Tag Archives: Howard Becker

the dictionary is (sometimes) your friend – starting the PhD

If you are doing a PhD it’s a good idea to buy, or find online, a good reliable dictionary.  Not only doctoral researchers a good dictionary. Most of us use a dictionary rather more than we let on. Just yesterday … Continue reading

Posted in academic writing voice, dictionary, Howard Becker, starting the PhD | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

don’t try to write “classy” – starting the phd

One of the earliest books on academic writing in the social sciences is by Howard Becker. Or  Howie as I gather he likes to be known. As I don’t know him, I’m compelled to call him by the full name … Continue reading

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ask not how but why – musings on ‘the interview’

I was reading some interview transcripts the other day. They were fairly unstructured conversations; the interviewer had some set topics to cover, but not necessarily any set wording. I happened to be looking for the connections between the type of … Continue reading

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writing course: The Literatures

So next to The Literatures. Literatures, a broad term covering anything from the scholarly works to popular texts, social and print media and policy texts. But always including the scholarly materials relevant to the research being reported in the paper. … Continue reading

Posted in dinner party, Howard Becker, literature review, Pierre Bayard, table metaphor | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

style and structure – according to Berger

There are a lot of books about academic writing out there. And I buy a lot of them too! The majority of academic writing books are written by people who are in academic development or writing instruction; others work in … Continue reading

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finding and defining your research agenda

I have what could be seen as a pretty messy cv. This is not because I’ve switched from schools to universities but rather that the research and writing that I’ve done seems to cover pretty disparate areas. If you just … Continue reading

Posted in cv, early career researchers, Howard Becker, research agenda | Tagged , , , | 9 Comments