Category Archives: journal

writing a publishable literature review paper – four options

Posted on February 1, 2016 by pat thomson

After you’ve spent loads of time reading, summarising and synthesising the literatures for your research, it’s hardly surprising that you might wonder whether all of this work can be turned into something publishable. I certainly encounter many doctoral researchers who want to … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, journal, literature review, literatures paper | Tagged history of the field paper, literatures paper, meta analysis, Pat Thomson, reframing paper, state of the art paper, what works paper | 21 Comments

things to do during your PhD – help to edit a special issue of a journal

Posted on November 12, 2015 by pat thomson

This guest post is written by Jodie Pennacchia, a final year PhD researcher at The University of Nottingham, based jointly in the Schools of Education and Social Work and Social Policy. Jodie’s research focuses on the English school academies programme. … Continue reading →

Posted in editing a journal, Jodie Pennacchia, journal, special issue | Tagged editing a special issue, Jodie Pennacchia, journal | Leave a comment

reviewing a journal article – are you Jekyll or Hyde?

Posted on March 12, 2015 by pat thomson

So you’ve been sent a paper to review. Before you even start thinking about what to do, and before you start thinking about reading beyond the abstract, it’s a good idea to check the stance you are about to take. … Continue reading →

Posted in Jekyll and Hyde reviewers, journal, reviewing | Tagged Jekyll and Hyde reviewers, Pat Thomson, reviewing a journal article | 6 Comments

writing course – winding up

Posted on February 11, 2015 by pat thomson

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 feedback, journal article, Pat Thomson | 2 Comments

writing course – the conclusion

Posted on February 10, 2015 by pat thomson

At last the end… but it’s not over yet. Finishing off a paper is always hard. Just when you’ve had about enough, you have to raise the energy and enthusiasm for more. The intellectual work you’ve been doing isn’t quite … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, conclusion, journal, so what | Tagged academic writing, conclusion, journal article, Pat Thomson | 3 Comments

writerly, readerly and strategic – practices for getting published

Posted on January 12, 2015 by pat thomson

Last week I had to give a very short talk about my top tips for early career publishing. In very abbreviated form, here are the first three things I said about some important scholarly practices that underpin successful writing and … Continue reading →

Posted in journal, publishing, reader, readerly, readers, Roland, writerly | Tagged community of readers, Pat Thomson, publishing, readerly, Roland Barthes, the reader, writerly | 10 Comments

writing a journal article? start with the So What question

Posted on January 5, 2015 by pat thomson

I’m running another writing course soon in Iceland and have been sorting through potential pre-reading material. In my file of pdfs I came across an editorial written by Neil Selwyn in the journal Learning, Media and Technology. The piece is … Continue reading →

Posted in journal, Neil Selwyn, so what, take home message | Tagged journal article, Neil Selwyn, Pat Thomson, so what | 15 Comments

structuring research articles

Posted on December 8, 2014 by pat thomson

There’s a lot of conventional wisdom out there about how to write a publishable journal article. What do I mean by an academic journal article? Well, I think of an academic journal article as a reasoned presentation of material gained … Continue reading →

Posted in argument, journal, logical structure, scholarly article | Tagged Bruce Bellenger, journal article, logical structure, Pat Thomson, Scholarly paper | 4 Comments

find some support from an academic writing broker

Posted on October 20, 2014 by pat thomson

It’s hard when you first start out writing papers for journals. There are lots of decisions to make – Which journal? What topic will the editors be interested in? What style should the paper adopt? What will reviewers do? In … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, journal, literacy broker | Tagged academic writing, Barbara Kamler, broker, journal article, Lillis and Curry, literacy broker, Pat Thomson, publication broker | 3 Comments

what’s the answer to “would you like to write for this book/journal”?

Posted on May 15, 2014 by pat thomson

I was recently asked by an early career researcher whether it was better to say yes to an invitation to write a chapter for a book, or to say no and write a refereed journal article instead. It wasn’t just … Continue reading →