Writing back to reviewers, assessors and examiners

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responding to examiners and reviewers, Writing rejoinders and responses

By Claire Aitchison

Writing a thesis is only one of numerous writing tasks in doctoral candidature. Writing for a reading audience across multiple forms (journal articles, social media, grant applications and so on) is increasingly expected of doctoral scholarship – and this also means learning how to respond to feedback and critique.

This post for supervisors and candidates focuses on the often-occluded practices of writing rejoinders for grant applications, scholarly journal reviews and PhD examiner reports. I acknowledge what we’d like to say – and what we should!

Writing to your audience – consider the examiner

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audience in writing

By Claire Aitchison

The regular advice to doctoral candidates to write with their audience in mind usually refers to a generalised notion of who the examiner might be. We’ve long advocated that reader-awareness ought to be incorporated into thesis writing since this practice requires the writer to step out of their own shoes and to (re)consider how the text will be read by another. To see the writing from a different perspective is a useful tool for testing how meaning may be interpreted. Seeking feedback from supervisors, peers and critical friends helps to refine audience-awareness, however, examiners are the penultimate readers of the doctoral output since they are charged with assessing its merits. For doctoral candidates, their views matter the most.   

Writing oneself into the PhD oral defense: preparing a response to examination reports

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PhD defense, PhD Viva, Writing for Oral Defense

This blog comes from Dr Fae Heaselgrave, a Communications scholar and lecturer from the University of South Australia, who recently undertook an oral defense of her PhD.  Here she explains how she used writing to rehearse – both to prepare what she wanted to say, but also to prepare herself mentally for the task ahead. 

I recently engaged in a viva, the oral component of a PhD examination, where I met my examiners via Zoom link and received their recommendation for award.

You may be wondering what an oral examination has to do with a blog about doctoral writing! Well, working through examiners’ reports in preparation for an oral defense is not an easy feat, but it does engage many of the skills learnt during the course of a PhD, namely critical thinking, analysis and interpretation, and effective and persuasive writing.

Introductions and conclusion: How same, how different?

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thesis writing

By Susan Carter

Introductions and conclusions bookend or mirror each other. But they also differ from each other in significant ways. Doctoral writers need to be aware of the generic expectations of introductions and conclusions.

Recently, I was in a workshop with academic writers revising their introductions and conclusion. We were working on identifying strong rhetorical moves in these two significant sections, talking about what sort of moves, syntax, and word choice equated with persuasive beginnings and endings. The idea was that once we itemised what was strong, we could all improve the style and power of our own drafts.

Writing a thesis by publication. Some reasons for and against

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article-based thesis, collection of articles, compilation thesis, thesis by publication

By Kalypso Filippou

Kalypso Filippou is a post-doctoral researcher and part-time teacher at the Faculty of Education, University of Turku in Finland. Kalypso’s research interests mainly focus in the field of higher education, international education, and intercultural postgraduate thesis supervision.

I have recently defended my article-based thesis (aka thesis by publication, collection of articles thesis) and I was intrigued by the blog of Cally Guerin regarding the ongoing debate of writing a thesis by publication (https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/2019/03/18/thinking-about-writing-a-thesis-by-publication-some-reasons-for-and-against/#more-2348). I actually agree with all the reasons for and against that were indicated but I decided to re-examine these advantages and disadvantages and add a few more reasons based on my experiences as a doctoral candidate who wrote a thesis by publication.

Matching Introductions and Conclusions

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thesis introductions, writing conclusions

By Cally Guerin

It might seem obvious, but it’s always worth reminding doctoral writers to make sure the Introduction and Conclusion to their thesis match. Sometimes, a lot of effort is spent writing an ‘Introduction’ to the thesis in the early stages of candidature. But over time, the focus or emphasis of the thesis can shift – new ideas come to the forefront, and some of the original ideas have faded away into the background. As Mullins and Kiley (2002, p.377) made clear: examiners do look to see whether the conclusions follow from the introduction.