Tag Archives: Pat Thomson

don’t give your thesis examiner a bad first impression

Posted on May 27, 2019 by

My hunch is that I’m a lot like most thesis examiners. When we get sent a thesis we often don’t plunge in straight away. We have a bit of a look around first. That’s not an unusual response to a … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, examiner, proofreading, thesis, thesis abstract | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

what is “measured” writing?

Posted on May 13, 2019 by

I was recently part of a small discussion on another social media platform where someone reported that their supervisor had said their writing wasn’t sufficiently “measured’. Without seeing the actual work it was pretty hard to understand what the supervisor … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, argument, boosters, disciplines, hedges, measured writing, nominalisation, passive voice, stance, thingification | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

book writing – an occasional post

Posted on April 22, 2019 by

I’m up against what is now a very tight deadline. It would have been OK if I hadn’t been away from broadband for all of January when I was at home in Australia. No wifi was an unforeseen glitch. It … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, book writing, deadline, time | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

proofreading tactics

Posted on April 15, 2019 by

I am the world’s worst proofreader of my own work. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I am not alone. Almost everyone has difficulty reading their own work for errors. Mark Twain apparently said in a letter … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, proofreading | Tagged , | 2 Comments

going to a huge conference

Posted on April 8, 2019 by

I’m at a conference. A huge, utterly ginormous, gobsmackingly giant North American conference. As only the North Americans can do. It takes up a whole downtown conference centre and the meeting rooms of two additional hotels. The five-day conference runs … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, conference, conference app, conference presentation, conference survival tips | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

revise and resubmit

Posted on March 25, 2019 by

Yep. Those dreaded words when you get the email back from the journal. R and R. Anything but Rest and Relaxation. Groan. In essence, the message says We have considered your paper and we have decided that – well it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, journal article, reviewer speak, revise and resubmit, revision | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

addressing ‘the gap’ in the field

Posted on March 11, 2019 by

One of the conventions of academic life is the work of justification. To justify. To say why we are going to do what we are going to do. We regularly have to justify why we want to research something and … Continue reading →

Posted in academic writing, deficit positioning, gap-spotting, next step, research warrant, stance, thesis warrant, warrant, what if | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments