“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”: Suggestions for developing writing confidence

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Sharing writing, Writing buddies, Writing confidence

By Sara Cotterall and Morena Botelho de Magalhães

Morena and I have worked in universities for a number of years. Amongst other things, we share a passion for languages and beer! Morena grew up in Brazil and I am from NZ. In 2014 we met at a conference in Bangkok and in 2016, we met at a conference in China, by which time we had become colleagues and friends. So, in 2017, when Morena was doing her PhD in Auckland and I had returned to New Zealand from teaching in the Middle East, we decided to present a conference paper together: “Doctoral research by EAL candidates: How effective is generic support?”. In 2019, with our friend Diego Mideros, we co-authored an article about identity, voice and agency in doctoral writing. So, having dined, researched, presented, travelled and written together, we thought it was time to blog together!

We believe that CONFIDENCE is essential for effective writing and wanted to share some strategies for building writing confidence. We planned the post together and have indicated who contributed what. We hope you find our suggestions helpful. [Sara]

Sharing writing, though often feared by novice writers, is beneficial [Morena]

Perhaps not all novice writers are afraid of sharing their work, but this was certainly my experience.

Doctoral writing development: supervisors and institutional support Part Two

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Supervisors and writing experts, Third space practitioners, Writing support

By Claire Aitchison

In the previous blog post I explored how doctoral writing is supported through the work of supervisors and ‘third space’ practitioners, that is, those who operate from institutional units such as learning or writing centres, research offices or academic development units. In that post, I tried to tease out what might be different between centrally provided services and the work of a supervisor in relation to doctoral writing development. It’s a slippery space that challenges us to (re)consider our roles and practices.

Here I extend that discussion to consider how supervisors and third space practitioners can work together.

Doctoral writing development: supervisors and institutional support Part One

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Academic developers, Academic literacy advisors, Researcher developers, Supervisors as writing teachers, Writing Services

By Claire Aitchison

Many of our readers work with doctoral candidates in support roles either as researcher educators, academic literacy advisors, or academic developers, often in addition to being doctoral candidate supervisors. In this two-part blog, I draw on my own experiences, to explore the differences and interfaces between these roles, and what this means for the doctoral candidate.

I am thinking out loud – this is a work in progress designed to invite comment on my nascent reflections about the practices that mark our work with doctoral writing.

Writing Conference Abstracts

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Abstract, Conference abstracts

Claire Aitchison

For many researchers, presenting at a conference is the vehicle for the first ‘public’ display of their work. Whether you are supporting others with their conference abstract, or a student making your first draft – this post outlines key features for a successful abstract. Most of us are familiar with the abstracts of scholarly papers, however, while similar to the abstract that accompanies a journal paper, conference abstracts have some unique features.

Best use of exemplars for doctoral writing

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English language writing skills, Writing motivation, writing skills development

By Douglas Eacersall and Cristy Bartlett, with Susan Carter

It’s common that as supervisors and advisors we tell doctoral candidates to get online and look at other theses—any theses that can be found online are successful and available for students to get ideas for how to write their own. This post comes from Douglas and Cristy who took the time in their institution to build a library of full thesis proposals, those documents that candidates need to satisfy first year review and confirm their registration in the doctoral programme. They described their work in a DoctoralWriting Conversation in which they also discussed their book chapter on preparing students for candidature review – Confirmation of candidature: An autoethnographic reflection from the dual identities of student and research administrator.

To some extent, that is another story, and at the end of this post, there is a little more on how to gather examples of that quite covert genre, the full thesis proposal. What this post focuses on, though, is the advice that can be given to doctoral candidates so that they make effective use of exemplars of any item of doctoral writing.

Discussion chapters: writing feedback and revision

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Doctoral writing feedback, Revision before doctoral submission

By Judy Parr and Susan Carter

Judy Parr is a Professor of Education in the School of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Highly effective, much esteemed, and generous with her time, Judy has been a mentor and model for Susan who is delighted to bring a combined post to you.

This post assembles some general advice for the writing, feedback and revision of a doctoral Discussion chapter. It’s a very important part of the thesis that needs to conceptualise and position what has been done in the doctoral study within the wider discourse.

This post has been prompted, as is often the case with DoctoralWriting posts, by practice: recently, we have been giving feedback on Discussion chapters both together and separately (and we acknowledge others we supervise with – we draw from their tips and strategies too).