Why do supervisors contradict themselves? Development of feedback

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feedback on writing, Feedback practices, supervisor contradictions

By Cally Guerin

One of the ongoing challenges for doctoral writers is the confusion (and frustration) that arises when supervisors seem to change their opinions about what the writing needs. It can look like supervisors contradict themselves if they offer feedback on writing, and then later advise something different. Why does this happen? We need to consider how, just as the writing develops, the feedback itself also develops over time. I think there are several reasons that supervisors’ feedback can change.

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Generic doctoral writing programmes: What do you do and why do you do it?

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4x4 exercise, stuckness, writer's block, writing exercise

E Marcia Johnson, our guest blogger, has been the Director of the Centre for Tertiary Teaching & Learning (CeTTL) since 2012. Coming from a background in eLearning and Applied Linguistics, she has taught and researched in Canada, Japan, and New Zealand. Marcia and her team have introduced a number of cross-disciplinary, cohort-based initiatives to improve the student experience of learning, particularly doctoral writing and academic integrity. In particular, their weekly Doctoral Writing Conversation has facilitated the development of a range of strategies to help PhD students become successful thesis writers.

By E Marcia Johnson

Given the increasingly large, diverse cohort of doctoral students in many New Zealand and Australian universities (and elsewhere), additional pressure is being placed on academic staff to supervise more and more students. However, the rhetorical demands of thesis writing are quite specific, with Carter (2011) proposing that doctoral writing is its own literary genre. A strong case can thus be made for generic thesis writing programmes to be offered by specialists with expertise in writing; such programmes could not only aid students’ emerging thesis writing competence, they would provide welcome support for supervisors. What I’ll describe in this post is an example of what can be done as part of a generic thesis writing programme (the Doctoral Writing Conversation (DWC)), but – importantly – the underlying reasons for doing it.

Doctoral writing: to think ideas or to sell them to the reader?

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Accurate word choice, English language writing skills, Precision, thesis editing, Writing as social identity; the reader as significant other, writing skills development

by Susan Carter

This morning a colleague who was to provide a workshop for doctoral students phoned in sick. Stepping in at short notice to replace her, I’m used Amanda Wolf’s four sentence formula for writing a research proposal in the workshop.  As we worked through Amanda’s exercise, I noticed how this great post is an exercise about writing to sell ideas to the reader rather than an exercise in writing to think. In this blog I ponder two related aspects arising from my fill-in workshop using Amanda’s sentence formula.

A good argument: the thesis of the thesis

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argumentation, structuring argument, writing skills development

By Susan Carter

It is easy (and sounds self-evident) to say that a thesis needs a thesis—i.e., an argument—but it’s easier said than done to produce that thesis in doctoral writing. This post proposes that the thinking done through writing is perhaps the most powerful route to developing a good argument. I’ll begin by considering the qualities of a good argument before pondering on ways to tell whether an argument has really developed to its best iteration. Often it is only once the whole project is completed that the author is able to say defensibly what the findings of the project mean. This means just before submission they need to make what is usually called an argument.

Reverse engineering of writing: Reading to see how ‘good, interesting writing’ works

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argumentation, English language writing skills, Precision, writing skills development

By Susan Carter

This post draws heftily on Gina Wisker’s website, the Good Supervisor, and directs readers to it: read to the bottom of this post for the password! Meanwhile, the post gives an example of one of Gina’s exercises that doctoral writers could undertake to improve their writerly skills. It’s a series of reverse-engineering prompts designed to help doctoral students learn how to ‘notice’ (Kumar & Kumar, 2009) the strategies that good research writers use. I noticed that Gina Wisker says to pick ‘good interesting’ exemplars—that is exactly the kind of writing that early career researchers should be encouraged to notice and aspire to produce.

Here’s Gina’s exercise.

Struggling to be more productive? Maybe this book can help?

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Making time for deep thinking, Productive writing habits

A Book Review by Claire Aitchison

Newport, Cal (2016). Deep work: rules for focused success in a distracted world London. Piatkus

“You need to read this!” said my colleague as she handed me this book. She’d heard of my struggles to survive in my new open plan office and she’d seen me sweat and strain under the daily tsunami of emails.

But I’ve never been a fan of the self-help genre, and besides that, I don’t have time to read for pleasure! So it sat around in my lounge room until, spurred on by guilt, I picked it up with the aim of reading just enough to politely return it. However, I found that, despite myself, I enjoyed it – enough to encourage doctoral students and academic friends to have a look for themselves.