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
Category: research writing
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’
The connections between the act of research and referencing
As an editor, I often read papers and theses with varying degrees of consistent and well-considered referencing. The most recent MA thesis I edited presented the inspiration for this post - many references included in the text and left out of the list (10 pages' worth), and several easily corrected errors, such as transposing author … Continue reading The connections between the act of research and referencing
