Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Writing Up
Writing up obscures the thinking that goes on during the writing Writing up makes invisible the hard work of writing the thesis Writing up makes the writing process seem transparent
Key concept
Writing clarifies what we think and want to say Writing is becoming and being - we imagine ourselves as particular kind of scholar - we write our-selves, what we stand for and what we know We are known by others by our writing We are judged on our writing
Key concept
Writing as a social practice Our writing is shaped and framed not simply by immediate interactions, but by broader contexts
National higher education policy; national scholarship conventions, institutional policy, scholarly/disciplinary conventions, audit regimes Supervision The field, the literature disciplinary conventions Research conventions/standards University requirements
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Discourse practice
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Sociocultural practice
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One way to understand the problem of writing is to see it in context. We write what we write--in the case at hand, a dissertation--in the context of academic institutions. The problem's solution, in this context, requires not only putting together ideas and evidence clearly and convincingly. It also requires that we satisfy the requirements those institutions insist on for such a document. The author, the dissertation writer, has first to satisfy the immediate readers, the people who will say yes or no, pass or don't pass, go back and do it again and we'll have another look or, for the lucky ones, "Well done! Get it published and get on with your life and work." People who serve as this kind of reader--for the most part reasonable, sane people--still have to consider more than the quality of the work before them. They think about the politics of their departments ("Old George will have an apoplectic fit if you attack his favorite theory") or, more commonly, of the discipline ("I agree with what you have written, but if you take that unpopular position or write in that unconventional style you will have trouble getting your work published") and as a result suggest changes in substance and style that have no reason in logic or taste, but which result purely from academic convention.
(Howard Becker, undated)
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Thesis as genre
Three different types of thesis: The Big Book Publications plus exegesis Artefact plus exegesis
Thesis structures
METAPHOR
Common metaphors
Water images
A puzzle/maze An unprepared researcher Bodily pain The answer is out there
Less frequently, the literatures are benign, incomplete, and the researcher is in control
invited? Who is left out? Who is at the top table? What are the main topics of conversation?
Avoiding bad dinner party behaviour.
The table
Imagine that you are ... making a table. You have designed it and cut out some of the parts. Fortunately, you dont need to make all the parts yourself. Some are standard sizes and shapes lengths of two by four, for instance available at any lumber yard. Some have already been designed and made by other people drawer pulls and turned legs. All you have to do is fit them into the places you left for them, knowing that they were available. That is the best way to use the literature. You want to make an argument, instead of a table. You have created some of the argument yourself, perhaps on the basis of new data or information you have collected. But you neednt invent the whole thing. Other people have worked on your problem or problems related to it and have made some of the pieces you need. You just have to fit them in where they belong. Like the woodworker, you leave space, when you make your portion of the argument, for the other parts you know you can get. You do that, that is, if you know that they are there to use. And thats one good reason to know the literature: so that you will know what pieces are available and not waste time doing what has already been done. (Becker, 1986: 142)
The library
Pierre Bayard argues it is never possible to read everything and foolish to try or pretend. Rather it is important, he suggests, to try to grasp the shape of the collective library as well as the relationships that elements of the whole have with each other. He argues that people interested in books are those who not only take account of the content of any text that they read, but also its location in relation to those that they have not. It is the capacity to understand the place of a book within the collective library that makes it possible for a reader to merely skim the contents in order to grasp its most essential points. Bayard also proposes an inner library, a subset of the collective library. These are those particular books which orient individual readers to books in general and to other people. An inner library includes those books which have made a deep impression on the reader and those which are most useful and used.
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patricia.thomson@ nottingham.ac.uk