Category: On Writing

Hey – Before I start, here are some upcoming events I’m doing at Cambridge University, which are open to the public: A lecture at Wolfson College, Cambridge on Tuesday 6 June at 5:30pm, which touches on themes from my new book with Simon Clews ‘Be visible or Vanish’. There’s an in-person option if you can …continue reading.

I’m on sabbatical for the next three months and have committed to doing a literature review on neurodiversity and PhD study. Ugh. I hate doing literature reviews. I’m just going to say it: most academic writing is BORING and doing a big review means reading lots of it. The thought of reading more than 200 …continue reading.

Writing a thesis or book is an enormous task that takes years and involves reading hundreds, sometimes thousands, of books, papers and articles. At the same time, you must produce your own words and make sure you don’t accidentally plagiarise other people. People end up with all kinds of home-brew solutions to solve this epic …continue reading.

I’ve often compared the last part of your PhD to putting your head in a bucket. In the Researcher developer trade we call this last bit of the PhD ‘The Write Up’. ‘Writing up’ involves hours and hours of detailed work; to end up with a manuscript ready for examiners. There’s a sameness to Writing …continue reading.

It’s the end of #acwrimo!! Did you take part in Academic Writing Month this year? I certainly did. It was lockdown, so this year we made a big deal of it at ANU. Not to put too fine a point on it, I taught my ass off. You can see some of the workshops I …continue reading.

Most people come into a PhD program with well developed writing skills but a  dissertation – or as it is called in Australia, a Thesis, is a very particular kind of writing challenge. All thesis writers must bend their existing skills to the appropriate ‘thesis style’. Ironically, the people I have seen struggle the most …continue reading.

Before I get started, two announcements! We have started to release the audio from 2020’s Whisperfest as a podcast series. You can find the first episode on Buzzsprout, and subscribe through your favourite player. We plan to release one every three weeks and by then, we will probably be ready to host the next one! …continue reading.

Like many academics, I get to my office every morning and battle the problem of Too Much To Read. To tell the truth, most days I give up the fight. Under pressure to publish or perish, academics are producing mountains of text every year, even in a tiny sub-specialty like research education.  I don’t have …continue reading.

So, 2020 hey? What a trip. I don’t know about you, but concentrating on my work when the world feels like it’s up in flames, literally and figuratively, has been, well – difficult. In order to keep my shit together in front of students and co-workers I’ve been, as a Japanese theme park put it, …continue reading.

Some time ago, on the advice of my good friend and efficiency guru Jason Downs, I read The 80/20 principle: how to achieve more by doing less by Richard Koch. To be fair, Jason did tell me, in the spirit of efficiency, that I didn’t really need to read the book. The main message, he said, …continue reading.