TY - CHAP
T1 - Marking the boundaries
T2 - knowledge and identity in professional doctorates
AU - Creaton, Jane
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Writing is a central feature of all aspects of the doctoral process. Students are
engaged in textual activities such as the taking of notes, the keeping of research
diaries, the analysis of interview data and the preparation of reports and conference
papers well before they write their thesis. Hence Barbara Kamler and Pat Thomson
(2006, p. 4) conceptualize doctoral research as a continuous process of inquiry
through writing, and for David Scott and Robin Usher (1996, p. 43) research is
“writing and the production of a text.” However, despite the dominance of writing
in the process of knowledge production, the area of doctoral writing remains
relatively under-theorized as a social practice. While there is a profusion of selfhelp
and advice books on the market, most take a skills-based approach in which
deficits in writing can be addressed through learning a set of decontextualized tips
and techniques (Kamler & Thomson, 2004). This “study skills” model (Mary Lea
& Brian Street, 1998) treats writing as a set of technical transferable skills, failing
to recognize how academic writing practices are situated in wider social and institutional
contexts. Although there are guides for supervisors (Kamler & Thomson,
2006) and students (Rowena Murray, 2011) which do acknowledge writing as a
social practice, Claire Aitchison et al. (2012, p. 2) conclude that relatively little is
known about “how doctoral students actually learn research writing, how supervisors
‘teach’ or develop the writing of their students and what happens to students
and supervisors during this process.”
AB - Writing is a central feature of all aspects of the doctoral process. Students are
engaged in textual activities such as the taking of notes, the keeping of research
diaries, the analysis of interview data and the preparation of reports and conference
papers well before they write their thesis. Hence Barbara Kamler and Pat Thomson
(2006, p. 4) conceptualize doctoral research as a continuous process of inquiry
through writing, and for David Scott and Robin Usher (1996, p. 43) research is
“writing and the production of a text.” However, despite the dominance of writing
in the process of knowledge production, the area of doctoral writing remains
relatively under-theorized as a social practice. While there is a profusion of selfhelp
and advice books on the market, most take a skills-based approach in which
deficits in writing can be addressed through learning a set of decontextualized tips
and techniques (Kamler & Thomson, 2004). This “study skills” model (Mary Lea
& Brian Street, 1998) treats writing as a set of technical transferable skills, failing
to recognize how academic writing practices are situated in wider social and institutional
contexts. Although there are guides for supervisors (Kamler & Thomson,
2006) and students (Rowena Murray, 2011) which do acknowledge writing as a
social practice, Claire Aitchison et al. (2012, p. 2) conclude that relatively little is
known about “how doctoral students actually learn research writing, how supervisors
‘teach’ or develop the writing of their students and what happens to students
and supervisors during this process.”
KW - academic writing
KW - doctorates
KW - WNU
M3 - Chapter (peer-reviewed)
T3 - Perspectives on writing series
SP - 217
EP - 226
BT - Working with academic literacies
A2 - Lillis, Theresa
A2 - Harrington, Kathy
A2 - Lea, Mary
A2 - Mitchell, Sally
PB - The WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press
CY - Fort Collins, Colorado
ER -