research education, academic writing, public engagement, funding, other eccentricities.
Doctoral researchers sometimes suffer from a lack of confidence about their writing. They can construct a sentence, a paragraph and a whole chapter. But they have difficulty when they imagine a supervisor, a reviewer, or an examiner reading over their shoulder as they type. Every clause gets checked against an invisible judge before it s finished, and [ ]
I wrote recently about the difference between reflection and reflexivity. Reflection looks back at what you have done and asks what you can learn from it. Reflexivity turns the lens on you, the person doing the work, and on the conditions under which you are making knowledge. What do you actually do with this distinction [ ]
“If you re going to quote other scholars, not as primary sources whose work you mean to analyse, but because they ve got insights you want to support yours, make sure they re carrying your luggage and not the other way around.” Cassuto, 2024, p. 40 Here s what that luggage metaphor is saying. A quotation you use as [ ]
That tweet is back. You know the one. A PhD thesis, it says, is the only book in the world read cover to cover by exactly three people: the author, the proofreader, and the examiner. The screenshot of the tweet gets thousands of likes every time it resurfaces. I always wonder how many of those [ ]
When you first started postgraduate study, someone probably told you that you had to be reflexive. You may even have been told to include a section on reflexivity in your thesis. No, you don’t have to have a specific section called reflexivity in your thesis. But you probably do need to say something about it. [ ]
Josh Bernoff, who wrote Writing Without Bullshit, had a suggestion for anyone about to start drafting. Work out your ROAM first. What’s ROAM I hear you ask? Well, it s a set of questions. Bernoff suggests you put all four answers into a single sentence before you write a word of your first draft. After reading this piece, ( [ ]
When we work with our data we have to decide who and what gets to be in the story. A number goes in the table or it doesn t. A quote earns half a page, a passing mention, or nothing at all. The participant who said the awkward, off-message thing gets wrapped in a sentence that [ ]
George Saunders won the Man Booker prize in 2017 with his novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Earlier that year he wrote about his revising process. My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, with P on this side ( Positive ) and N on this side ( Negative ). I try to read what I ve written uninflectedly, [ ]
Everyone in academia knows Reviewer 2. You ‘ve probably received their comments. You may even in a dark moment, have been them. This post is a practical guide to achieving full Reviewer 2 status. It s offered in the spirit of knowing your enemy. Reviewer 2 has an attitude. Even before they have read the abstract, [ ]
Doctoral researchers are sometimes asked in their viva what their plans for dissemination are. Gulp. But this is a question worth thinking about. It s not a trick question. Examiners are genuinely interested in how you think about what happens after the viva. They may also have some helpful ideas about what you could do. However, [ ]