the occasional video (I couldn't get sound on the first, and fearing computer collapse before I get this feedback to you, haven't tried on the next two). You both acknowledge your psychology background; as much data in psychology is quantitative (as Amy later recognises) you need to let your readers know exactly what data you gathered and analysed.
As I indicated above, I have ignored the appendices altogether. This is partly from fear of computer collapse but also there is no reference I can recall where they were alluded to in the text so I am not sure why they are there. They might, perhaps, be removed? I must confess that when I first saw in excess of 18000 words I felt a bit overwhelmed...but much of that is, in fact, appendices.
There is grammatical work to be done. I indicated this in the first couple of pages but then indicated that you need to sort this yourselves. Ditto apostrophes etc (they don't call me Pedantic Pip for nothing!) I have not, at this point, looked at your referencing at all, in order to get the feedback to you promptly.
All the best, I think this will be a lovely paper when you get to the final draft.
Warm regards
Pip
Hi Pip, Thanks for your review and comments, the data is in fact everything in the appendices, so we can be very clear - thanks. Amy and I will work on your feedback together, so forgive us for the delay. Thanks so much. Sonia x
I have enjoyed your paper and the ideas it proposes very much! In particular mutuality and how it may be applied to the joint authorship of a living account. This is something I would really like to try, and feel that your paper has the potential to guide me in this work.
Please see attached my comments using the rubric. I hope some will guide you when considering the next iteration.
Love
Brian
Hi Brian, Thanks so much for your review, Amy and I will work through it together, so please forgive us for any delay. It has been a wonderful process which I am glad has been a useful guide for you, but as we need to get together for writing and editing it takes a little longer. Sonia x
Amy and I would like to thank all our reviewers. We have taken into account the comments and responded to them. However, we have kept our language of data and findings as we have looked at other Ejolts papers that use this language and we believe that these are accurate terms all be it in a different approach to research than scientific forms. We have worked on our grammar and hope we have improved the readers ability to understand. The biggest difference is how we have structured our findings to try to highlight the areas of mutuality whilst keeping our unique voices clearly separated out. I hope this works to meet everyone's suggestions.
Dear Amy and Sonia
Congratulations, this is much tighter and easier to follow. The appendices were not included so again, I have not checked these but I did look at your refs this time.
The main area where I still have queries relates to your use of mutuality as a shared value. I think you need to provide a definition (and perhaps a couple more examples of how this value operates for you) at the start. Later on, in Amy's words, there is a reference to this pertaining to the 'differences' between Amy's and Sonia's educational approaches, whereas at the start, mutuality seems to be identified as the recognition of common themes. I may be the only reviewer who finds this confusing, but I think it would help to be a bit clearer, and to keep the usage consistent throughout the paper.
I have also suggested that you may add another aspect to the conclusion, as I feel you sell yourself short a bit. See track changed document attached, as usual...I have done some fine editing but it will be up to you whether you make the changes. At times it was hard to determine whether the 'clumsy expression' (as it seems to me) was in direct quotations from your data, or your current paper. If the former, then changing it is not necessary. And indeed, as I said, you may not wish to be conformed to my pedantic nature at all!
I would like to see whether the other two reviewers have any issues with the mutuality query I have raised, before recommending publication yet. Personally, I'd prefer to see the clarification before such a recommendation, but I am happy to be overruled.
It is an interesting paper and reflects on an obviously mutually beneficial relationship.
Warm regards
Pip
Thanks Pip, I'm glad it is becoming tighter. That's helpful to suggest a clear definition of what we both mean by mutuality, we will work on that. Also we are not in a supervisor and supervisee relationship, rather I worked with Amy as a beneficiary of a charity in a mentoring role. We will make this clear right at the beginning as this seeks to still not be clear to you, we were not sure what else we could say other than that had been the relationship and through the process it moved, but I think to make it clear that Amy was a beneficiary for the charity I worked with. We'll have a go and see what you think.
Thanks for the thorough grammatical check. We did both go through word for word, but I am sad to say, we are both a product of an ever interfered with education system and neither of us have strong grammar skills.
We'll work through your suggestions and try to get something back asap.
Sonia and Amy
x
Hi Pip, Thank you we have responded to all your comments and I have highlighted them in yellow for ease of you finding them. We have added in our definitions which we hope will help the reader's understanding of the terms we used and added in some extra meanings and added to our conclusion. Thanks for helping us to identify areas we can strengthen the paper to help the reader understand our meanings. I look forward to your response.
Dear Amy and Sonia,
Thanks for your post and latest iteration of your paper.
I can see it taking shape and feel that it will be of much interest to carers and joint authors alike. To this end, further development of the abstract would make the mission of the paper clearer. Please see the track changes for the abstract attached.
My living perspective on learning tends to be visual so I have made the simple diagram below as a way of sharing thoughts. It is called 'Shared and Unshared Living Contradictions' and I hope it helps!
With regards to the overall structure of your paper, I suggest adding the two heading below.
• Living contradictions, we have experienced separately
• Living contradictions shared
I feel that exploring further the unexpected findings (living contradictions) that you have discovered, for example, ‘it was at this time I was having a change of mind and wanted to study psychology rather than medicine’ (page 3) could lead to a deeper understanding of mutuality.
There is much engagement with the literature, but I feel that there is potential for even more following further clarification of the living contradictions you have encountered. Like Pip, I feel you are selling yourself short in the conclusion, again please see the suggested track changes.
Looking forward to reading the next iteration.
All best wishes
Brian
Dear Amy and Sonia,
I really enjoyed reading your improved version of the paper. For this development, I must congratulate you both. Moreover, I love to see your addition of text boxes (as one of the forms of postmodern genre …). These text boxes provide data that supports your views then and there by engaging the readers with the flow of the text in the paper.
However, it would be lovely to insert some more text boxes throughout the paper rather overlapping these on few of the pages. No matter with little text even, these boxes can provide a clear picture to your readers…
I have provided few comments and some of the corrections here and there in citations and references that would probably help you further improving the paper. So, please have a look at the paper attached with track changes. If you think it makes sense you can accept otherwise it’s up to you, however, I do agree with the valuable comments of Pip and Brian as they have suggested especially about the issues of mutuality and living contradictions. I hope with these few reviews/corrections/inputs your paper would be ready finally for publishing.
best of luck and
love
sadruddin
Thank you so much for all your responses. We have looked at the areas Brian felt were Living Contradictions, we do not see them as living contractions, rather as unexpected outcomes that led to a different path. They were not moments where we found ourselves not living our values in practice. For example Amy stopped her path to medicine because she failed her exams, but rather than giving up on her values of helping others she was able to find a different path in studying psychology which she felt would enable her to still help others. This is not a living contradiction but rather a way of living her values through a different path. Also with the unexpected outcome of mutuality emerging from writing the paper together this was not a living contradiction but rather an expression of our values that we had not expected or predicted. In fact it is Living Theory in action as values emerge in our living-theory.
We did identify an area where we felt a pull to be a Living Contradiction which has been in the editing process as it is difficult to keep the mutuality, however, through editing over Skype we feel we have been able to retain our mutuality. We have added this to our conclusion.
We felt our claims were shared and have explained this a little more.
We have also added to our conclusion our hopes for the future.
We have not changed from using Sonia and Amy to I statements as we wrote these sections together and we don't want them to be led by one or other of us.
We have added in a text box with an example of treating Amy as an equal.
We have changed the sentence with imposition in to make this flow better.
We have not changed the paper to bring mutuality in as a purpose of the paper as this was not the purpose, it was something that emerged. We feel to suggest otherwise would not be true to the story and would lose the impact of the paper and not be authentic. Therefore we have not changed the abstract or the paper in this regard.
I've added in yellow highlight all the additions and changes from all our reviewers except for the grammatical ones which are throughout. I hope we have addressed all your comments, either as reason's not to include them or to meet your expectation. i hope we have got the paper to a publishable level.
Dear Amy and Sonia
It was really helpful having the changes in yellow. There are a couple of pedantic alterations in the attached (I always find these, including in my own work!) but at this point I am happy to recommend to the Editorial Board that the paper is published.
It's an interesting and somewhat unorthodox account of a relationship of developing mutuality, and the way you have presented it, in boxes containing your identified and shared themes, is to my mind a bit like a ping pong game but I think it works.
All the best with this and any future papers you may write!
Warm regards
Pip
Dear Amy and Sonia,
Thank you for your comments, and edits, which I feel has helped me to understand more about your living theory, in particular, regards to sacrificing mutuality in order to ‘get the paper done’.
I am glad that you looked again at the areas I felt could be Living Contradictions. If any unexpected outcome is a contradiction, then are you then saying these unexpected outcomes are not living because they do not mention any of your pre-existing values?
It is interesting to read that values emerged out of your living theory suggesting a lucidity of approach, which I admire. Does this umbrella of mutuality now embrace reviewers? I have been puzzling over this question, and think it asks ‘is your mutuality private or communal? If it is private, excluding others, then I consider that a living justification of this should be given in your account. Is this an improved outcome for carers?
I read (page 12 findings: mutuality) ‘however, our reviewers suggested the repetition in use of quotes was less engaging for the reader,’ Would it be consistent with your let to cite reviewers comments and suggestions into the body of the paper, for example, Sigrid, (Gjøtterud, 2015), and to cite:-
Gjøtterud S. (2015, September 29). A five-cycle living visual taxonomy of learning interactions. Message posted to http://ejolts.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=5
in your references?
In summary, based on the rubric, I:-
am still unclear about the value-based explanation for your educational influence around mutuality
consider that more detail of how you have validated their claims is necessary.
‘You have not changed the paper to bring mutuality in as its purpose as this was not the purpose, it was something that emerged’; but clearly mutuality is a key word in the title so I would ask why the abstract does not flow from the title.
Love
Brian
Dear Amy and Sonia,
Thank you for your comments, and edits, which I feel has helped me to understand more about your living theory, in particular, regards to sacrificing mutuality in order to ‘get the paper done’.
I am glad that you looked again at the areas I felt could be Living Contradictions. If any unexpected outcome is a contradiction, then are you then saying these unexpected outcomes are not living because they do not mention any of your pre-existing values?
It is interesting to read that values emerged out of your living theory suggesting a lucidity of approach, which I admire. Does this umbrella of mutuality now embrace reviewers? I have been puzzling over this question, and think it asks ‘is your mutuality private or communal? If it is private, excluding others, then I consider that a living justification of this should be given in your account. Is this an improved outcome for carers?
I read (page 12 findings: mutuality) ‘however, our reviewers suggested the repetition in use of quotes was less engaging for the reader,’ Would it be consistent with your let to cite reviewers comments and suggestions into the body of the paper, for example, Sigrid, (Gjøtterud, 2015), and to cite:-
Gjøtterud S. (2015, September 29). A five-cycle living visual taxonomy of learning interactions. Message posted to http://ejolts.org/mod/forum/view.php?id=5
in your references?
In summary, based on the rubric, I:-
am still unclear about the value-based explanation for your educational influence around mutuality
consider that more detail of how you have validated your claims is necessary.
‘You have not changed the paper to bring mutuality in as its purpose as this was not the purpose, it was something that emerged’; but clearly mutuality is a key word in the title so I would ask why the abstract does not flow from the title.
Love
Brian
Dear Sonia and Amy - I have enjoyed very much reading your paper on
Our Understanding of Mutuality When Reflecting on our Values and Experience of Caring.
I also think that Brian makes a very good point about the importance of mutuality in the title, but the present lack of focus in the Abstract on mutuality, is an issue you could address. I know that your focus on mutuality emerged as you produced the paper together but I'm wondering if you might continue your conversation together on your paper, without the pressure of meeting a June publication deadline? It seems to me that you could focus some attention in your paper, as Brian is suggesting on the importance of mutuality in your understanding of your values and experience of caring and that your paper could then be ready for publication in the December Issue - it could be published on the EJOLTS site as soon as it is ready. The reason that I am suggesting working on the paper to communicate the meaning and importance of mutuality as an explanatory principles and living standard of judgment is that it could help with your writing Sonia on your Ph.D. thesis on a living-theory of caring and help Amy to appreciate that in your experience of mutuality, Amy is assisting Sonia in developing and clarifying meanings of mutuality in a living-theory of caring.
I have attached some quotes from Martin Buber on mutuality in the relation in education which you might find helpful in clarifying your own meanings.
Sorry for the long silence, Amy and I have had lots going on. I am pleased to say Amy has graduated and has her first job and moved to her first post university home and I have handed in a first draft of my PhD.
We have responded to the reviewers commets and have added some comments which are highlighted in yellow in our response. We worked hard at this, as we found it hard to see that there needed to be changes, but we hope we have met the reviewers critique and hope we will now be ready for publication in the December issue of Ejolts.
Dear Amy and Sonia
Well done on this iteration, which I am happy to recommend for publication with minor tweaks (the pedant comes out again!) I attach the track changed version. It's all little stuff and query re how you acknowledge reviewer input, not any substantive issue.
I think it's a lovely paper; your processes are very transparent and totally in accord with your claim to mutuality. I had to copy the URLs into a separate window to access the video clips but I'm not that techie so it may be just me.
Obviously you need to wait for Brian's and Sadrudddin's comments as well but I do look forward to seeing this in print.
Warm regards
Pip
p.s., I told you I'm not techie! Just got this error message, which I have never seen before, while trying to upload the file. A PHP extension stopped the file upload. I will now try emailing it directly to you, Sonia, as you've communicated with me by email in the past. Wish me luck!
Now attached
(Edited by Marie Huxtable - original submission Thursday, 26 October 2017, 10:25 PM)
Hi Amy and Sonia,
Thank you both for this new iteration of your paper on mutuality – it has given me much to think about and to respect, and has challenged me as a learner-reviewer of EJOLT. I think your paper has taught me about a power of mutuality. I feel that the validation you have gained through the Skype Research Group has been working well in the background, and possibly there is scope to include more on this process.
Your paper has given me ideas about how I could work with others in the future and I am very grateful, and understand that:-
‘By writing with Amy and being committed to us having an equal voice in the paper, I have seen how we have been able to develop a process that has enabled us to have our own unique ‘I’ voice, whilst also having a process that enables a truly mutual ‘we’ voice, to be heard’. Page 6
In my last post to you I wrote ‘I am still unclear about the value-based explanation for your educational influence around mutuality’ but now I am starting to believe that I am a witness to your living educational theory of mutuality being strongly supported by your values of empathetic love, hope, participation and justice. Because of your hope you are resilient. Which brings me to mention my observation that this new iteration does not differ that much from the last, but perhaps now I am understanding why. To me this raises questions about the relationship between validation and review activities, and am sure there is more that could be explored here.
In the abstract you identify four key findings:
Areas of mutuality that we had not predicted
Deeper understanding of your relational dynamic
Introduction to your let of mutuality
Guidance on writing a dual authored paper
Would you like to describe in turn each of 1 – 4 above in more detail, with specific examples; in the conclusion. If this were done then I think your messages would be communicated more clearly to readers and I would be happy to recommend publication.
Love
Brian
Firs to all congratulations for your great achievements which enabled you both to reach at this stage. Now this seems ready for publication finally.
Reading this iteration/version (of your paper) has been very interesting for me and found very much improved as compare to the earlier ones e.g., you successfully inserted some text boxes as an approach to postmodern genre that enables reader/researcher to provide an additional and more engaging way of explanation of the authorial voice as mutuality.
However, i have more or less similar views on Pip and Brain to put little bit efforts which especially mentioned here and there (throughout the paper) in her comments by Pip. Similarly, i agree with Brain regarding his views to your four key learning outcomes of the living theory account in your abstract to explain through thick descriptions of those key areas rather than mentioning in bullet points. I guess, with such improvement your paper would be oky for publications.
Once again congratulation for your dedicated efforts to justify your claims on mutuality that is really a contribution and addition to the body of literature.
kind regards and
love. Sadruddin
Hi
Thanks, Pip, Brian and Sadruddin. Amy and I are getting together on Monday to make our final amends ready for the editorial board to decide whether to add our paper to the December edition of Ejolts.
We appreciate you all hanging in there with us and helping us to complete our paper.
Sonia and Amy
Thank you all so much for your final suggestions and for all your help to get the paper ready for submission. We have added these and have uploaded the paper for the editorial boards decision. I hope you have enjoyed being part of our development of living-theory of mutuality.
Sonia and Amy
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