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. 

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International Conference of Education, Research and Innovation (Seville, November 14-16, 2016)

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networking, talking about writing

By Susan Carter

I had the privilege of attending the ICERI conference this year, a large international conference attended by mostly Europeans, but with most parts of the world represented. Perhaps influenced by the recent theatre of the American elections, approaches to education at this conference seemed to emphasise education’s political and social benefits, its potential to be an antidote to powerbrokers by merit of the changes that it makes to individual lives. This potential seems relevant to, and maybe even an inspiring reminder for, doctoral writing, a process that transforms many of our lives.

Future pathways for doctoral graduates: Meeting of the EARLI SIG on Researcher Education and Careers, 18-20 September

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careers, research skills, writing retreat

By Cally Guerin

In September I had the good fortune to attend the meeting of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI) Researcher Education and Careers SIG at the Universidade do Porto in Portugal. This relatively new group met to explore the theme “Careers: Beyond the thesis and beyond the academy”.  Around 40 scholars from all over Europe and Scandinavia (and a few like me from further afield) spent two days discussing the complexities of the current labour market for PhD graduates. The SIG event was divided into two parts: first, there was a two-day writing/reading retreat; then the next two days were devoted to the formal SIG meeting.

Supporting graduate student writers: Research, curriculum and program design (2016).

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Doctoral writing, Writing as social identity; the reader as significant other

This book review is written by guest Susan Mowbray, Western Sydney University. The book seems highly pertinent to our community, so we thank Susan for alerting us to it with her detailed critique.

Supporting graduate student writers. Research, curriculum and program design. (2016). Edited by Steve Simpson, Nigel. A. Caplan, Michelle Cox & Talinn Phillips. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan Press.

Supporting graduate student writers captured my attention as I have recently taken on a literacy support role with our Graduate Research School. The idea for the book was conceived at an invited colloquium on graduate writing support in 2014 and the result of the editors’ labours arrived via the University of Michigan Press in March this year. The book is organised in three parts. Part 1: What do we know/need to know? broadly covers supporting graduate research. Curriculum is dealt with in Part 2: Issues in graduate program and curriculum design. How to acclimatise students to the contemporary university is the focus of Part 3: Program profiles. Within the three parts, 14 chapters detail issues, concerns and/or initiatives in graduate education with 11 providing insights into North American contexts and the other three presenting perspectives from Canada, Sweden and Australia. The most striking aspect of the text for me is its explicit advocacy, and example of, cooperation and collaboration amongst members of the international graduate education community. Caplan and Cox are co-founders of the online Consortium of Graduate Education and this book exemplifies their commitment to actively sharing and building knowledge and engaging with members of the global doctoral education community. I found myself nodding in agreement with many points in each chapter and dog-earring multiple pages to return to later to think and read more about the information being shared.

A rally call against outsourcing graduate writing support

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Outsourcing Writing Support, Writing Centres and Writing Consultants

Here we have reblogged the first of a three part series on outsourcing graduate student writing support. Although situated in a North-American context, the discussion raises important issues for institutional writing specialists, doctoral students, supervisors and consultants everywhere as cash-strapped institutions increasingly combine with entrepreneurial markets to provide writing support to doctoral scholars. The posts are written by Shannon Madden and Jerry Stinnett in response to an article in College Composition and Communication.  We don’t necessarily endorse all the arguments they advance (how could we, since at least two of the editors at DoctoralWritingSIG occasionally work as consultants?!) but we do think these issues deserve attention.  We hope you find the series stimulating. 

Empowering graduate student writers and rejecting outsourced mentorship

By Shannon Madden and Jerry Stinnett

In this 3-part series of installments on the WCJ Blog, we reject the outsourcing of graduate writing support to inexpert consultants in the private sector and call instead for university stakeholders to attend more systematically to the needs of graduate student writers.

As faculty members and former graduate students ourselves, we like many others have experienced the need for more writing support at the graduate level (see also Caplan & Cox, 2016). Very often, graduate students across the disciplines receive little feedback on their writing projects or instruction in advanced genres even though coursework, conference presentations, job applications, and theses and dissertations are all grounded in specialized disciplinary communication practices (Carter, 2007). As a response to this problem, Daveena Tauber’s (2016) recent article in College Composition and Communication offers a model for private writing consultation as a way to support graduate students as they navigate advanced writing tasks. Tauber advocates expanding the definition of successful academic employment to include writing consulting as a means of helping graduate student writers succeed in the university and of relieving the “job crisis” facing Ph.D. students in the humanities.

While Tauber’s approach attends to some of the problems facing graduate student writers, her model also exacerbates many of the same issues it purports to mitigate.

5th International Academic Identities Conference, 29 June – 1 July 2016

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academic identities, publishing

By Cally Guerin

The International Academic Identities conference at Sydney University this week has been abuzz with discussions about “Academic life in the measured university: pleasures, paradoxes and politics”. Our identities as academics within universities are measured, monitored, surveyed in all sorts of ways, from the time that is allotted to various elements of our workloads, to how much money we can generate through student enrolment and grants, and, of course, our research output.

A number of papers at this conference focused on research writing, and lots of them experimented with various presentation modes.