Judging a book by its cover, title and even author order might be necessary to create an impact

Clever book titles or pretty cover designs which don’t give much away are best left to star writers whose name is enough to sell the text. For the rest of us, advice from a good editor can be beneficial. Pat Thomson looks at just how much those little things really do matter if books are to have an impact amongst readers

Writing the introduction to a journal article: say what the reader is going to encounter and why it is important.

An introduction has a lot of work to do in few words. Pat Thomson clarifies the core components of a journal article introduction and argues it should be thought of as a kind of mini-thesis statement, with the what, why and how of the argument spelled out in advance of the extended version. Writing a good introduction typically means “straightforward” writing and generally lays out a kind of road-map for the paper to come

What do words want? Academics have a responsibility to send words well equipped into the world

Struggling with the familiar sensation of fear when preparing to send a paper to publishers? Pat Thomson writes that writers have an obligation to let words go; finish off that paper and let your words be taken up and savoured by readers. It’s the only way to do justice to valuable academic ideas

What should ECRs and PhDers consider when choosing a conference? Purpose, cost, and motivation

For many early-career researchers and those studying for a PhD, settling on which conference(s) to attend can be a tough and fraught decision. So what is the most important thing to consider? Pat Thomson suggests three answers to this question, covering why you believe you should go to an event, whether it represents value for money, and whether or not you truly want to go

The problem with the ‘gap in the literature’

In this cross-post Pat Thomson explores how an approach based around filling a gap in the research or literature can be problematic and how approaches based on different wording can align research more clearly to the contexts in which it matters

Should you be highlighting that paper you’re reading?

The chances are at some point you have looked at a text you have been highlighting, digitally, or in the traditional fashion with a highlighter, and thought, what do these blocks of fluorescent colour actually mean? In this cross post, Pat Thomson discusses effective highlighting practices and how they can contribute to learning

Thinking about the school most of the time: studio as generative metaphor for critical reflection

Busy leaders need time to reflect and renew. They need to consider the particularities of their school and the ways in which they can work with others in the school community to address pressing issues, as well as to make future plans. The metaphor of the studio offers some helpful avenues for thinking how this reflection might occur. Artists use their studios for respite, not knowing, generating new ideas, risk taking, integrating theory and practice, exercising criticality and developing socially just practices. Leaders might take a lead from artists; however, there are both space and time challenges to making the studio a practical possibility

Beyond records and representations: inbetween writing in educational ethnography

Ethnographers are particularly interested in writing. They have paid particular attention to the practices of making field notes and to the ways in which their public texts represent those that they have encountered and studied. To date there has been less attention paid to the kinds of writing that used to make sense of experiences in the field. We call this inbetween writing. By examining our own processes of inbetween writing, and drawing on the work of James Clifford, we have produced a nine-part heuristic of inbetween writing. We argue that the heuristic could be used in research methods education to highlight the importance of writing to ethnographic sense-making and knowledge production

Abstract art or the politics and pedagogies of getting read

The writing of academic abstracts is more than a tiresome necessity of scholarly life. It is a practice which goes beyond genre and technique to questions of identity and the promotional economies of academic work. In this paper we deconstruct a series of abstracts from a variety of refereed journals and conferences and develop a set of questions that allow us to \u27read\u27 the representation of data, argument, methodology and significance. We argue that the rules of abstract engagement are fluid and increasingly important with the advent of online journals and global citation indices. We suggest that abstract art is now an obligatory aspect of postgraduate supervision.<br /