Category Archives: creativity

research as creative practice

Posted on March 9, 2020 by pat thomson

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 , , , , | 12 Comments

the joys of creative re-description

Posted on June 17, 2019 by pat thomson

Working with data is a creative process. Yes I know data word has got to be systematic and thorough. You can’t make up your results. But working with data is also always about interpretation. And interpretation, at some point, is … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, creativity, data, data analysis, redescription | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

making the familiar strange – two book recommendations

Posted on June 29, 2017 by pat thomson

Today, as this post publishes, I’m giving a talk to postgraduate researchers. One of the things I will talk about is why it’s important for all researchers to practice seeing things differently. We already have ways of describing this imperative … Continue reading →

Posted in creativity, defamiliarisation, reflexivity, research methods, the familiar | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

planning v creativity in academic writing

Posted on January 9, 2014 by pat thomson

Now a lot of people know that I’m an advocate of planning your writing. I’m not a great fan of just writing and just writing and then editing and just writing again and editing some more. I know people do … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, creativity, literature review, planning, planning a paper | Tagged , , , | 12 Comments