‘It’s gold!’ – A treasure to help you through your studies A.K.A “Postgraduate study in Australia: surviving and succeeding”

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book review, Postgraduate Study in Australia

By Dr Susan Mowbray

Susan is the Academic Literacy Advisor in the Graduate Research School at Western Sydney University working with postgraduate students at all stages of candidature, supporting them to refine and progress their research and writing. Susan’s interests include exploring and supporting doctoral student experiences.

BOOK REVIEW: Postgraduate study in Australia: surviving and succeeding. (2017).  Editors: Christopher McMaster, Caterina Murphy, Benjamin Whitburn, Inger Mewburn. New York: Peter Lang

In 2017 I requested that my library buy a copy of Postgraduate study in Australia; surviving and succeeding. I was interested to read it given its focus on the experiences of Australian postgrad students – I was also curious given its protracted birthing process because “no Australian education publisher was interested in supporting students in their own country”.

The idea for this book came originally from Chris McMaster and Caterina Murphy, two academics from New Zealand (NZ). Motivated to offer meaningful advice to NZ PhD students from other NZ PhD students, they asked new graduates/late phase doctoral students for chapters in response to the question “If you could go back in time to when you started your studies, what advice would you give your younger self?”  

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Ending the year – and looking forward to another

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End-of-year greetings, Holiday reading

From Claire, Susan and Cally

It seems extraordinary that we are finishing another year at DoctoralWriting!

Like colleagues everywhere, as the academic year draws to an end, we limp wearily towards the finishing line simultaneously buoyed by the thought of holidays and weighed down by all the tasks that require attention before we can relax. The precious ‘compulsory week off’ seems more and more special as many academics find their working lives intensifying. Speaking of which, we’ve found Agnes Bosanquet’s musing on The Slow Academic to have particular resonance – and recommend it as wonderful holiday reading. Along similar lines, you may also enjoy Robert Dessaix’s new book: The pleasures of leisure.

Down here in the southern hemisphere we are looking forward to the summer Christmas shutdown as the most important break in our working calendars.

Call for posts: Extending the doctoral writing conversation beyond English

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languages other than English (LOTE), WRAB conference

By Cally Guerin

Looking through my notes from the 2017 Writing Research Across Borders conference (WRAB) (held at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogota, Colombia in February), I was struck by how much of the program I was unable to participate in. Any conference with parallel sessions means missing out on many of the papers. However, this time, as a monolingual English speaker at a largely Spanish-speaking conference, I really missed out!

Although not usually a victim of FOMO (fear of missing out), this time I was acutely aware of being surrounded by fascinating conversations that I couldn’t access. What was going on around me? What are the pressing issues for those writing doctoral theses in Spanish, French, German, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese? Are they the same as those faced by scholars writing in English? Is this different again when writing a thesis in English as an additional language? I suspect that many supervisors who work in English-speaking countries have little awareness of the different language and cultural conventions and expectations that come into play.

The posts here on the DoctoralWritingSIG blog have, until now, focused on the issues relating to writing a thesis in English. We cover all sorts of aspects: topics specifically focused on thesis writing; on grammar and style more broadly; on writing practices; and on the issues around identity and emotion that arise in the context of doctoral writing.

It would be of great interest to extend our understandings of the issues around doctoral writing in other languages. If you work with doctoral candidates in languages other than English, or with candidates writing in English as an additional language, we’d love to hear about your experiences and insights into the challenges faced and helpful solutions you’ve found. Or if you are a student writing your doctorate in a language other than English, you may have insights you’d like to share. We see from our website statistics that we have readers from nearly every country in the world, so there is a wealth of knowledge out there amongst you.

Here at DoctoralWritingSIG we’d like to host a special themed month on doctoral writing from the perspective of those using languages other than English. We will accept contributions in English as well as other languages. Our practice is to always review posts before they go live and this will also be the case for these submissions (with some translation help if not in English!).

Please send us your proposals (100-200 words) so we can start this conversation. We’ll work with you to prepare your ideas for publication on our website as a blog post of 600-800 words. Email your proposals before 31 July to doctoralwriting@gmail.com.

3rd International Conference on Developments in Doctoral Education and Training (ICDDET), 3-4 April 2017

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conference report, doctoral training, ICDDET

By Cally Guerin

The International Conference on Developments in Doctoral Education and Training (ICDDET) is gaining momentum with its third conference in the UK held at Stratford upon Avon last week. As in 2015, this conference draws together perspectives from (primarily) the UK, Europe, North America and Australia. The doctorate is an international qualification and it was encouraging to see how speakers from all these regions are consistently on message: doctoral education needs to be thinking about what happens to our researchers beyond graduation.

2016 – another good year for doctoral writing!

By Claire Aitchison, Susan Carter and Cally Guerin

It’s a convention at this time of year to reflect on what has happened over the past 12 months and thank those who have helped make all that happen – a convention of which we heartily approve as part of the season’s celebrations. This is our 50^th post for the year, and we’ve covered all sorts of topics, received lots of comments on them, and seen our readership continue to grow.

A review of ‘Social Media for Academics’ by Mark Carrigan

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book review, Social Media for Academics, using social media

By Claire Aitchison

Is it possible to write a book about social media with any chance of it not being out-dated before it hits the presses? This is the question I asked myself when I first heard of Mark Carrigan’s book: Social Media for Academics (SAGE 2016). In this case Mark has managed to do so and has produced a book about social media that is thoughtful, practical and relevant to his target audience – academics. Furthermore, the scope and the scholarly approach to exploring the whys and wherefores of social media for academics means this book is likely to remain relevant for quite some time yet.

Mark writes like an insider because he is an academic and researcher who is also an active and skilful social media user. Mark’s approach to social media is informed by his work as a digital sociologist and consultant. This means he is concerned not simply with how and what to do in the social media space; he is also interested in the social and personal functions of social media in higher education, digital scholarship, identity and engagement, and the implications arising from participation.