Training

Doctoral training

Issues in Research Design: achieving coherence

This workshop will consider how to manage and plan your research methodology and to anticipate likely issues you will encounter as your research design begins to take shape. Being clear about what you want to research will determine the questions you pose and the most appropriate methods needed to address them. This session will be useful to PhD students at all stages of the doctoral journal but is especially useful to those starting out. It is always useful to consider the overall coherence of a research design, and the important connection between theory and method. This session provides opportunities for you to locate your study within your chosen field of research, and to consider its new contribution to knowledge – be that methodological, theoretical or otherwise. There is an interactive element to the session where you will have a chance to critically reflect on the significance of your worldviews and positionality to the nature of the research you (will) undertake.

Writing and Editing a Doctoral Thesis: some strategies and practices to consider

Writing and editing a thesis is always a more challenging task than first imagined. Bringing together years of research and reading in to a coherent form requires tenacity, stamina and lots of redrafting. This session will be useful to all doctoral students, developing good writing habits can never start to soon! In this session you will be introduced to some useful approaches to writing, concentration strategies and approaches to staying on task that have in mind your health and well-being as well as the production of a thesis. Through interactive exercises you will have the chance to challenge some common myths about being a writer, to consider the type of writer that you are, and how to find ways to enjoy the messy demands of writing up. Successful PhD students will offer insights from their experiences of ‘writing up’ their doctorates.

Demystifying getting published in journals: a feminist approach

From the perspective of a journal editor, Professor Jayne Osgood offers insights into the Academic Publishing Machine of journals. By taking you behind the scenes of a top-ranking academic journal you will learn what happens to your paper at each stage of the process. You will learn the importance of: aligning your work with the aims and scope of a given journal; positioning your work within key disciplinary debates; understanding how reviewers make judgements about your work; and how you might trip up at various points along the way. You will learn what is involved in getting your paper to the point of publication – and how to make the world aware of it once it is published.

Breaking it down: writing a journal paper in a week

As a doctoral researcher you are becoming expert in your field, and you have a lot to offer existing debates. The prospect of writing your work up for publication can feel terrifying. This session will breakdown the process of writing for publication in to a series of manageable and structured processes. By carefully planning, deploying core writing strategies, and dedicating time and space to the task you will be in the position to get your ideas on to the page.  The session includes a hands-on exercise in composing a title and abstract and identifying the best journal for your ideas. The importance of letting your writing rest, and also giving yourself time to rest, is explored.

Conferences Part 1: Finding your tribe and preparing an abstract

Conferences are central to sharing your research with different communities. As a doctoral researcher you have interesting research findings, theoretical advances and critical insights to bring to your disciplinary field. But the prospect of standing up and performing to a room, worst still and auditorium, of expectant faces is daunting. This session will assist you in finding ways to identify ‘your tribe’ – finding a good fit with your research orientation and identifying the audiences you want your work to inform requires some extensive exploration. You will also be introduced to the idea of collaborating and finding strength in numbers (e.g. forming a symposium, co-presenting, panel presentations). Once you have developed the skills to identify a conference where you feel (academically) at home, the task then is to gain access. The remainder of the session will focus on writing an abstract that directly addresses the conference theme.

Conferences Part 2: Preparing to present and fielding difficult questions

Following on from Conferences: Part 1, this session will focus on how to feel adequately prepared for presenting at conferences. You will be introduced to some common pitfalls and errors that are likely to increase anxiety. The emphasis in this session is how to develop approaches to minimise the stress that can be encountered from attending and presenting your work at conferences. Every presenter’s worst nightmare is that question that can’t be answered. Presenting until your time runs out and there is no time for Q&A is not the answer! Together we will explore how to manage the anxiety inducing aspects of ‘giving a conference paper’.

Conferences Part 3: Turn your conference paper into a publication

This session will draw upon parts 1 & 2, to contemplate what happens to your conference paper once the conference has ended. Too many great papers sit buried in filing cabinets or more typically lost on a USB stick somewhere. But you have spent months, possibly years honing your ideas, assembling them into a format that can be digested by an audience in 15 minutes. So much labour has been expended already to craft an argument, review the literature, make a new contribution to existing debates in your field. You know this work intimately so why not take the next step and develop your paper ready for publication? Participants are invite to bring a conference paper to the session and identify the developmental work needed for it to be ready to submit to a journal.

Writing Integrity and Citational Politics

This workshop will consider why/how it matters whose ideas you engage with and cite in your work. Following recent calls to ‘decolonise the curriculum’ it is especially important to critically interrogate how knowledge is produced and valued through doctoral research.  Writing with integrity and recognising the political nature of citation involves uncovering, problematising and undoing the enduring effects of colonialism. Academic research is concerned to generate new ideas, and part of that mission should involve creating space for marginalised and silenced voices to be heard. Therefore, a doctorate can make visible how (certain sorts of) knowledge gets produced and validated above others. This session will explore the ways in which research holds capacities to expose and challenge power asymmetries by asking a series of difficult questions about the relationship between researcher and researched. You will be invited to consider issues such as transparency, accountability, reciprocity, subjectivity and proximity to those participating in research. You will then be encouraged to critically (re-)appraise assumptions about different sorts of knowledge and recognise knowledge hierarchies. Developing a heightened awareness and attunement to your researcher subjectivity, your worldview, and your situated knowledges makes it possible to spot (unintentional) processes of othering, power asymmetries and knowledge production. 

Supervisor training

Approaching difficult scenarios and wellbeing: Getting serious about ‘what if’ 

There is little doubt that pursuing a doctorate is an incredibly demanding endeavour and key to supporting students throughout is the supervisory team. The relationship students build with supervisor(s) is unlike any other; the close and sometimes intense nature of the supervisory arrangement can be both comforting and overwhelming, requiring that boundaries are established. A doctoral journey is a long one, with unforeseen challenges along the way. It is therefore vital that the relationship is founded upon open, clear communication; and an acknowledgement by all parties that there will be (many) times to exercise a degree of flexibility and critical reflection about what is needed at particular points along the journey. This session invites supervisors to deliberate and discuss a series of ‘what if’ scenarios that are often encountered in doctoral supervision to consider how wellbeing (for everyone) might be foregrounded in navigating ways forward.

Supervision beyond the thesis

There is more to a doctorate than writing a thesis, but often other aspects can become neglected when the thesis looms largest. This session will seek to collectively map what else students need from their doctoral experience. The doctoral journey is about the holistic development of the researcher, and about ensuring that their research can make some sort of demonstrable impact in their field and the wider world. Supervisors can support students to ensure their research has impact in various ways, and that it reaches multiple audiences, that they become well-networked and skilled at public engagement.   Through open dialogue and small group discussion supervisors are invited to share insights and ideas about how students might disseminate, publish, and promote themselves and their research.