Helping Doctoral Students Write: Pedagogies For Supervision

Helping Doctoral Students Write offers a proven approach to effective doctoral writing By treating research as writing and writing as research the authors offer pedagogical strategies for doctoral supervisors that will assist the production of well-argued and lively dissertations It is clear that many doctoral candidates find research writing complicated and difficult but the advice they receive often glosses over the complexities of writing andor locates the problem in the writer Kamler and Thomson provide a highly effective framework for scholarly work that is located in personal institutional and cultural contexts The pedagogical approach developed in the book is based on the notion of writing as a social practice This approach allows supervisors to think of doctoral writers as novices
who need to learn new ways with words as they enter the discursive practices of scholarly communities This involves learning sophisticated writing practices with specific sets of conventions and textual characteristics The authors offer supervisors practical advice on helping with commonly encountered writing tasks such as the proposal the journal abstract the literature review and constructing the dissertation argument The first edition of this book has helped many academics and thousands of research students produce better written material Now fully updated the second edition includesExamples from a broader range of academic disciplinesA new chapter on writing from the thesis for peer reviewed journalsMore advice on reading and note taking performance and conferences Further information
on developing a personal academic writing style and Advice on the use of social media (blogs tweets and wikis) to create trans-disciplinary and trans-national networks and conversations Their discussion of the complexities of forming a scholarly identity is illustrated throughout by stories and writings of actual doctoral students In conclusion they present a persuasive and proven argument that universities must move away from simply auditing supervision to supporting the development of scholarly research communities Any supervisor keen to help their students develop as academics will find the ideas and practical solutions presented in this book fascinating and insightful reading