Category Archives: creative writing

refresh your writing ideas

Posted on January 17, 2022 by pat thomson

Reading is key to developing your understandings of what makes good academic writing. Anthropologist Ruth Behar (2020) suggests that academic writers shouldn’t stop at the classic texts in their discipline, but also read other genres. She says We need to read poetry … Continue reading →

Posted in creative writing, reading, refreshing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

three thesis writing modes

Posted on August 12, 2019 by pat thomson

It’s pretty common to hear academic writing described in three stages – (1) thinking and preparation or pre-writing, (2) writing, and (3) post writing revision. In the doctorate you do pre-writing until you get to ‘writing up’. And that’s when … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, creative writing, foundation, generation and response, Graeme Harper, three modes of writing | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

creative re-vision

Posted on September 28, 2017 by pat thomson

  If you have a writing practice which begins with a quickly written and almost inevitably loose first draft, then you need a range of strategies that you can call on to beat the text into shape. And even if … Continue reading →

Posted in creative writing, play, revision, revision strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

use a vignette – #wakeupreader

Posted on May 4, 2017 by pat thomson

Most readers, even academic ones, like a bit of a story. And a vignette is just a bit of a story, a condensed version. A vignette is brief, evocative and descriptive. It provides information about key points of an event … Continue reading →

Posted in #wakeupreader, creative writing, introduction, narrative, Uncategorized, vignette | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

creativity and academic writing – an oxymoron?

Posted on May 8, 2014 by pat thomson

I’ve been pondering the question of creativity in academic writing. One of my research interests is creative pedagogies, including but by no means exclusively in the arts. I’ve been thinking that I ought to say more about creativity in relation … Continue reading →

Posted in academic blogging, academic book, academic writing, creative writing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

read what you want to write

Posted on April 3, 2014 by pat thomson

One of the common pieces of advice given to creative writers is to read widely, work out what you like and then write like those you admire. This writing-like-admirable-others requires the aspiring creative writer to analyse various aspects of the … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, conversation, creative writing, debates in the field, disciplines, doctoral education | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

dealing with negative f2f feedback

Posted on March 6, 2014 by pat thomson

So you’ve sent the chapter to your supervisor and now you have to go and see what they think. You’re pretty pleased with what you’ve done, but when the conversation starts it goes almost immediately to the problems. You want … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, creative writing, feedback | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

holiday question 1: Why are there so few Academic Writing courses?

Posted on December 19, 2013 by pat thomson

This is a guest post from Julia Molinari from the School of Education, The University of Nottingham. Julia is currently doing doctoral research into ‘academic writing’. A range of motivations, both personal and professional, have triggered the following observations, and … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, courses, creative writing, Julia Molinari | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

why write book chapters

Posted on June 17, 2013 by pat thomson

I like writing book chapters. If you look at my publications – well I don’t mean you to do this literally – but IF you did, you’d see that I’ve written quite a lot of them. In the last month … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, authorship, chapter, creative writing | Tagged , , , | 21 Comments