uwe summer sessions - writing the doctorate

7/28/2019 UWE Summer sessions - writing the Doctorate

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In the workshop we will:

Think about what is involved in writing a thesis

Consider the thesis as genre

Discuss metaphors that orient the writing

Examine some common writing sticking points


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Writing Up

Writing up obscures the thinking that goes onduring the writing

Writing up makes invisible the hard work ofwriting the thesis

Writing up makes the writing process seemtransparent


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Some underpinning principles

Research is writing

Writing is a discursive activity

Writing is a representation

Then written representation is a text

Research writings are particular genres

Writing has a reader in mind

We are writers Our writing is always in conversation with other

writers


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Key concept

Text work/identity work


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Text work/identity work

Writing clarifies what we think and want to say

Writing is becoming and being - we imagineourselves as particular kind of scholar - we write

our-selves, what we stand for and what we know We are known by others by our writing

We are judged on our writing


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Key concept

Writing as a social practice

Our writing is shaped and framed not simply by

immediate interactions, but by broader contexts


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TextLayer 1

Layer 2

Layer 3

Discourse practice

SupervisionThe field, the literaturedisciplinary conventions

Research conventions/standards

University requirements

Sociocultural practice

three layer model of discourse: thesis

National higher education policy; national scholarshipconventions, institutional policy, scholarly/disciplinary

conventions, audit regimes


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One way to understand the problem of writing is to see it in context. Wewrite what we write--in the case at hand, a dissertation--in the context ofacademic institutions. The problem's solution, in this context, requires notonly putting together ideas and evidence clearly and convincingly. It alsorequires that we satisfy the requirements those institutions insist on forsuch a document.

The author, the dissertation writer, has first to satisfy the immediatereaders, the people who will say yes or no, pass or don't pass, go backand do it again and we'll have another look or, for the lucky ones, "Welldone! Get it published and get on with your life and work."

People who serve as this kind of reader--for the most part reasonable,sane people--still have to consider more than the quality of the work beforethem. They think about the politics of their departments ("Old George will

have an apoplectic fit if you attack his favorite theory") or, more commonly,of the discipline ("I agree with what you have written, but if you take thatunpopular position or write in that unconventional style you will havetrouble getting your work published") and as a result suggest changes insubstance and style that have no reason in logic or taste, but which resultpurely from academic convention.

(Howard Becker, undated)


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TextLayer 1

Layer 2

Layer 3

Discourse practice

Editing and Refereeing

Sociocultural practice

3 dimensional model of discourse: journals

Commercial publication requirementsScholarly/disciplinary conventions, Open access?


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Thesis as genre

Three different types of thesis:

The Big BookPublications plus exegesis

Artefact plus exegesis


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Thesis structures

IMRaD

NarrativeChronological

Guidebook


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METAPHOR

Metaphors shape the way we think and act


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Whats your metaphor for the PhD?


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And your metaphor for working with

the literatures?


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Common metaphors

Water images

A puzzle/maze

An unprepared researcher Bodily pain

The answer is out there

Less frequently, the literatures are benign,incomplete, and the researcher is in control


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Beginning literatures work: scoping

sketch out the nature of the field or fields relevant tothe inquiry, possibly indicating something of theirhistorical development and

identify major debates and define contentious terms,

in order to establish which studies, ideas and/or methods are

most pertinent to the study and locate gaps in the field, in order to

create the warrant for the study in question, and identify the contribution the study will make.


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The dinner party

Who has to beinvited?

Who is left out?

Who is at thetop table?

What are themain topics ofconversation?

Avoiding bad dinner party behaviour.


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The table

Imagine that you are ... making a table. You have designed it and cut out someof the parts. Fortunately, you dont need to make all the parts yourself. Someare standard sizes and shapes lengths of two by four, for instance availableat any lumber yard. Some have already been designed and made by otherpeople drawer pulls and turned legs. All you have to do is fit them into theplaces you left for them, knowing that they were available. That is the best wayto use the literature.

You want to make an argument, instead of a table. You have created some ofthe argument yourself, perhaps on the basis of new data or information you

have collected. But you neednt invent the whole thing. Other people haveworked on your problem or problems related to it and have made some of thepieces you need. You just have to fit them in where they belong. Like thewoodworker, you leave space, when you make your portion of the argument,for the other parts you know you can get. You do that, that is, ifyou know thatthey are there to use. And thats one good reason to know the literature: so thatyou will know what pieces are available and not waste time doing what hasalready been done.

(Becker, 1986: 142)


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The library

Pierre Bayard argues it is never possible to read everything andfoolish to try or pretend. Rather it is important, he suggests, to tryto grasp the shape of the collective libraryas well as therelationships that elements of the whole have with each other. He

argues that people interested in books are those who not only takeaccount of the content of any text that they read, but also itslocation in relation to those that they have not. It is the capacity tounderstand the place of a book within the collective library thatmakes it possible for a reader to merely skim the contents in orderto grasp its most essential points.

Bayard also proposes an inner library, a subset of the collectivelibrary. These are those particular books which orient individualreaders to books in general and to other people. An inner libraryincludes those books which have made a deep impression on thereader and those which are most useful and used.


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DIY metaphor

what does itmean for the writing?


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Thesis literatures work

The purpose is to position a piece of research that hasalready been undertaken.

The reader/examiner gets whats-already-known, plusthe newly conducted piece of research this research

as the contribution. The literature is used to locate the contribution, the

what-we-now-know-that-we-didnt-before-and-why-this-is-important. Some texts and themes that were inthe initial scoping review are omitted, and other things

are now emphasized in order to make clear theconnections and continuities, similarities anddifferences of the new research to whats gone before.


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The stance to literatures

Be appreciative

Ask what you

know more of nowyouve read this

Look for blank and

blind spots


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Vera drowns in detail

According to Belsey (2002: 57), Jacques Lacan reinterpreted Freud in the light ofLvi-Strauss and Saussureto delineate a subject was itself the location of adifference. Belsey goes on to explain that, for Lacan, the human being is anorganism in culture. According to Lacan, speech was central to psycho-analyticpractice. He argued that during the first two months of life a childs emergentsense of self was formed in relation to subjects, capable of signifying. Lacan callsthis the Otherness of language. The big other, states Belsey, is there before we

are, exists outside us and does not belong to us. The early writing of Barthes, saysNorris (1982: 8), was aimed at a full-scale science of the text, modelled on thelinguistics of Saussure and the structural anthropology of Lvi-Strauss. In Elementsof Semiology(1967), Barthes takes the view of structuralism as a kind ofmastercode capable of providing higher-level understanding. Culler (1976: 58)states that Barthes, in Elements of Semiology, speculated upon the ways in whichlangue and parole, signifier and signified, syntagmatic and paradigmatic might

apply to various non-linguistic phenomena. Culler goes on to say that, for asemiologist studying the food system of a culture, parole is all the events ofeating, whereas langue is the system of rules that underlies all these events.These would define, for example, what is edible, which dishes would be combinedto create a meal and the conventions governing the syntactic ordering of items.


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Geraldine does he said he said

Mortimore (1998) also contributes to the school effectiveness research agenda. Heexplains that school effectiveness researchers aim to ascertain whether differentialresources, processes and organizational differences affect student performanceand if so, how. He is also of the view that school effectiveness researchers seekreliable and appropriate ways to measure school quality. Hopkins (2001) suggeststhat one of the earliest studies that was done compared the effectiveness of somesecondary schools on a range of student outcome measures. Reynolds and

Cuttance (1992) also point out that the effective schools research entitled FifteenThousand Hours characterised school efficiency factors as varied in the degree ofacademic emphasis, teachers action in lessons, the availability of resources,rewards, good conditions for pupils and the extent to which children were able totake responsibility. It was emphasized that effective school researchers claim thatthere are significant differences between schools on a number of different studentoutcomes after full account has been taken of students previous learning history

and family background. Hargreaves and Hopkins (1991) also endorse the view bystating that there is evidence to support the argument that the characteristics ofindividual schools can make a difference to pupils progress since certain internalconditions are common in schools that achieve higher levels of outcomes for theirstudents.


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Chris manages the reader and the

literatures

This chapter traces the development of key concepts in film and educationfrom the Report of the Commission on Educational and Cultural Films thatled to the establishment of the British Film Institute in 1933 through tothe early 1950s. In particular it explores the context of the Ministry of

Educations 1944 experiment into the sponsored production of classroomfilms. While issues of organisational responsibility are discussed alongsidedevelopments in production, distribution and access to the medium, thisis not intended as a history of the organisations involved. The aim is totrack the evolution of a range of different and in some instancesconflicting views on film and education asserted by the main organisationsand individuals involved in its development. The title film and education

is applied, as this period of development culminated in the parallelconcepts of teaching about film and teaching through film. These twolines of thought regarding film and education remain at the centre ofdebates surrounding its pedagogical application and implications, and theform and style of the medium itself.


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[email protected]

http://patthomson.wor

dpress.com

uwe summer sessions - writing the doctorate

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