Category: On Writing

Jonathan Downie is currently in the final stages of his PhD on client expectations of interpreters from Heriot-Watt University. Jonathan is a long time contributor to the Whisperer – his most popular piece was on parenting a toddler. This time Jonathan has some good words of advice for the PhD journey. You can read more …continue reading.

I’m in the enviable position of having a blog with a wide readership (thank you) which means I get sent review copies by publishers. Everyone at work gets jealous when a book package arrives and I feel like a rock star. This is a good feeling. On the other hand, there are only so many …continue reading.

This post is by Jenny Delasalle, a blogger and freelance blog manager for the Piirus blog, amongst many roles, past and present. Piirus is an online, research collaboration matching service that is provided to the international research community by the University of Warwick, UK, and it aims to support researchers through its blog as well …continue reading.

This post is by Professor Les Back, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on a trip to the UK in late 2015 when we were presenting as part of a panel on writing at Goldsmiths. Les is a well respected and much liked professor of sociology at Goldsmiths University in the UK and fellow …continue reading.

The discussion chapter is the problem child of the thesis. The chapter most likely to provoke fear, uncertainty and doubt. Not everyone writes a chapter called “discussion”, but everyone has to do discussiony bits because, well – that’s where the creative magic of the PhD happens. The discussion section is scary because you have to …continue reading.

This post is by DrJanene Carey, a freelance writer and editor based in Armidale NSW. She occasionally teaches academic writing at the University of New England and often edits academic theses, articles and reports. Her website is http://www.janenecarey.com Arguably, this question is a classic time waster and the student who poses it should be told …continue reading.

I just finished renovating the slide deck for my most popular and famous writing workshop “Write that journal article in seven days”. I’ve delivered this workshop nearly 80 times of the last six years with a slide share deck which has now had over 110,000 views. I’m so practiced at this workshop that I can …continue reading.

Many people never realise that you don’t have to accept Microsoft Word as the default writing software. There are many other products on the market which might suit you better. While Google docs offer some advantages to conventional word processors, there are significant limitations. That’s why I was excited to see a new product called …continue reading.

I like coffee I mean – I REALLY like coffee. I don’t smoke any more and rarely drink. Caffeine is the only vice I have left. People tell me all the time that it’s unhealthy, but as far as I’m concerned you can tear the coffee from my cold dead hands. I grew up in …continue reading.

This post is by Scott Daniel, a final year PhD student in the STEMed Research Centre at Swinburne University of Technology. His research has focused on making the most out of lectures and trying to understand why so many interesting people give boring lectures. In a past life, he taught high school science and maths, …continue reading.