Author Archives:

Curing readitis

Curing readitis

Happy new year everyone! How was your 2015? I’ve been busy, both personally and professionally. Family Thesis Whisperer renovated a house and moved into it, putting down proper Canberra roots. I lost my ‘baby weight’ (Thesis Whisperer Jnr is now taller than me so it was way past time) and started running. The blog went […] … learn more→

A journal article by any other name…

A journal article by any other name…

I just finished renovating the slide deck for my most popular and famous writing workshop “Write that journal article in seven days”. I’ve delivered this workshop nearly 80 times of the last six years with a slide share deck which has now had over 110,000 views. I’m so practiced at this workshop that I can […] … learn more→

In praise of academic jargon

I like coffee I mean – I REALLY like coffee. I don’t smoke any more and rarely drink. Caffeine is the only vice I have left. People tell me all the time that it’s unhealthy, but as far as I’m concerned you can tear the coffee from my cold dead hands. I grew up in […] … learn more→

Researcher organise thyself

Recently I put together a promotion application. For those of you unfamiliar with the Australian system, this is similar to a tenure application in the U.S.A. You must compile everything you have done in your academic career, assess its impact and present it all as a legible ‘story’ of your contribution to your discipline and […] … learn more→

Scholar, google thyself.

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by a foreign university to provide a written reference for someone I didn’t know. Usually when I am asked to write a reference I know the person well and can speak to their strengths. In this case, the university in question wanted my expert opinion about the […] … learn more→

Are most academics lonely at work?

Last week I announced our new MOOC “How to survive your PhD”. Since then I’ve been overwhelmed by the response, with more than 2600 people signing up in the first week alone, which is far more than I expected! A few people have written to me about how they might use the MOOC to help […] … learn more→

How to survive your PhD – a free course

A year and a half ago, ANU gave me a chance to make a MOOC. For those of you in the know, a MOOC stands for ‘massive open online course’. ANU has partnered with EdX, a MOOC delivery platform, so that thousands of people have the chance to participate in ANU courses from around the […] … learn more→

Managing the sluff

As a family we recently signed up to Netflix. Or as we call it in our house – ‘Netcrack’. Work is, as usual, insanely busy, and the Canberra winters can be bitterly cold, so I find myself on the couch with the remote in my hand most weeknights. The problem great thing about endless, on […] … learn more→

The last 5%

The last 5%

Long time readers may have noticed that for the first time in 5 years I did not publish a post first thing on Wednesday morning. I just… well – I forgot. I felt terrible about this until @deblsda just pointed out on Twitter, a habit interrupted is not a habit broken. Five years is a […] … learn more→

How to become a literature searching ninja

We often talk about ‘searching the literature’ – but how do you actually do it? Literature searches are one of those skills that we assume students already have when they get into a PhD. As a consequence we rarely make time to explicitly teach the skills, so it’s probably not surprising that I meet many […] … learn more→