Intended audience:

This PhD course is primarily aimed at students who intend to publish their work in peer-reviewed academic journals. It may also be open to other academic staff.

Course description:

With a point of departure in a current paper writing project, the course examines the most challenging aspects of scholarly writing and publishing. The personal and contextual aspects of becoming an academic writer are considered, and effective writing practices are introduced. Some basic principles for critical reading and self-critical writing are introduced. The course then uses exercises, presentations, and critical feedback to focus closely on texts, both at the document level and the text level. Processes of academic publishing are introduced, and academics will present and discuss their experiences of submitting papers to journals within the peer-review system. One month later, a follow up day provides an opportunity for reflection and feedback on further drafts of the papers.

The course reading has been selected to raise quite different issues about good writing practices, about adopting a self-critical approach, about editing, and about writing with style.  In each case one or two chapters have been selected from a book. All of them are quite short and well written, so they may not take as long to read as you think. Hopefully, you will be inspired to read further!

Becker, H.S. (2007) Writing for social scientists: how to start and finish your thesis, book or article, 2nd edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Read Chapter 4, "Editing by ear").

Goodson, P. (2013) Becoming an academic writer: 50 exercises for paced, productive and powerful writing, London: Sage. (Read chapter 2).

Sword, H. (2012) Stylish academic writing, London: Harvard University Press. (Read chapters 1 and 2).

Wallace, M., and Wray, A. (2006) Critical reading and writing for postgraduates, London: Sage. (Read Chapter 1).

150 hours. This comprises 5 full course days and 120 hours of exercises and self study

Indicative programme:

Requirements before the course:

1. Participants must submit a draft of a paper (or draft book chapter) they would like to work on during the course period. The draft should be accompanied by an abstract, and a short statement about the stage the writing has reached, together with details of the name and website for the target journal. The draft paper must be submitted by email to the course leader, Tim Richardson, before the course. It is emphasised that this text can be at any stage of preparation, from earliest drafts to those in the editorial process with academic journals. We will focus on the texts in different ways during the course, analysing, giving feedback, and carrying out exercises to improve them.

Note on language: It is preferred that an English language text is submitted, but if this is not possible then a text in Norwegian can be used as the basis for the course activities.  Please contact the course leader, Tim Richardson, if you wish to discuss this.

2. Preparatory reading: Participants should read all the abstracts submitted for the course. Some background reading is also required, as identified in the course reading list.

3. Participants will be allocated papers to analyse and give feedback to fellow participants, as critical friends.

Main course block

Day 1

Introduction: ourselves as writers

Barriers to writing and good writing practices

Principles of critical reading and self-critical writing

Writing strategies

Day 2

Analysing texts

Giving feedback as critical friends

Writing with style

Day 3

Editing text

Preparing papers for submission

Day 4

What do the editors expect? How do reviewers review?

The peer-reviewed system

Experiences of submitting papers to academic journals

Course reflections

Follow up work

After the first course block, participants are expected to carry out further work developing their paper, and will complete a writing diary during this period, to encourage reflection on their writing experience.

Redrafted papers and writing diaries are submitted before the final session.

Follow up course block: Day 5

Feedback session, to review progress on the papers and discuss reflections on academic writing.