“Discourse Analysis beyond the Speech Event” by Stanton Wortham and Angela Reyes is about using a new approach to discourse analysis that draws primarily from linguistic anthropology. It emphasizes the importance of analyzing the pathways across linked events in order to understand social processes such as learning and socialization.
I’ve been writing and writing and wondering when it’ll end. It doesn’t, it won’t, but there’s always good reason to pause for thinking, re-reading, and letting go. Just when I thought I was going down the path of one idea (that is, providing an alternative to the deficit discourse on international students), it became apparent that chasing…
I can’t write without them. I mean thoughtful, focused writing when your mind could wander off on another theory, another concept, another methodology. I can’t think without them. I mean fast and furious thinking to complete paragraphs of thought formation, to decide when to review and revise, to decide when to cut it down, throw…
It has become clear to me that pursuing full-time academic or research work revolves around writing. There’s thinking, reading, musing, but writing is the central activity that binds all the activities of scholarship and knowledge finding and creation into a visible, searchable, reflect-able artifact. To be able to understand my writing and reading patterns, and…
The first time I dabbled in a thesis, I was 21 or so. It got off to a shaky start, not helped by the fact I changed my topic mid-way because I had lost passion in the initial topic. And while I was a whole lot more motivated with the newer topic, I had less…
A tweet by The Thesis Whisperer got me excited about a new book on academic writing, at a time when I was cobbling together analysis for my capstone project. Now as I prepare a manuscript for publication, Helen Sword’s own stylish writing about stylish academic writing provides the much needed inspiration – and challenges –…