Editing is the most painful and most pleasurable part of writing for me. In the book coming out of my PhD thesis, it was more pain than pleasure!
Editing: the most painful and most pleasurable writing task
WTF is the teaching-research nexus? Or, how my teaching load supports my research
Yesterday I was giving a short talk to a group of early career researchers doing a two day workshop. I have good memories of doing the same workshop when I first began at my current workplace. I remember folks coming in and speaking to us and how actually, a couple of ideas I got from... Continue Reading →
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Check list process for university course planning and design
It's the first lecture, and the bright or bleary eyed students will be turning up to hear what is in for them for the semester. But the work started long before. And I don't mean lecture preparation. Lecture preparation is one of the last things that happen in my course design process. Here is my... Continue Reading →
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Care-Work on Fieldwork
Reblogging from 2015: Every time I publish an article based on my personal PhD experiences with fieldwork, I tell myself it will be the last. So far, I have four. Just last year, I was part of an awesome team and put out this one: Farrelly, T., Stewart-Withers, R., & Dombroski, K. (2014). ‘BEING THERE’:... Continue Reading →
Saying yes, saying no: 4 years tracking my voluntary academic activities
Recently in my Twitter circle, I've been part of a few conversations about academic workloads, work-life balance, and managing the pressure of early career researcher decision-making. It forced me to recall a post from January 2017, where I committed to putting some limits on the 'voluntary' parts of our job. But as you may recall... Continue Reading →
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Three Words 2018: Less, Dwell, Write
In the last few years I have been choosing some focus words for each year, rather than a New Year's Resolution. In 2018, after reflecting on the words and things I learned in 2017, I decided on the word 'less', 'dwell' and 'write'. Of all the years I've been doing this, it feels like this... Continue Reading →
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Be gone, cruel voices
I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this. I’m thinking of when you have something important to do, to say, but become paralysed by your uncertainty about your ability — or your right — to do it, to even begin! What if what I have to say is not actually so important, if it is, in fact,... Continue Reading →
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Five things I learned while editing my thesis into a book
It has been some time now since I published the posts on writing your book proposal for an academic book coming out of your thesis (see also this and this). I promised at the time I would keep people updated with how that process went, but to be honest, just finding time to work on... Continue Reading →
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Vulnerability and Learning to be Affected
I've been struggling with an article for a long time. This piece of writing has evolved through 5 or 6 complete revisions and framings (and many, many more versions), including being part of a thesis chapter and part of a book chapter. I've taken it to two retreats, I've had reviewer feedback, peer feedback, and... Continue Reading →
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How to do slow reading
My previous post 'slow scholarship starts with slow reading' prompted some questions around slow reading. What do I really mean by slow reading, and how do we do it? It is, I acknowledge, much more than not being distracted. Although I blog, am an avid user of evernote, use Goodreads, and keep all my references... Continue Reading →
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Slow Scholarship starts with Slow Reading
I wonder if you know the feeling: You have a few hours, or a day, to get some writing done -- to get it finished, in fact! You have been longing for this for weeks, perhaps months. You sit in front of your computer, open your document and immediately find it hard to connect with... Continue Reading →
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Writing your Book Proposal II: What happens after submitting your proposal?
After submitting your proposal, it's time for the waiting game. It will go to peer review, then you will need to respond, then it might go before a board, all before it is time to organise the advance contract. 1. Peer Review For most good academic publishers, after your book proposal is received it is... Continue Reading →
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Turning your PhD into a book
As I was racing to the submission finish line with my PhD thesis, I constantly doubted whether certain sections were 'done' or 'good enough'. One of the most common pieces of feedback I'd get from my supervisor was 'save it for the book'. Well, now that moment has come. And I can't for the life... Continue Reading →
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Being a Public Intellectual
Today I was interviewed by a PhD scholar researching 'public' geographers and public intellectuals more generally. I'm not sure if I was being researched as an actual public geographer, or as a group of people with views about public geography, but it did get me thinking about what we do and who we are aiming... Continue Reading →
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Insecurities as a mum-employee
Today I had a major work-fail moment. I was organising honours students presentations, and had already underorganised that normally-well-attended event. It was first thing in the morning following a public holiday (Queens Birthday), and I was incredibly late and missed the first two presentations despite being the person who was supposed to be hosting it.... Continue Reading →
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Writing First Year Geography Lectures
I've been very quiet in the blogosphere recently. Mostly because I have been preparing new lectures for a section of a first year course I am teaching. I taught first year almost exclusively in my first academic job at Macquarie University, and since I was starting at scratch with topics I had never lectured on... Continue Reading →
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Academic mothering: reflections from guest blogger Dr Ann Hill
My friend and colleague Ann Hill has contributed a blog post for me today, inspired by the conversations we have had about managing our academic and mothering practices. Dr Ann Hill is a member of the Community Economies Collective, and has conducted research on food economies in the Phillipines. She is currently working on a... Continue Reading →
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On writing: Spew drafts in the Phd process
I have recently been working through a book with some PhD students in my department. The book is Alison B Miller's Finish Your Dissertation Once and For All! How to overcome psychological barriers, get results, and move on with your life., which I cannot recommend highly enough. One of the chapters in this book is... Continue Reading →
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Managing Maternity-related Gaps in your CV Part II: Upbeat ways to make caring work visible
When it comes to applying for jobs as a mother, there seems to be two approaches to explaining any gaps in your CV. The first approach is to maintain that 'My personal life is none of their business' and just not really deal with gaps at all, not mention your children or marital status or... Continue Reading →
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Managing Maternity-Related CV Gaps Part I: The ‘ideal fit’
Early career researchers are often applying for a limited number of jobs in a really competitive market. In New Zealand, this is compounded by the fact that universities are partly funded by what is called Performance Based Research Funding (PBRF), a system where every few years, all our 'outputs' are entered and ranked and labelled... Continue Reading →
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