On Cornell Notes and the importance of noting down EVERYTHING including the...
Those of you who have followed me for a time know that I do love taking notes off articles with the Cornell Notes method. I find it a very useful note-taking strategy when you are reading materials...
View ArticlePreparing for the PhD defense/viva? Use the GDN instead of a DTP
Doctoral candidates preparing for the PhD dissertation defense (or viva): I was asked whether I thought it was better to do a DTP (Dissertation Two Pager) or a GDN (Global Dissertation Narrative) in...
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3 fundamental lessons about reading and academic writing
Whenever I teach academic writing I tell my students a number of things I strongly believe are fundamental. The three lessons I list here are in my view of the utmost importance. First, to learn how to...
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Reading is writing: To situate your work within the broader literature, you...
I want to make something perfectly clear, particularly because it looks like people want to jump and “do research”, “collect data”, “analyse things” and would rather do any of those rather than read....
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The Abstract Decomposition Matrix Technique to find a gap in the literature
I have been thinking about how I can help my students with their theses, particularly because our programs are rather compressed and they need to get a lot done in a very short period of time. I’ve...
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On framing, the value of narrative and storytelling in scholarly research,...
Much of what I do here on my blog, when I teach courses and workshops on academic research and writing, and with my own students and thesis writers is help them frame their research, “sell their...
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Using the Pacheco-Vega workflows and frameworks to write and/or revise a...
I’ve taught a few workshops this year on academic writing and there’s always at least one attendee who has already completed their PhD and is looking for strategies to craft their book. Sometimes...
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Reading Like a Writer – Francine Prose – my reading notes
I brought Francine Prose’s book, Reading Like a Writer with me on a research trip to London in the fall of 2022 for 2 reasons: 1) I thought the plane I was taking would not have power plugs in each...
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My experience teaching residential academic writing workshops
A few years ago, Dr. Andrew Fischer invited me to teach a workshop that would help doctoral candidates with structuring their dissertation and write it. Though the course is called “Post-Fieldwork...
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The value and importance of the pre-writing stage of writing
A lot of people ask me about my actual writing process, so I figured I should share some of my practices, and make them into blog posts. I’m lucky that, as I write this blog post, I have a full day...
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