Another year and do we understand doctoral writing any better?

Tags

End-of-year greetings, feedback on writing, online writing group, Supervising online, Writing tips

 

For many of us in English speaking countries, the end of the year means heading into seasonal holidays when we gather together with family and friends, share meals, drinks, Christmas pies and side-step the pressure of work. Lockdowns and anxiety might have both limited this activity and made it even more emotional when there are chances to get together and celebrate just that—time spent together.

Photo by Askar Abayev from Pexels

This year we’re issuing a challenge: what have you learned this year about doctoral writing? The pandemic has forced us to learn new tricks, mostly with working at a distance to support doctoral writing, a topic that Cally considered last year. We thought we’d end 2021 by reflecting on what we’ve learned.

End of 2020 – thank goodness!

Tags

COVID 19, End-of-year greetings

by Claire, Susan and Cally

Looks like we’ve made it through to the end of 2020 – the strangest year many of us have ever experienced.

In this apocalyptic year, most people we know have been in lockdown at various times; some liked it and many hated it. Most supervisors and doctoral writers have found themselves working from home this year much more than they had planned. For some, this has been a bonus, making it easier to manage the complex matrix of family, work and study. They’ve saved time from not travelling to campus and the proliferation of online workshops has meant more ready access to community and professional development than they would usually enjoy.

For many others, especially for doctoral writers living on modest budgets, this has been hugely challenging: the routines of moving between work and other parts of life have dissolved; the loneliness of doctoral study has been exacerbated with even fewer opportunities to meet with peers; and the restrictions of living spaces and internet connection have been unavoidably confronting.

Ending the year – and looking forward to another

Tags

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.