November PG Writers’ Retreat 2019
On November 4-7 2019, twenty AUT research students attended the Graduate Research School Postgraduate Writers’ Retreat at Vaughan Park in Long Bay. They strolled the beach, attended workshops, had one-on-one […]
Write
Entry-Level Ways to Start Publishing
Some research students jump right into their publishing careers. They create ambitious plans, draft papers for high-ranked journals, and build up a healthy list of publications during their study. But […]
Shut Up and Write: AKA How to Turn Nothing into Writing
I know it sounds too good to be true, but this method of working helps you to spit out pages of writing. Now, I didn’t say it was perfect writing, […]
Throwback Thursday: When to let your thesis go?
The actor/director Sir Kenneth Branagh was asked in an interview: how do you know a movie you’re directing is finished? After a moment’s pause he replied: you don’t, you abandon […]
‘Deep Work’: A Manual for Better Thinking
There are few tasks more cognitively challenging than researching and writing a thesis. As researchers, we must think and generate new insights at the absolute forefront of human understanding. And […]
Writers Retreats: Highlights from Sept and Apply Now for Nov!
The latest Graduate Research School Postgraduate Writers’ Retreat has just finished, and 18 writers have left the beach with pages full of new work. The weather was a bit grim […]
Can You KonMari Your Thesis?
Being overburdened can kill productivity. Having too much (too much stuff, too many commitments, too much text) can be completely overwhelming. Paring back, reorganising, and reducing can be a great […]
Apply Now for the September Writers Retreat
Applications close 26 July 2019 We invite all postgraduate research students at AUT who want dedicated writing time to apply to attend a four day writers’ retreat being held at […]
Writing as a Not-Quite-Yet-Expert
It is incredibly tricky to nail the genre of thesis-writing. Books are written about it. Learning Advisors specialise in it. Almost all research students struggle with it to some extent […]
Upcoming PG Writing Workshops
The written thesis is its own unique genre. It is a kind of academic writing, but it’s different to undergraduate essay writing; and different to academic journal writing, too. Part […]
An English PhD-Holder Reviews Grammarly
I’ve been resistant to software text editing tools for a long time. Partly that’s because my PhD is in English, and editing text is something I already do reasonably well. […]
Ideas for Structuring Your Thesis or Dissertation
My favourite Jorge Chan ‘PhD Comic’ is titled Writing your thesis outline. Structuring your research thesis or dissertation is an inexact science and there are different ways of breaking it […]