I’m a good friend to have if you are in the business of examining theses as you can probably imagine. A large number of my academic friends have called me up for expert advice on acceptable style, structure and tone. Some eight years ago now, my good friend Dr Scott Mayson rang me up about […] … learn more→
Blog Archives
Don’t let those ‘sticky words’ confuse your thesis examiner
Please no more leaders for Higher Ed!
Our colleges campuses are drowning in leaders. I’ve literally taught courses where I had to report to 4 different bosses (in addition to the department head and Dean) during the semester regarding every issue that came up in the class. It takes some effort to teach a class, but not that much (it’s why faculty […] … learn more→
Despair and depression at law school are real, and need attention
Pursuing a professional degree can be extremely stressful for students, who often experience it as a time riddled with anxiety, uncertainty, fear and financial challenge. The emotional health of law students was recently brought to my attention in an email from a student at the University of Cape Town’s law faculty where I am the […] … learn more→
How will high-level writing skills help students in assignments
When students join college they are expected to have good writing skills. In fact, they face some problems with assignments such as getting the right sources for information, the right format, and delivery on time just to mention a few. Basically, writing is a complex skill that is needed for any student to be successful […] … learn more→
A thesis writing-feedback calendar
How does a thesis get written? What do I as a supervisor do to help? How does feedback work best? A set of inter-related questions that keep many of us mildly, or a lot, worried. Well, I have an ‘ideal model’ for feedback on a thesis. I don’t always follow it. Quite often my model […] … learn more→
Wisconsin to remove academics from Higher Ed
When I cover the madnesses affecting higher education, California comes up often, although I certainly cover schools in the rest of the country. Wisconsin has avoided the madness, with nothing in the way of riots or flamboyant frauds that seem commonplace elsewhere. You’d think the state government there would leave well enough alone, but such […] … learn more→
We must rescue social science research from obscurity
“Never in the history of human scholarship has so much been written by so many to the benefit of so few.” Spoken by one of my co-authors at an academic conference in the social sciences, that Churchillian inversion drew spontaneous applause from an audience of around 400. Academic publishing is now a game in which high […] … learn more→
For-profit Colleges’ own inconsistency, not the Federal Government’s, poses their biggest threat
In June, the Trump Administration took the first step in dismantling the Gainful Employment (GE) rule. Finalized by the Obama-era U.S. Department of Education in 2014, the regulation established thresholds for affordable debt relative to the typical amount graduates of career-college programs earn. But before negotiators sit down to rehash how best to define whether […] … learn more→
Publishing in fraudulent journals is criminal
Predatory publishing is a curse for individual academics and universities, and a blight on the landscape of academic publishing generally. We are all familiar with those “greetings” emails asking about our health and promising to publish online any manuscript we submit in double-quick time, for a small fee. But it is not enough to just […] … learn more→
Make University a boiler room = 100% pay raise
Some time back, I mentioned Arizona State University’s plan to increase faculty workloads 25%, for no additional pay. This policy idea was part of a larger plan by the ASU Poo Bah, Michael Crow, to debase education as much as possible. The primary motivation for doing so is to get more money for administration—every dollar […] … learn more→
