Category Archives: language

starting the PhD – learning new vocabulary

Scholarly work often involves learning new words. You know this right? Sometimes it even seems that in order to be considered a scholar you have to speak in words no one else can understand. Well that’s the stereotype. But let’s … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing, English language, language, starting the PhD, syntax, vocabulary, word bank | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

the academic earworm

We all know about earworms. They’re that piece of music that we can’t get out of our heads (thanks Kylie). The Earworm Project – yes, there really was such a thing and it was real, proper, actually funded research – … Continue reading

Posted in academic earworm, academic writing, critical, language | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

writing in my own words?

John Field recently wrote, in his The Learning Professor blog, an interesting post about academic writing. He was particularly referring to the tendency for editors and researchers to ‘clean up’ quotations from research participants. Indeed, sometimes participants themselves felt the … Continue reading

Posted in APA, barbarism, language, voice, words | Tagged , , , , | 12 Comments