“I did revise… it just didn’t go in!” Sound familiar? What about “I turned over the exam paper and my mind just went blank…” It’s worrying to feel like everything you’re doing to prepare for an exam somehow isn’t working. But you can harness the science behind how memory works to make your revision more […] … learn more→

Whether you are a student or a parent, at school or university, a child or an adult, you have probably already experienced this frustrating situation: hours of intense revision followed by an inexplicable blackout on the day of the exam. This (discouraging) experience is not inevitable. Your brain is not failing, it may just be […] … learn more→

Occasionally I offer strategies that you can try to see if they work for you. If they do, and not everything works for everybody, then you can add them to your academic writing repertoire. Today I’ve got an exercise designed to support diagnosis of your own writing weaknesses. In the quiet of your own work […] … learn more→

When high school students get into the habit of revising their writing, it has a positive impact on the quality of their work. Despite the proven benefits of revision, students often resist making changes to the initial versions of what they wrote – because it requires additional effort. Or, if they do revise, they only do it in a mediocre way. Finding […] … learn more→

How do you know what to do when you are revising your writing? Revision always involves making a judgment about your own work. You become a self-evaluator. But what criteria do you use? Art educator and philosopher Elliott Eisner (1976, pp. 140-141) suggested that any evaluation of your own and/or others’ artistic or creative work […] … learn more→

Academic writers need to let their readers know that they know what they are talking about. But feeling and talking like an expert is not easy – in fact, it’s often the exact opposite of how you think about yourself. So it’s helpful to be able to pick up the places in your writing where […] … learn more→

Well, my current book is nearly done. But I was wondering, the other day, why writing a book never gets any easier. I’ve written quite a lot of books. This one is actually the twenty fourth, although about eight of them are edited collections. Not the same as a monograph or trade book – although […] … learn more→