On the importance of revision and learning with George Saunders patthomson.net/2026/06/07/l...
A bit of serious fun patthomson.net/2026/06/01/h...
Thinking about your post thesis plan? These three words can help patthomson.net/2026/05/25/k...
This is a question that’s been bothering me lately patthomson.net/2026/05/18/w...
This week Dr Rachel Lehner-Mehr talks about turning her doctoral thesis into a scholarly book patthomson.net/2026/05/10/f...
This week I’m revisiting coherence But in research design patthomson.net/2026/05/03/k...
This week I look at what it means for scholars to write concisely patthomson.net/2026/04/26/k...
This week patter has been reading about knowledge production as place making patthomson.net/2026/04/20/p...
What does ‘concise’ mean in academic writing? patthomson.net/2026/04/12/k...
Academic writing and procrastination revisited patthomson.net/2026/04/06/i...
George Saunders won the Man Booker prize in 2017 with his novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Earlier that year he wrote about his revising process. My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, …
Everyone in academia knows Reviewer 2. You ‘ve probably received their comments. You may even in a dark moment, have been them. This post is a practical guide to achieving full Reviewer 2 status. I…
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Doctoral researchers are sometimes asked in their viva what their plans for dissemination are. Gulp. But this is a question worth thinking about. It’s not a trick question. Examiners are genu…
Graham Kendall studies academic publishing. He recently ran the numbers on what peer review costs the UK higher education sector. His calculations are worth quoting: “In the UK…
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This is a guest post written by Dr Rachel Lehner-Mear. She has recently published a book reporting her doctoral research on mothers and primary school homework. There’s nothing quite like holding y…
Coherence in research design is not the same as coherence in academic writing, although the two are related. Research design coherence is sometimes described through the metaphor of a red thread, o…
patthomson.net
Gratuitous pic of my dog Ted. A coherent piece of writing is one where the parts connect to the whole. That sounds obvious, but it can be difficult to achieve. That’s partly because the whole is su…
I’ve just read a paper about epistemic placemaking. Epistemic placemaking is equipping and arranging places for knowledge work. The paper suggests that students might actively co-design t…
patthomson.net
Concision is not the same as brevity. A short piece of writing can be wasteful with its words, and a long piece can be meaning-full right to the last sentence. Getting concise is about getting clea…
Procrastination often gets a bad rap in academic writing advice circles. It’s generally seen as a problem to be managed, a symptom of anxiety or perfectionism. In other words, it’s a pr…
