Sometimes I realise that an important idea I’ve been talking about, almost since the beginning of the blog, has never…
How to fix slow progress
Your progress might feel slow, but that might just be the normal speed of trying to learn new things, or experimenting (and…
Self care for everyone
When Audre Lorde wrote ‘self-care is warfare’, she declared that when an African-American woman takes care of herself, she fights back…
Research story ‘arcs’: the ‘Heroes Journey’ and other stories
I’ve been doing a bit of a deep dive into stuff I know about writing because of my English Literature…
Be your own best critic
Now my real research is in literary studies, where what I do is called ‘literary criticism’. In my field ‘critique’…
Tense about tenses? A grammar guide and a coffee mistake
Getting your tenses right in academic writing can make people feel quite anxious, because it goes very quickly from ‘so…
Tiny text, narrative outline: A new storytelling planning technique
You know I love Kamler and Thomson’s Tiny Texts–and we talk about them at length in our Academic Writing Trouble…
Your imposter syndrome is irrelevant
Okaaaay, so this is pretty provocative as a title, but it’s also true and can be massively liberating. I hope…
‘Learning to be a co-author’ over on Research Whisperer
I am currently working on three book projects with three different teams, and that has led me to think carefully…
Should a PhD be ‘hard’?
On the one hand, of course a PhD is ‘hard’–as in ‘has a high difficulty setting’ and also ‘is a…
