Author Archives: pat thomson

About pat thomson

Pat Thomson is Professor of Education in the School of Education, The University of Nottingham, UK

are we all part time now?

Posted on April 13, 2020

Being a part-time doctoral researcher is hard. Part-timers are generally already in work, professionals, “mature”, doing the doctorate to upgrade quals and/or further an interest. There’s a lot of part-time in my field of education, and in other areas like … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, part time PhD, space | Tagged digital, isolation, part time doctorate, Pat Thomson, working at home | 15 Comments

getting by and getting on

Posted on April 6, 2020

I’ve spent a lot of time online shopping these last two weeks. Shopping for food. Before we went to Australia we’d let the store cupboard run down as we didn’t want to come home to rats, mice or moths. When … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, pandemic | Tagged Kindness, phdpandemic, VirutalnotViral, wellbeing | 14 Comments

what to do now?

Posted on March 30, 2020

zoom zoom spotify what’s app email wix facetime zoom skype Instagram email twitter teams twitch zoom youtube skype email email email wix twitter zoom zoom I have put more apps on my screens during the last week than in the … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, ethics of care | Tagged @virtualnotviral, ethics of care, pandemic, Pat Thomson, Web Foundation | 4 Comments

managing research risks – riding the wave of #phdpandemic

Posted on March 23, 2020

A lot of research doesn’t go to plan. Researchers encounter a few hiccups along the way and in order to avoid problems, they make adjustments to their process. The research goes ahead, just slightly differently. But what usually goes wrong … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing | Tagged @virtualnotviral, phdpandemic, risk management | 6 Comments

Pandemics and PHDs

Posted on March 16, 2020

The pandemic is upon us. My university is moving rapidly online with everyone who can working at home. I’ve seen a lot on social media about how to teach online, whether to teach on line, and how to offer students … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, pandemic, stress | Tagged pandemic, Pat Thomson | 19 Comments

research as creative practice

Posted on March 9, 2020

Health warning – this is a tiny rant about one of my pet peeves, research “training”. It also draws on my own research in creativity and education. My starting point – Research is a creative process. The connection between research … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, courses, creativity, doctoral education, doctoral pedagogies, doctoral research, methods, research methods, research training | Tagged creativity, doctoral researchers, Pat Thomson, research nethods, training | 12 Comments

writing advice – caveat emptor

Posted on March 2, 2020

Advice. Loads of it. Coming out of our ears. And on every possible topic, including research and writing. Advice needs readers. But we readers also need to be, as Ernest Hemingway put it, “crap detectors”. Howard Rheingold has worked up … Continue reading →