Category Archives: academic writing

early onset satisfaction – a bad thing for writing and writers

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

(health warning – this post is a tiny rant) early onset satisfaction – this is a notion that I once heard Mem Fox talking about. She put EOS as the enemy of all writers. Feeling too happy with a piece … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, early onset satisfaction, premature publication, so what | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

writing a journal article is managing a word budget – or not

Posted on April 11, 2013 by

We’ve all heard about the importance of balancing the household budget and the horrors of what happens when you get into debt. No, I’m not going off on a political rant here, just trying to connect academic writing with the … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, balance, journal, word budget | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

writing course day four

Posted on April 6, 2013 by

Today in the writing course we began with a shut-up-and-write about what needed to go in the methods section. • What does the journal’s community expect in this section? • What do readers need to know to trust what you … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, conclusion, middle work, reviewing | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

writing course day three

Posted on April 5, 2013 by

The entire five hours today was spent on PowerPoint presentations. People had been asked to prepare a few slides which showed: 1. the name of the journal 2. the title of their paper 3. the big context that would connect … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, conclusion, introduction, powerpoint | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

story-boarding the thesis structure

Posted on March 28, 2013 by

As is generally the case, one of my two posts for the week focuses on academic writing. This time I’m looking at putting the thesis together. It usual for people to start writing their thesis text in the middle – … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, dissertation, middle work, storyboarding, thesis | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

writing like those I admire

Posted on March 18, 2013 by

That half conscious state between sleeping and waking seems to be the time that I begin to compose a blog post. I often wake up relatively early with a half formed idea. I then work on it idly, gradually waking … Continue reading →

Posted in academic book, academic life, academic writing, argument, authority in writing, de Certeau, reading | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

misquoted, misunderstood? no, it’s misrepresentation that gets to me

Posted on March 14, 2013 by

A while ago I was part of a tweet conversation about being misquoted. I think it began with someone asking whether anyone had been misquoted and what it felt like. I said that I had, and volunteered to blog about … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, citation, misinterpreting, misquoting, misrepresentation | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

getting tense about tense

Posted on March 7, 2013 by

In a recent comment to this blog someone asked me if I had any tips on managing tense. They found themselves, they said, wandering around in time as they wrote, meandering from present to past and back again, undertaking an … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, grammar, literature review, methodology, methods chapter, tense, thesis | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

location – another metaphor for writing about your research

Posted on January 17, 2013 by

There are a lot of geographical metaphors used in research talk. We routinely speak about fields of study, mapping the literatures, surveying the literatures. Location is another one of those borrowed-from-geography metaphors and it’s one I‘m particularly fond of. Locating … Continue reading →

Posted in abstracts, academic writing, journal, literature review, location, metaphor, Tiny Text | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

I’d like to thank… the important work of acknowledgements

Posted on January 14, 2013 by

I’m co-editing a book series at present. I’m not sure why, since I swore after the last one I would never do it again, but there you go. Just a slow learner or weak-willed, I guess. Last week one of … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, acknowledgements, books, dissertation, gift economy, Ken Hyland, thesis | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments