John Briggs, a 40-year-old on holiday, texted his wife Shirley: “Look at the glacier out there.” He waited for the reply, which came through on his mobile. At the time they were sitting next to one another on board the deck of their small cruise ship, along northern Alaska’s icy shores. This interaction was reported […] … learn more→

Public librarians in Maryland are seizing an opportunity to combine the old with the new.  For the past nine months, they have been developing a training program that borrows techniques from a tried-and-tested program on early literacy, using it as the foundation for media mentorship. The program, which New America is helping to develop, could […] … learn more→

Years ago, in my book, I wrote how a state university had an unwritten policy for faculty to pass 85% of their students. To clarify, any faculty who did not meet this “standard” would find his career cut short. I’ll double down on this by noting the university also allowed students to register for the […] … learn more→

The most cited work in the field of ‘academic writing productivity’ is that of Robert Boice from the 1990s. Is it that because there’s been no further research in this area or has nobody bettered his findings? We’ve just launched our own study into academic writing practice. It’s research that we hope will give anyone who needs […] … learn more→

I set set up the Facebook group Parents Who Study with Rebekah Farrell at the beginning of this year after we “met” on Instagram and discovered that we were both parents who were completing PhDs. Even though we were on opposite ends of the world, we found that we were experiencing the same isolation and […] … learn more→

Anyone who teaches or advises writers has experienced the infuriating déjà vu of reading a student’s paper or dissertation chapter and thinking, “I know I responded to this in the last draft, but here it is again…unchanged.” In my teaching capacity, this moment has traditionally generated something I call ‘reader rage’ (basically road rage on […] … learn more→

A couple of weeks ago I was asked if I had any advice for someone who struggled to let go of their writing – they wrote but then it was really difficult to send the writing off to their supervisor. And clearly, this was an issue. Sending the stuff off is part and parcel of […] … learn more→

The cyber security practices of Australian universities are in the spotlight after the Australian National University (ANU) reported last week it had been the target of a serious attack. Hackers – reportedly based in China – infiltrated ANU’s networks some time last year and have proven difficult to remove. According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre’s 2017 […] … learn more→

One of the great things about being on sabbatical is that you actually get a little time to hide away and do something that professors generally have very little opportunity to do – read books. As a result, I have spent the last couple of months gorging myself on the scholarly fruits that have been […] … learn more→

Time and again I’ve claimed that much of what goes on in our higher education system is fraudulent. I concede that this is just a blog, and I encourage the gentle reader to read all things online with some level of skepticism, to think through the implications and see if the conclusions read online are […] … learn more→