Helping Doctoral Students Write
Abstract
Helping Doctoral Students Write offers a proven approach to effective doctoral writing. By treating research as writing and writing as research, the authors offer pedagogical strategies for doctoral supervisors that will assist the production of well-argued and lively dissertations. It is clear that many doctoral candidates find research writing complicated and difficult, but the advice they receive often glosses over the complexities of writing and/or locates the problem in the writer. Kamler and Thomson provide a highly effective framework for scholarly work that is located in personal, institutional and cultural contexts. The pedagogical approach developed in the book is based on the notion of writing as a social practice. This approach allows supervisors to think of doctoral writers as novices who need to learn new ways with words as they enter the discursive practices of scholarly communities. This involves learning sophisticated writing practices with specific sets of conventions and textual characteristics. The authors offer supervisors practical advice on helping with commonly encountered writing tasks such as the proposal, the journal abstract, the literature review and constructing the dissertation argument. The first edition of this book has helped many academics and thousands of research students produce better written material. Now fully updated the second edition includes: Examples from a broader range of academic disciplines A new chapter on writing from the th…
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Doctoral writing is part of 'writing the scholar' into being.
“Kamler and Thomson (2014) similarly describe doctoral writing as part of 'writing the scholar' into being.”
From From production to verification: generative AI, doctoral formation, and the leadership of digital education (2026) · cites this paper as Kamler and Thomson, 2014
Kamler and Thomson (2014) argue that doctoral writing is part of 'writing the scholar' into being.
“if doctoral writing is part of 'writing the scholar' into being, as Kamler and Thomson (2014) argue”
From From production to verification: generative AI, doctoral formation, and the leadership of digital education (2026) · cites this paper as Kamler and Thomson (2014)
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- Authors
- Kamler, B., & Thomson, P.
- Affiliations
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- ORCID
- Thomson, Pat
- Venue
- Routledge eBooks
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Published
- 2014-03-21
- OpenAlex
- W4234467415
- Cited by
- 161
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 11.48
- Type
- book
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Routledge eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Doctoral Education Challenges and Solutions
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Literature and Literary Theory › Discourse Analysis in Language Studies
- Keywords
- doctoral writing, thesis writing, doctoral supervision, writing as social practice, academic identity, writing as research, academic community, academic writing style, literature review writing, research proposal writing, abstract writing, note-taking, academic conferences, social media in academia
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