International Doctoral Education Research Network (IDERN) Online Meeting, 26 Aug 2020

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COVID 19, IDERN, online conference, online writing group, Supervising online, writing online

By Cally Guerin

One activity of the DoctoralWriting blog is to report on conferences and events we’ve attended. Of course, this year that has been hugely disrupted: most of us have seen our favourite meetings cancelled and have consequently missed out on the interactions with our research community that are usually a source of inspiration and encouragement. Luckily, online alternatives are appearing to fill that gap.

On 26 August, the first online meeting was convened for IDERN, the International Doctoral Education Research Network (this group had previously planned to meet in Denmark in June 2020). The topic was “Distance supervision and its discontents: what do we need to understand?”, facilitated by Gina Wisker (University of Bath), Swapna Kumar (University of Florida) and me (Australian National University). We had about 60 attendees from 17 different countries around the world.

Any discussion of supervision inevitably touches upon issues around doctoral writing, and this meeting was the same, even though writing wasn’t our specific focus. The sudden shift to online supervision in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic has meant that many supervisors have been forced into developing different practices for working on writing with doctoral candidates.

Writing development online

A number of people in the meeting commented on the advantages of supervisors and candidates working on-screen together to edit and revise documents via the screen-sharing function of Zoom or in Google Teams. Each person at their own computer could more easily see exactly what was being done – which words were being manipulated and reasons for vocabulary choices; how the sentence was being reshaped to shift the emphasis or enhance the flow between ideas; and where paragraphs were being moved to foreground the central argument. This allowed for more detailed input and deeper learning than simply seeing the decisions recommended in track changes. The easy recording of online meetings was also reported as an advantage.

Online writing groups have proliferated in 2020. While various forms of writing groups have been steadily increasing in recent years, we have seen lots more Shut Up & Write sessions offered by institutions and also organised at local research group level this year. Opportunities to have company when writing in lockdown or when forced off campus have also taken advantage of the social contact between members – the talk before and after writing sprints is seen as very beneficial.

Online seminars were also mentioned during the meeting. These appear to be experienced as less hierarchical than traditional face-to-face events. Interestingly, it was noted that less confident participants tended to engage in the chat instead of remaining silent as they would under normal conditions. Perhaps these doctoral writers can find their voices through writing rather than speaking in such forums: they have time to think about the words and grammar, time to check the writing before posting to the group. Simply doing more writing – wherever that happens – is also likely to build confidence and better skills over time. More opportunities to write surely equals more opportunities to learn how to write well.

Online supervision practices

The following platforms and software were reported as useful for facilitating online writing supervision:

• Slack to communicate across different research groups in the same field
• Google Docs for mind-mapping with sticky notes
• Padlet for brainstorming and creative thinking
• MS teams for keeping material in one place and thus reducing lengthy email threads; and also for easy sharing of archived texts and facilitation of asynchronous chat

While talking about issues around wellbeing in remote supervision during the pandemic, Gina Wisker observed that thesis writing has in fact been hugely comforting for some doctoral candidates. Writing is one of the very few things that students (and supervisors) may feel they have control over in 2020; for some, writing can provide structure and purpose, as well as making some progress with their project.

If any of our readers were part of this meeting, I’m keen to hear your impressions of the conversation. There was a lot going on, and it would be great if you can add to this brief summary.

 

Introductions and conclusion: How same, how different?

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thesis writing

By Susan Carter

Introductions and conclusions bookend or mirror each other. But they also differ from each other in significant ways. Doctoral writers need to be aware of the generic expectations of introductions and conclusions.

Recently, I was in a workshop with academic writers revising their introductions and conclusion. We were working on identifying strong rhetorical moves in these two significant sections, talking about what sort of moves, syntax, and word choice equated with persuasive beginnings and endings. The idea was that once we itemised what was strong, we could all improve the style and power of our own drafts.

Evaluative Judgement – how do we know when doctoral work is good enough?

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doctoral self-assessment, Evaluative judgement, judging doctoral qulaity

Claire Aitchison

How can doctoral students (and their supervisors) be confident their work is up to scratch? When are students ready to judge the quality of their own work and their developing expertise? And how do doctoral students and their supervisors know when the PhD is ready to send for examination?

Answering these questions requires critical reflection and accurate judgement – but how are these skills learned?

Doctoral students commence their PhD from a place of strength; they’ve been admitted through a competitive system into the highest level of university accreditation. It’s rightly a proud moment. But as the doctoral journey progresses, other mechanisms will be needed to inform candidates and their supervisors of their performance.

Being able to make accurate judgements about quality, ‘doctoralness’ and readiness is central to becoming a knowledgeable, confident, independent researcher.

Writing an article – how is it different from writing a thesis?

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audience, authorial voice, literature review, thesis by publication, writing journal articles

by Cally Guerin

Some doctoral candidates come into their programs with extensive experience of writing for publication from their previous work or study. For most, though, it is a big jump from writing assignments for lecturers or a Masters dissertation to writing a formal article for publication in a high-ranking, peer-reviewed journal. There’s a lot of useful information out there about how to write for academic journals. In this post I want to focus on an aspect of this discussion that is rarely mentioned: how does article writing differ from thesis writing? Importantly, how can doctoral writers recognise and respond to the difference?

Academic Writing: Perspective from an English as Second Language Speaker

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Writing motivation, writing skills development

This post comes from guest blogger, Sabrina Islam. Sabrina  is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, the University of Melbourne.

Sabrina is a rookie coder, trying to answer what committing to the response by serotonin means at cellular and evolutionary contexts by looking at biological data. 

Here she reflects on academic writing and doctoral identity.

 

 

The language tree image source is artist Minna Sundberg              Source: https://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/23/a-language-family-tree-in-pictures

As I was parallel drafting both my thesis chapter and an editorial for the past couple of weeks, I realised how quickly I flipflop between different personalities when I write different pieces. From this realisation resurfaced a much bigger realisation—I switch my personality every time I communicate in English.

“Learning another language is like becoming another person”- said Haruki Murakami. I sort of agree. Donning a second language feels really very similar to donning a “work outfit”- I am a different person with my work shoes on vs what Aussies call “thongs”. Communicating in the language of academia adds another layer of complexity: it’s like putting on suits. To an outsider or someone who is communicating in English as a second language speaker, this may feel like a new dress-code with a new, more complex set of rules. Having multiple voices in the research arena can be an opportunity, but it can also be a challenge.

Pretty much every PhD student who communicates in academic English has been challenged with some aspects of it. Here are some of my insights to ease the friction of switching between personalities. I am organising my thoughts into two layers: being comfortable in your new outfit; and assembling a wardrobe.

That’s a wrap! The end of 2019 and the start of a new decade

Photo by Bench Accounting on Unsplash

2019 has been another busy year for DoctoralWriting, just as it has been for our readers around the world. Recently we passed the 15,000 followers mark. We’ve published another 35 posts this year, with the following guest bloggers based in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa contributing to the conversation – thank you all!