One issue that graduate faculty frequently see is a kind of disconnect between the questions students write for their research instruments and the primary research questions themselves. In other words, the questions don’t “get at” the information the student seeks. The result is that the data yielded by the instrument won’t answer the primary question(s). […]
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.” This moment can generate something I call reader rage (basically road rage on the page). The brain whirrs: […]
In graduate school I had a housemate, also in my Ph.D. program, who wrote meticulous outlines and then—get this—wrote exactly that paper. This blew my mind. I have always been a messy, process-driven writer. I write my way into thought. There are times when I almost feel like it’s hard to create thought unless it’s […]
Most of the time we think of sentence-level errors as a function of not knowing the rules of grammar, punctuation, or spelling. Certainly, this can be the case. But what if the way we construct sentences also reflects our cognitive make-up and affective states? I am curious about how our cognitive processes and even emotional […]
The life of the mind can be a tough place for mental health. By sharing resources and experiences, we can work together to reduce shame and promote mental wellness for all students and faculty. This is a curated list of blogs, articles, and apps that may be of use to graduate students and advisors who are dealing with issues […]
Seven Strategies for Supporting Neurodiverse Writers in Higher Education download When I see a student who is able to conceptualize and articulate her dissertation idea clearly, but who is failing to progress on her thesis or dissertation, I begin to sense a puzzle. Sometimes stalling out in graduate school can be caused by an existential […]
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