Helping Doctoral Students Write

Offering a proven approach to effective doctoral writing, Helping Doctoral Students Write emphasizes treating research as writing and writing as research. The authors provide pedagogical strategies for doctoral supervisors that facilitate the production of well-argued and lively dissertations.

Many doctoral candidates find research writing complicated and difficult, yet the advice they receive often glosses over the complexities or attributes the problem solely to the writer. Kamler and Thomson offer a highly effective framework for scholarly work rooted in personal, institutional, and cultural contexts.

The pedagogical approach in the book is based on the idea of writing as a social practice. This perspective helps supervisors see doctoral writers as novices needing to learn new ways with words as they engage with the discursive practices of scholarly communities. It involves mastering sophisticated writing practices with specific conventions and textual characteristics. The authors give practical advice on assisting with common writing tasks such as the proposal, journal abstract, literature review, and constructing the dissertation argument.

The first edition has helped many academics and thousands of research students produce better written material. The fully updated second edition now includes:

• Examples from a broader range of academic disciplines
• A new chapter on writing from the thesis for peer-reviewed journals
• More advice on reading and note-taking, performance, and conferences
• Further information on developing a personal academic writing style
• Advice on using social media (blogs, tweets, 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 beyond simply auditing supervision to supporting the development of scholarly research communities. Any supervisor eager to help students develop as academics will find the ideas and practical solutions in this book both fascinating and insightful.