I am working on a lot of revisions at the moment - of my own and also with students on a writing course I am teaching online. I have been thinking a lot about the nature of scholarly writing, especially in relation to why a piece of writing is not working, and what the writer … Continue reading Scholarly writing is a craft
Category: research writing
All my writing epiphanies happen at 2am
Epiphany is one of those great words in the English language, meaning a moment of sudden realization. It usually feels quite profound and transformative in some way. As writers, you will all know about writing epiphanies. You will also likely know that many of them happen when you are not at your computer or journal, … Continue reading All my writing epiphanies happen at 2am
Book writing: making space for the ’emerging argument’
Argument. I have written a lot about that over the past few years. If you are a postgraduate student, you have probably heard that word many times, and as a supervisor, you are probably always looking for ways to explain to your students more clearly and effectively ways to make strong arguments. In this post … Continue reading Book writing: making space for the ’emerging argument’
Knowledge: claims, contributions and confidence
Going through my blog stats recently (one of my many procrastinations last week), I noticed that my post on what a contribution to knowledge is has garnered many hits in the last 2 years especially. That a doctoral study has to make a novel contribution to the researcher-author's field is one of the main things … Continue reading Knowledge: claims, contributions and confidence
Academic writing: making (some) sense of a complex ‘practice of mystery’
This is a second post linked to my own insights about academic writing at postgraduate and postdoctoral level, gleaned from working with a range of student and early career writers over the last few years. This one tackles a tricky topic: the aspects of writing that can be knowable and teachable, and those that are … Continue reading Academic writing: making (some) sense of a complex ‘practice of mystery’
