The Thesis Whisperer is a ‘not for loss’ blog which is maintained by me (Dr Inger Mewburn) in my own time, with my own money. There are a couple of ways you can help me keep the blog alive.

You can show Thesis Whisperer some regular love by becoming a $1 a month Patreon subscriber. Every little bit really helps!

If you are shopping for books for your PhD on Amazon, you can help me by buying something via the links on my Big List of Excellent books for your PhD

But wait, there’s more! Here are some other options:

Buy the (cheap!) book of the blog ‘Tame Your PhD’, containing the best of 10 years of blogging!

The second edition of my self published book ‘How to tame your PhD’ is available – this time with no typos and just over 36,000 words! ‘How to Tame your PhD’ helps you navigate the major ‘pain points’ of writing a PhD thesis; from thinking up a research question, to working out your discussion section and learning how to pump out 10,000 words a day. I believe in the advice in this book because I followed it myself. I did do my thesis in 3 years while working two days a week – and won my faculty award at the end. This book contains my best tips and tricks. It also has a lovely new cover, designed by Sussanah Low from Wishpom.

The price of the ebook is carefully geared to the cost of a coffee in my home town of Canberra. If you feel the Thesis Whisperer has helped you, and you want to buy me a coffee, this is the way to do it! The paperback is more expensive as I splashed out on a matte cover and expensive paper – I reckon if you are going to buy an actual book, it should be nice. This option is for people who like paper – or want to be able to lend it out to others.

All proceeds from this book go towards Thesis Whisperer running costs and the rest to charity.

Thank you for enabling me to purchase much needed equipment and software. Any money earned above costs is donated to a range of charities, including UN Women, The Peter Macallum Cancer Foundation and Market Forces campaign ‘UniSuper Divest’ – a campaign to stop academic superannuation being used to buy fossil fuel shares.

Purchase options are:

• Buy the PDF directly from this site for $4.99 AUD
• Buy Tame your Phd for your kindle from the US Amazon store for $6.99.
• Buy Tame your PhD for your kindle from the UK Amazon
• Buy the paperback version from Lulu Press for $19.99

How to Fix your academic writing trouble

My first book on writing techniques was written with my excellent colleagues Shaun Lehmann and Katherine Firth of the Research Insiders Blog. Here’s the back blurb:

This clear and accessible guide to decoding academic feedback will help you interpret what your lecturer or research supervisor is really trying to tell you about your writing – and show you how to fix it. We will help you master a range of techniques and strategies to take your writing to the next level and along the way you’ll learn why academic text looks the way it does, and how to produce that ‘authoritative scholarly voice’ that everyone talks about. This book is an easy to use resource for postgraduate students and researchers in all disciplines, and even professional academics, to diagnose their writing issues and find ways to fix them. This book would also be a valuable text for academic writing courses and writing groups, such as those offered in doctoral and masters by research degree programmes.

Your options are:

• Buy the book from the US amazon store here
• Buy it from the UK Amazon store here.
• The cheapest way for Australian readers to buy this book is straight from the publisher, see link here.
• In Australia, you should be able to get this book via your local bookstore too. Most university book stores have carried it.

If the book is out of stock in Australia, or you live in a country which doesn’t stock it, you can write directly to me on inger.mewburn@anu.edu.au – I usually have a stash and can arrange to sell you a copy and ship it.

Level up your essays

The Text Expander Guide for Academics

Type Less. Eat more ice-cream.

Welcome to the Mewburn-Downs guide to using TextExpander. Here’s the promise of this book in a nutshell:

Without working any harder, you can save time with TextExpander by typing less, but still producing the same number of words.

TextExpander is an app that runs in the background on your computer; always ready to insert ‘pre-recorded’ text into any application. Little savings gained with TextExpander program can add up  – we think the average academic can save a week a year.

But… Inger initially struggled to harness the power of TextExpander in her academic job. Jason brought Inger up to speed by sharing examples during tapings of On The Reg, our podcast about academic productivity. We realised that what new users need is a ‘look book’ of TextExpander snippets, just for academics. We imagined a book that contained a series of examples and use cases relevant to teaching and researching inside universities.

This book is the first version of that dream.

Buy it directly from Thesis Whisperer here for only $3.99 AUD

We hope you’ll consider buying this book even if you don’t own the software: it will help you assess TextExpander and think about how it might work for you. Our purpose in writing this book is not to make you ‘more productive’ for your university: they get enought out of you already. We want to help you get more time for, well – you. Time you save using TextExpander can be used to eat a proper lunch; sit on a bench on campus and read a book; get some exercise; go home earlier – or whatever takes your fancy.

Don’t have TextExpander yet? Buy TextExpander through this link and save 20%

All proceeds from this book will go towards supporting the ‘On the Reg’ podcast operating expenses, including hosting, software and equipment.

 

Your Time Starts now: a guide to achieving success in the Three minute thesis competition by Simon Clews

Are you thinking about participating in the Three Minute Thesis competition this year? Thesis Whisperer books has a new book available to help you succeed!

Buy Your Time Starts Now as a PDF for $3.99 AUD

Your Time Starts Now: a guide to achieving success in the Three Minute Thesis Competition is authored by Simon Clews. Now an Honorary (Senior Fellow) with the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, Simon Clews was the inaugural Director of the Melbourne Engagement Lab at Melbourne University. Here he trained, encouraged and motivated some of Australia’s brightest minds to make their work accessible to non-academic audiences.

Other books I have been involved in

I assisted in the publication and editing of the “Postgraduate Study in the Australia: Surviving and Succeeding” which is presently only available online.

If you’re interested in my more ‘serious’ academic work, check out the upcoming book I have edited with Deborah Lupton and Pat Thomson. The Digital Academic: Critical Perspectives on Digital Technologies in Higher Education. Published through Routledge. For a taste of the book here is a book chapter I wrote about PhD student blogging with Pat Thomson.