PACE Workshops Block 2 Session 1 Writing the Doctorate Commitment, risk, and voice Julia Molinari January 8th 2024
![book cover design featuring a stark contrast between text and imagery. The title "Risk in Academic Writing" appears prominently in white text against a deep blue background at the top, followed by the subtitle "Postgraduate Students, their Teachers and the Making of Knowledge."
Starting points: ‘How to Books’ on academic writing […] tend to over-generalise, over-simplify, de-skill students […] implicitly and explicitly perpetuating a restricted and deficit model of student competence and language use. The Guides […] tend to focus on how students can imitate existing conventions based on massively problematic assumptions about student homogeneity and the stability of the disciplines (Thesen and Cooper, 2013, p. 4)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:eohd3dwrkvb5fvlovcchugif/bafkreiheuf3aal6bmctky6mk5iowsczds5j4hwjwga7jvpae2sp454lmgm)
book cover design featuring a stark contrast between text and imagery. The title "Risk in Academic Writing" appears prominently in white text against a deep blue background at the top, followed by the subtitle "Postgraduate Students, their Teachers and the Making of Knowledge." Starting points: ‘How to Books’ on academic writing […] tend to over-generalise, over-simplify, de-skill students […] implicitly and explicitly perpetuating a restricted and deficit model of student competence and language use. The Guides […] tend to focus on how students can imitate existing conventions based on massively problematic assumptions about student homogeneity and the stability of the disciplines (Thesen and Cooper, 2013, p. 4)
Book cover of The Scientist’s Guide to Writing, 2nd Edition: How to Write More Easily and Effectively throughout Your Scientific Career, Stephen B. Heard Starting points: Legions of undergraduates have been told that scientists should write in the passive voice (and never, ever, write “I”). This advice is wrong. The passive is prevalent in the literature – but it hasn’t always been, and the tide is shifting back towards the active (Heard, 2022, p. 174)
![Image of a newspaper article depicting an orange brain against an orange brick wall to represent how writers become alienated from their writing.
Starting points
Academic writing: why no 'me' in PhD?
[…] by removing the first person point of view and the active voice from your writing, what you're actually doing is removing yourself. […]
This is a big problem since more than half of the academic writing that already exists is on subjects that are difficult to understand for most non-academics. And when you remove the distinctive self (or voice) from your writing, it can become unbearable to read. When you alienate the 'I' from your dissertation, you are taking a big risk: turning your writing into a mere juxtaposition of facts and figures.
https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/apr/19/academic-writing-first-person-singular](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:eohd3dwrkvb5fvlovcchugif/bafkreighkam6yawrx5q7mtoxiqje6fgohv3t34vj26brylrvtzpfwqaxqq)
Image of a newspaper article depicting an orange brain against an orange brick wall to represent how writers become alienated from their writing. Starting points Academic writing: why no 'me' in PhD? […] by removing the first person point of view and the active voice from your writing, what you're actually doing is removing yourself. […] This is a big problem since more than half of the academic writing that already exists is on subjects that are difficult to understand for most non-academics. And when you remove the distinctive self (or voice) from your writing, it can become unbearable to read. When you alienate the 'I' from your dissertation, you are taking a big risk: turning your writing into a mere juxtaposition of facts and figures. https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2013/apr/19/academic-writing-first-person-singular
Wee glance into the sorts of discussions we get into at #PACEspace 😱 {JM}:
kick-starting 2025 with a session on 'Commitment, Risk, and Voice' in #DoctoralWriting #ResearchWriting #AcademicLiteracies ✍️
@ougradsch.bsky.social
#ZombieNouns #Nominalisation #AcWri #PhDLife
#WhatMakesWritingAcademic👀