It’s a typical piece of advice to give authors of articles and theses, that you need to explain the ‘so what?’ of your contribution. But in English you can use this phrase in two very distinct ways depending on how you say it.
Do you have a writing practice? Has it grown or developed since you were last at university? Is it working for you? Is it painful?
But how do you shift from awareness to positivity? Sometimes reflecting on my situation just highlights how hard everything is and how tired everyone feels.
It can help to move from rehearsing how badly you feel, to articulating a beneficial wish for everything and and everyone around you, including yourself.
I cannot believe, after all my to-do list and planning your time blog posts, I’ve never actually talked about how to break down a big project, set goals and then plan to meet them: an essential aspect of doing a PhD thesis… Partly because when we teach this in a workshop we know there is so much diversity in the ways that different people achieve the same outcome
Paragraphs are parts of sections, and a section is like a flight of stairs, taking you efficiently where your thesis needs to go. A new way to think about paragraphs as a ‘step in your argument’.
A PhD is often inspired by a particular vision–either your own passion project or a passion project of a more senior researcher. When you pitched the thesis to funders and your faculty, the project was going to be a sweeping, world-changing, life-changing research idea that would proceed without any hitches. And then you have to deal with real life.
You don’t need to include everything you have read into your article or thesis. In fact, you almost certainly can’t. So you’ll need criteria for citation.
I hear a lot of conflicting advice on how to write sentences, and I bet you do too. Should you write short sentences, because they are easier to read? Should you write longer sentences because they sound more academic? Should you write a careful mix of sentences, because that creates good flow?
This is one of those posts where I think aloud. No need to come along for the ride, but you are welcome to if you might be interested! I was doing some yoga and thinking about discomfort and writing.
When I talk to people about their writing, there’s a lot of guilt and shame about the way they write. They believe they write in the ‘wrong’ way, that other people’s writing processes are ‘good’ but theirs aren’t. You may feel this!
