Five Surprises from my Oral Exam
I passed my oral exam recently – woohoo! No more thesis tweaking! No more exam anxiety! Bring on the leisure reading! The experience of the exam was quite different from […]
Author: Anaise Irvine
Christmas Reading for the Modern Academic
When I tell non-academics that I’m getting my PhD, they almost always make one assumption. They figure that a PhD is the most advanced form of education there is, and […]
Throwback Thursday: The Pros of Procrastination
This post by Anaise Irvine first appeared on Thesislink in May 2014. We all do it. We all let our minds drift from our thesis when we shouldn’t. We […]
A Storm is Brewing in the Academic Publishing World
As postgraduate researchers, we’re all too familiar with peer-reviewed journal articles. We read ’em. We cite ’em. In the latter stages of our research, we sometimes write ’em. And we […]
6 Emotions to Expect on Submission Day (in GIFs)
For years now, I’ve fantasized about handing over my thesis. In my head, it would be the greatest day of my life. Birds would dress me that morning. The sun […]
A Letter to My Younger Self: From the Thesis Finish Line
Dear 2012 Anaise, I seem to recall that you’re pretty excited about your PhD. That’s great. I know you’re enjoying the freedom of all your academic possibilities right now. But […]
Just How Precise do Researchers Need to Be?
I remember once submitting an undergraduate ethics essay that I was really proud of. I had researched it thoroughly. I had expressed my ideas (I thought) elegantly. It was tightly […]
Investing Time Productively at a Conference
I just got back from a higher education conference in Australia. Along with a colleague, I had a full peer-reviewed paper accepted to the conference, and gave a 30-minute presentation […]
What Does it Mean to Make an “Original Contribution”?
Editor’s note: this article, published in 2016, makes reference to a previous edition of the AUT Postgraduate Handbook that is now out of date. The most recent edition can be […]
Getting Presentation Experience Close to Home
Ah, the international academic conference. Home to heavy-hitting scholars, catering spreads of varying quality, and intimidated postgrad students giving their first major presentations. When I went to my first international […]
Rethinking Research “Impact”
If you’ve ever thought about publishing, you’ve probably heard all about impact factors. Here’s how they work: the impact factor of a journal measures how often an average article within […]
Should I Cite This?
Quality-checking sources is something we start to learn in secondary school or undergrad – just ask my students who felt my wrath when they cited Wikipedia (or what’s worse: when […]