Category Archives: identity

unlearning who you are and what you know? starting the doctorate

Posted on August 1, 2022 by pat thomson

No-one arrives at a doctorate as a blank slate. Everyone brings with them particular histories – we have life experiences and personal pathways which are classed, raced, gendered; work experiences and sometimes long professional careers; as well as educational histories. … Continue reading →

Posted in 'mature' doctoral researcher, academic writing, identity, mature age PhD, outsider, professional doctorate, scholarly identity, starting the PhD | Tagged identity, outsider, starting the PhD | 3 Comments

after the viva/defence – then what?

Posted on April 26, 2021 by pat thomson

There is no return to normal. There is no going back to what there was before. You have to find new ways of going on. I could be talking about the pandemic here. Yes indeed. But I’m not. I’m actually … Continue reading →

Posted in after-care, identity, post-PhD slump, scholarly identity, viva | Tagged identity, Pat Thomson, post PhD, post-PhD slump, scholarly identity, viva | 1 Comment

threshold concepts in academic writing

Posted on February 26, 2018 by pat thomson

Please note, I write my blog on weekends. It is not part of my workload, nor in my job description. I support the #USS strike. Many of you probably know what the term a ‘threshold concept’ means. My understanding of … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, identity, scholarly identity, text work/identity work, threshold concept | Tagged Kevin Roozen, Meyer and Land, Pat Thomson, text work identity work, threshold concepts, writing identity | 7 Comments

researching on someone else’s project – it’s a relationship

Posted on April 24, 2017 by pat thomson

This is a guest post by Nick Hopwood and Teena Clerke from the University of Technology Sydney. Together they reflect on their separate and shared processes of researching on someone else’s projects. And yes, one of them now works for/with the other. … Continue reading →

Posted in doctoral researcher, early career researchers, emerging researchers, identity, Nick Hopwood, PI, researcher, researcher identity, Teena Clerke, Uncategorized | Tagged contract researcher, Nick Hopwood, PI, researching, Teena Clerke | Leave a comment

crafting an online identity

Posted on April 14, 2016 by pat thomson

This is a guest post from Mark Carrigan, Research Fellow at the Centre for Social Ontology: socialontology.org, The University of Warwick and Digital Fellow at The Sociological Review: @thesocreview. Mark tweets at @mark_carrigan and has recently published Social media for academics. The prospect of laboriously … Continue reading →

Posted in identity, Mark Carrigan, online identity, online presence, profile | Tagged Mark Carrigan, online identity | Leave a comment

what’s with the name doctoral ‘student’?

Posted on February 3, 2014 by pat thomson

One of the things I’ve been trying really hard to get over is the notion of the doctoral ‘student’. This is by far the most common way to refer to people doing a PhD, and it’s pretty hard not to … Continue reading →

Posted in authority in writing, doctoral research, identity, student or researcher | Tagged doctoral student or doctoral researcher, identity, Pat Thomson, writing with authority | 65 Comments

learning to supervise – what’s to know?

Posted on September 30, 2013 by pat thomson

Doctoral supervision is a particularly intense kind of relationship, unlike any other. It’s one to one for a start, and it goes on for at least three years. I ‘ve read papers that suggest that supervision is a form of … Continue reading →

Posted in doctoral pedagogies, identity, supervision | Tagged identity, learning to supervise, Pat Thomson | 18 Comments

a blogging ‘identity’

Posted on January 21, 2013 by pat thomson

I erased a post this morning, for the first time. I didn’t get rid of it altogether, because it’s OK. I just removed it from the schedule and saved it. I took it out of this blog because I realized … Continue reading →

Posted in academic blogging, identity, pedagogy, public/private, text work/identity work, there | Tagged academic blogging, Pat Thomson, pedagogy, public/private, Rachel Cusk, text work/identity work | 17 Comments

writing the thesis from day one is risky

Posted on October 25, 2012 by pat thomson

I was reading a final draft of a thesis written by one of the doctoral researchers I was working with. I’d just started and the text was going along very nicely indeed until I reached the end of the first … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, dissertation, identity, literature review, thesis, voice, writing | Tagged academic writing, Pat Thomson, text work/identity work, writing, writing as learning | 15 Comments

why doctoral researchers should get support for conferences

Posted on June 22, 2012 by pat thomson

I’ve recently been told by a number of doctoral researchers that their institutions are pretty mean about funding them to go to conferences to give papers. I’m pretty scandalized by this as it seems to me that it ought to … Continue reading →