Paragraphs as stepping stones
How can paragraphs be used as stepping stones in your argument – whether writing an essay, report, dissertation, thesis or academic paper? Here's how.
Freeing your writing
Freewriting – the act of writing as a stream of consciousness, without worrying about the usual conventions such as grammar and punctuation – is often cited by participants as amongst the most beneficial activities they experience in my workshops…
Your elevator pitch
I was recently on a judging panel for the Three Minute Thesis (3MT®) competition at the University of Bath. Each doctoral student had just three minutes, and one Powerpoint slide, to put across the story of their research. The seven…
Remember your reader
When you’re starting out writing your Master’s dissertation or doctoral thesis you may find yourself struggling to make sense of your work to yourself, in words. Your first attempts may simply be about finding a way to make your work…
Two books in 2018
Along with other Royal Literary Fund Consultant Fellows, I straddle two worlds: academic and professional writing. The two books of mine published in 2018 reflect these two worlds. Success in Academic Publishing (formerly Palgrave Macmillan, now Bloomsbury) has received excellent…
What should I do when I get stuck?
At some time or other, many of us experience writer’s block. We sit down to write and nothing comes out. The causes of writer’s block vary, so there is no single solution. In my book, Success in Academic Writing, I…
Pick an item, any item
Academic writing can become pedestrian to write and to read. How can you inject creativity into your writing, enhancing the power to engage with your reader? Here's one way.
Managing your writing
Here I share my experience of working with doctoral students to better manage their thesis writing. If they can elegantly manage writing a thesis they are well set up to deal with the many writing challenges they will encounter in…
Writing a first draft
The problem with academic writing is that it has so many conventions we are in danger of allowing them to stifle our creativity and productivity when we write. Years ago I read Dorothea Brande’s Becoming a Writer (published in 1934…
