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Whenever I reflect on completing my PhD, part of me still wonders: how did I manage to write all that research down!? Even now, the prospect of a blank screen can feel daunting, as it did when I began writing this blog post. That experience helped shape the intervention ‘Supporting PGRs with writing’. New postgraduate researchers are often treated as though they already know how to write at doctoral level. Yet, doctoral writing is not a skill that researchers simply arrive with. It requires them to develop new skills as they go along, and it’s an iterative process. These practices take time to develop.
Writing is much more than producing a final polished piece of text. It involves reading, thinking, planning, drafting, editing, and responding to feedback (not always in that straightforward sequence). This 90-minute workshop asks a practical question: how can supervisors support PGRs with these processes to become more confident and independent academic writers?
What the pilots revealed
This intervention was piloted across seven UK research-intensive and teaching-focused institutions. New and experienced supervisors from a variety of disciplines took part in online and in-person workshops. The feedback from the piloting was positive, with one of the main takeaways being that participants valued concrete strategies to use and discussing their practice with colleagues. Constructive feedback focused on the feeling that practical strategies felt bolted onto the end of the session, or rushed. Ultimately, the material participants wanted the most needed to be moved to the core of the session.
New workshop design
At the beginning of the new workshop, participants are asked to think back to some of the challenges they have faced (and continue to encounter) when it comes to academic writing. The purpose of this exercise is to open the session by drawing on participants’ own experience.
The core structure of the workshop has not massively changed. The workshop still uses four overlapping lenses to explore writing challenges: practical (this was previously called ‘structural’ in the first iteration), emotional, motivational, and conceptual. These four categories are used as prompts for enquiry and discussing the different types of challenges a PGR might encounter. Participants test this approach through two contrasting scenarios.
In each case, supervisors consider what might be happening, identify what remains unknown, and the types of questions they would ask the researcher. Participants then move from interpreting the situation to considering what kinds of appropriate support could help. In the revised workshop, practical strategies now sit within the debrief after each case study, rather than being presented as a generic list at the end.
A new ‘Practical strategies and supervisor prompts’ handout brings together the practical strategies discussed in the workshop. This handout includes more examples and details around writing challenges in the four categories, and provides additional generic prompts that supervisors may want to use. Overall, the purpose is to provide a quick reference tool that can be used when preparing for a supervision meeting or for tailoring supervisory support.
Learning from practitioner partner adaptations
As always, learning how colleagues at other institutions have adapted the material in their own contexts is incredibly insightful. At Middlesex University, Dr Stefanie Sachsenmaier included an activity where supervisors were asked to reflect on ‘What activities hide behind the word ‘writing’?’. With Stefanie’s permission, I have adapted this activity into an optional activity.
The feedback from piloting also highlighted the value participants placed on peer learning and discussion. To cater to both new and experienced supervisors, this new workshop iteration includes an optional activity: the Supervisors’ Case Study Clinic. The aim is to allow participants to apply the framework and strategies learnt during the workshop to a current writing-support challenge they are facing.
Supporting the writer as well as the writing
The piloting and redesign have created a more focused workshop. Its purpose is not to give supervisors a definitive set of solutions, but to help them understand that writing is multidimensional and how to make better-informed decisions about supporting individual PGRs. This might involve helping a candidate develop their confidence as academic writers, regain momentum, clarifying what a piece of writing needs to accomplish, or making the process itself more visible.
Developing this workshop has also prompted me to reflect on my own writing. Completing a PhD did not mean that I had mastered academic writing. It remains a practice that continues to develop. Perhaps that is one of the most meaningful messages supervisors can give their candidates: finding writing difficult is not a reflection of your identity and skills as a researcher. It’s a part of research that needs to develop, and that takes time.