Ahem. So Research Degree Voodoo is being moved over to a new name. RDV was a catchy search term that I whacked onto this fun little side project that I was trying out over the summer as an academic skills advisor at the University of Melbourne back in 2013.
In that first year, about 7,500 people viewed the blog–which seemed like an enormous number to me. Today, my most popular post (10 tips for more concise writing) has had more views than that alone.
This blog has been more or less active over the years. That first year I posted over 50 times, but since then I’ve posted somewhere between 15 and 25 times a year. It’s not actually that much (most popular blogs recommendation weekly or twice weekly posting)–but I have said before:
So: haven’t posted for ages because reasons. Flu, new job, managing a new team, teaching a big business school class, post-flu drag etc etc. @JoVanEvery has a great attitude to email, she says we shouldn’t apologise for taking a while to get back to people, ‘email is not urgent‘. I have to admit, I still feel like it’s the ‘electronic walk of shame’ (as I said once, and @thesiswhisperer recently reminded me), but I’m trying to get over it.
And that’s why I’m not going to do it in my own blog. I have no deadlines, I don’t work for me, I am doing this in my spare time and if I don’t have any spare time, or want to use my spare time eating dumplings in Little Vietnam, or planting a vegetable garden, or hanging out with my nieces, or lying on the sofa drinking wine and reading poetry aloud, then I will. (And I did). And I hope you do too.
I will still only be blogging when I have something to say.
The name is hopefully a bit more clear, but the purpose of the blog is the same. (See here for a recap of what this blog is for!) Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, shared, or come up to me at a workshop and chatted about what I’ve put out into the world. I’m so glad you find it helpful!
