Category Archives: feedback

help your inner ‘Creator’ and ‘Editor’ get along

You’re writing? And feeling a bit pulled in two directions at once? Perhaps that’s not surprising. Writers have two inter-related personae –the Creator and the Editor. Well, that’s according to Joni B Cole, and indeed a lot of other people … Continue reading

Posted in Creator and Editor, feedback, inner editor, Joni Cole, revision | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

when you’re older than your professors

This is a guest post from Dr Noelle Sterne. Noelle runs a coaching and editing practice and in 2015 published Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping With the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles.   Marlene was one of the brightest … Continue reading

Posted in 'mature' doctoral researcher, academic writing, doctoral experience, doctoral researcher, feedback | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments

peer reviewing your first paper

Patter now has over 800 posts. It’s pretty hard to find things on here, even when you know what you’re looking for. Some of the elderly posts are, I hope, still useful. I’ve decided to start an occasional ‘best of’ … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, feedback, journal article, peer review, refereeing, reviewing, reviews | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

giving feedback on writing – be specific

One of the characteristics of academic life is feedback. We get it whether we want it or not. Students feedback on our teaching. Reviewers feedback on our papers. Supervisors feedback on draft thesis texts. Of course, most of us also … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, feedback, Joni Cole, specific | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

a thesis writing-feedback calendar

How does a thesis get written? What do I as a supervisor do to help? How does feedback work best? A set of inter-related questions that keep many of us mildly, or a lot, worried.  Well, I have an ‘ideal … Continue reading

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that bleeding thesis…

No. I’m not cussing. Let me explain why. My colleague Brigitte Nerlich sent me an email the other day. She said: I was talking to a PhD student (not one of mine) and this student repeatedly used a metaphor which … Continue reading

Posted in Brigitte Nerlich, feedback, supervision, supervisor, thesis | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

writing course – winding up

The last two days of the writing course. Most of the participants now have something that looks like a paper. They’ve got all of the relevant sections even if these are not all totally finished. Some sections may have pieces … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, feedback, journal | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

supervision and feedback

So this week there’s a bit of tweet humour about how US grad students might interpret feedback from faculty trained in the UK. If you haven’t seen it here’s a taste. They say “With the greatest respect”, the grad student … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, doctoral pedagogies, feedback, supervision | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

dealing with negative f2f feedback

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

supervision and writing feedback/advice

One of the biggest problems that supervisors face, when dealing with the writing that doctoral researchers do, is how to be helpful. It’s often much easier to spot a problem than it is to know how to provide strategies that … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, advice, Anthony Paré, feedback, supervision | Tagged , , | 7 Comments