Category: On Writing

Last week I was in Readings bookstore, with a $100 book voucher burning a hole in my pocket, when I spied a book called ‘On writing well: the classic guide to writing non fiction’ by William Zinsser. According to the cover ‘On writing well’ has sold more than a million copies, which piqued my curiosity …continue reading.

Want to write a winning grant application? The Whisperer rethinks the problem in a non listy kind of way.

In her second guest post Heather writes about the discomfort that often attends breakthroughs in understanding.

Is your writing mannered and your ideas disappearing in a maze of fancy academic language? Perhaps you are being pressed under the dead hand of the thesis genre!

Inger finds herself at home and highly medicated

When I was hunting through my reader request pile I found this email from @thetokenlefty asking about writing for different  audiences: I had a quick question for you about this 5,000 word literature review I have to write for my methods course.  It is going to be read and marked by people like yourself — …continue reading.

One way a humble whiteboard can help you think more clearly about your research

Sooner or later each thesis writer finds themselves holding the knife – the virtual one of course. Taking a leaf out of Stephen King’s book – how can we murder our darlings?

What do academics think academics should be able to do? How can PhD students use this to help them to write a great thesis?

Why is a thesis text like Sam Worthington in Avatar? It used to be that all you had to do to become a doctor is know everything. Now it’s much harder.