Advice for anyone starting a PhD

Last month we reached out on academic Twitter looking for advice for first year PhD students. We had lots of comments with some wonderful advice that we’ve put together into one constructive, positive blog post. Here are our top picks: EXERCISE. Lots of people stressed the importance of doing exercise and making sure you take…

What advice would you give first year PhDs?

Situated writing as theory and method – or why don’t you write a novella instead of an article? Dr Mona Livholts

Dr Mona Livholts writes about writing and her new book: Situated Writing as Theory and Method. The Untimely Academic Novella. When I finished writing my dissertation, it had three different endings. One was written in the form that academic readers would expect, based on how dissertations in social work and the social sciences are usually…

Free writing exercises to get typing!

How is it that a blank page, with that blinking cursor, can be so intimidating? Free writing exercises are used by writers of all kinds of books and articles, from fiction to academic and journalistic. They help you "just write" when you can't think of where to start; they help you put those first few…

WalkingLab by Dr Sarah Truman and Dr Stephanie Springgay

We are WalkingLab, a queer-feminist walking research-creation collective.[i] At WalkingLab we organise international walking events, conduct research with diverse publics including youth in schools, and collaborate with artists and scholars to realise site-specific research-creation events[ii] that complicate and rupture the White-cis-hetero-ableist-patriarchal canon of walking scholarship. There is currently a global momentum on walking methods, indicated…

Top sociology podcasts

Here's a round-up of the top sociology podcasts out there recommended by academic Twitter: Thinking Allowed on the BBC - this is a classic. Laurie Taylor talks to two or three experts on a sociological topic. It has been going for years, so you have (at time of writing) 626 episodes to choose from. The…

The AI Revolution: Balancing Opportunities and Risks, by Prof Anthony Elliott

As the great wave of digital technology breaks across the world, artificial intelligence creeps increasingly into the very fabric of our lives. From personal virtual assistants and chatbots to self-driving vehicles and tele-robotics, AI is now threaded into large tracts of everyday life. It is reshaping society and the economy. Klaus Schwab, founder of the…