Social aspects of doctoral writing, courtesy of Marmalade the rabbit

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Researcher identity, Writing as social identity; the reader as significant other

By Susan Carter

You probably don’t pay much attention to the image we have as our banner branding the DoctoralWriting SIG blog. Take a look at it now—there’s a hand at the keyboard of a computer, and it holds a ballpoint between two fingers telling of work on both hard and soft copies and thinking across both. Over to one side there’s the top of a notebook and a document held together with a binder clip, evidence of all the reading and interconnection of texts that sit behind academic writing.

That’s a pretty neat image for a blog on doctoral writing, right? But what you do not know about is the back story to this image, a story that contains a rabbit. This post discusses why the rabbit is missing as an analogy to what you might leave in or take out of doctoral writing.

Doctoral writing: the incentive of space

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Doctoral writing, Emotion & writing, Researcher identity, Writing motivation

By Susan Carter

I’ve just met with a Pacific Island doctoral candidate, let’s call her Vai after the beautiful Pasifika movie that you should try to see. Vai moved me almost to tears by recounting that she does her doctoral writing in the cemetery next to her grandmother’s grave.

Experience matters: mindfulness and doctoral education

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Mindfullness and writing experiences, overcoming writers' block

Our guest author this week is Dr Michelle Jamieson – a Higher Degree Research Learning Advisor at Macquarie University, Australia, with a special interest in the role experience plays in doing research. As a mindfulness practitioner and medical sociologist, her work explores how mindfulness can help students to develop balanced work practices, healthy ways of relating to themselves and greater joy in the research process. She is the author of the blog www.themindfulresearcher.com.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that no matter what teaching setting I’m in, discussions of the technical aspects of thesis writing often quickly turn into conversations about experience. Whenever students are given space to reflect on their work or ask for help, they’re keen to share their own (and hear about others’) experiences of the research process.

Finding certainty in an uncertain world – how writing can help

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certainty through writing, qualitative research writing, writing and meaning-making

By Claire Aitchison

As I explore this idea I’m thinking primarily – but not wholly – of qualitative researchers who must learn to live with a high degree of uncertainty. Of course, to be admitted and/or proceed with their project most doctoral scholars will need to write convincingly about their research design, describing the aim, research questions and method. Quite rightly, everyone takes this first account very seriously. Supervisors and students will work to make the research proposal as accurate as possible—after all, it will be the basis for years of work ahead. Students are encouraged to make clear decisions and write with certainty—even though we know for qualitative researchers there is a degree to which these declarations of intent may be a bit of a charade. What I mean by this is that, although a research proposal proclaims with confidence the nature and purpose of the investigation to be undertaken, in truth, the newly minted doctoral student (and their supervisor) may secretly concede the text holds plausible degrees of uncertainty.

Preparing for AcWriMo 2019

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AcWriMo, online writing group

By Cally Guerin

November is Academic Writing Month (AcWriMo) – the perfect time to get some writing done before the end of the year. Inspired by Kay Guccione’s WriteFest at Sheffield University over the last few years, I’m trying out some extra events in my new role at ANU. I’ve reported previously on my experiments with AcWriMo, and am keen to keep refining the process. Things have moved on a bit since my first attempt in 2013, but the core concept remains the same.

Responding to supervisor feedback: do doctoral students have to agree?

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Doctoral writing, Emotion & writing, feedback on writing, Feedback practices, Researcher identity

By Susan Carter

My eight years of being a consultant for doctoral students taught me what supervisors sometimes do not see: that candidates can struggle over whether or not to take supervisory advice. Here, I want to defend two suppositions.

1) It is always wise to pick your battles, and on that assumption, students do well to defer to supervisors when the issues are relatively minor.

2) When writing decisions are important, students need to learn how to refuse advice that they disagree with and demonstrate why.

Because students transition towards independent researcher status when they are able to make decisions and then make them work, academics who support them could initiate talk about how to manage disagreement with supervisors.

Often it is tricky responding to supervisor feedback on writing for candidates who don’t really agree with it. Learning how to negotiate diplomatically is a very useful skill that is not gained lightly. The power differential between student and supervisor can make it quite hard for students to hold on to their own choices. Those who come from a culture where it is inappropriate to contradict a teacher could be advised about Western expectations that there are intellectual benefits to arguing. It’s tricky, though, for many candidates, to disagree.