How to improve your writing: A guide for PhD students and academics 

Best of luck!

I agree- tone is a little more difficult to coach, so I tend to focus on structure as it's more fundamental to good communication and often I need to prioritize. If people get a good grip on structure and there's enough time, then I might work on getting them to express more of themselves with excitement and humour about the subject

I have this concern though. I also struggle with style and tone in writing. For some reason, every time I tried to incorporate some personal style and humor into my writing, it backfired. My supervisors said that it gave off a lighthearted vibes and that no one would take this seriously. So I gave up doing so.

the biggest problem with academics is boring writing style, why they just don’t be direct and simple in their writings? Is it lack of confidence or lack of engagement? Or just trying to layer the simple direct truth?

@@James_Hayton I doubt that

@@youneschebini5280 I agree. They should be clear and direct. And yes, they do often dress their work in overly complicated language due to a lack of confidence.

Does that work. If it works I will also cry under the desk.

It's absolutely necessary to cry, that's built in human system to coping mechanism ! It's important for us and normal 😌 don't worry about it !

😮 so I'm not the only one.

Definitely not! Stay strong! :P @@areliousmuckle8249

I can't even cry😂😂

I enjoy writing too! I don't think people should suffer through it

@@parishayjahanzeb2578 Hi, I have been struggling with these three things in my PhD now. That is why this video is useful for me 😁. Thank you for showing that I am not the only one 😭

How does your approach force you to put things in a meaningful order, without addressing the relationship between ideas? I'm sure you can do it, but I've seen countless students use your approach but the writing is a total mess. The challenge in explaining the writing process is understanding those instinctive things we do in a way that someone else can follow. In your other comment, you say to formulate a main message and present evidence for it... but sometimes it's better to put the main message at the end as the argument and evidence leads the reader to the new conclusion... is this what you mean by writing backwards?

@@James_Hayton Hi James. What I mean is that it is easier to select the material you need if you have the main message of your article as a focus point. I tell my students (I am an industrial coach) to write that sentence down. Of course, you have to address the relationship between the ideas and concepts, in the article itself this will be in your argumentation - the results and discussion parts. In introductions, having the final sentence in your head, with all the keywords/concepts in it helps to select what you should actually explain in the introduction and what not. If that one sentence you write down should make sense to a reader, you have to think about in what order you have to go through the keywords in that sentence, and of course explain what the relationship between the points is. That is then the storytelling part. I find this an efficient way to decide what you should put in and what you can leave out. It helps you to stay on the main track, and not get lost in sidetracks, as I often see in manuscripts (as a reviewer) and also in published articles. So my strategy is not to replace the thinking - there is no easy workaround for that ;-), but it is a useful guideline in what you should be thinking about.

Human AI? That's just "I"!

I'm not sure how helpful it will be for IELTS... I hope you managed to get some sleep and good luck!

Is it possible to get access to the slides ?

You're welcome!

show the work to your supervisor and get feedback before submitting- also ask your supervisor about the process as they'll be able to guide you

Short answer is no. You can use it for proofreading, but if you are using it to generate text then that-s a very bad idea. You need to be able to defend everything you write, and if it turns out you don't know what you've said (or don't understand what you cite, or cite invented papers as AI often does), then you will fail.

most of the students I've worked with have been in the humanities, and I can tell you that my approach evolved from working with those students. You need structure. There is no other way. If you understand how structure works, you don't need to be adrift in a sea of narratives, you can systematically and logically construct an argument in exactly the same way as in the sciences. If you don't have a problem or question to answer, what are you doing?

I did my undergraduate studies in Philipsburg and had to do a thesis. While I agree that the theoretical writing is very different from empirical writing, you do still have some sort of problem that you solve or address in some way (through sources, proofs, thought experiment, etc). There's still a structure -- of course, not like an empirical paper, but still there.

It's not really that different at all. The key is that you can use structured thinking to figure out what you want to say, but to do short, standalone pieces to explore specific aspects of a problem. As you figure out more of the pieces you start to notice connections and patterns, then you can put together a complete document once you've clarified your thoughts and know what you want to say

@@James_Hayton Thank you so much! This suggestion helps me too.

you can block distracting sites and leave essential ones accessible

Great question! You would hope that a PhD student would score very well on an undergrad assignment... The principles of structure I talk about are universal (I adapted them from principles of narrative structure in storytelling) and can be applied to essays, academic papers, grant proposals... anything. The application may vary slightly, but the principles remain the same

Also you say 'there is no other field in human activity .....and to ignore the details' but you know there is a lot of sports related activities where teachers will tell you that, with science to back it up

or would you call those teachers coaches...

If the input is rubbish, AI can't fix it. Academic writing will always be a valuable skill, but AI can be useful for proofreading

Going quickly without thought only applies once you have a high level of skill (for example in a competition setting, where you rely on the skill development you've done in training). If you want to improve or modify a skill, you have to slow down and pay attention (you can't do this in a competition setting)

@@James_Hayton Still though, what if the input is logically sound and also objectively valid, but is just said in grammatically incorrect ways or ways not seen as academical? Let's take 2 imaginary people who go to college, are smart, and lets assume they both write a paper which is logically sound and empirically valid, and both writers manage to communicate their ideas in such a way that the reader is able to fully understand. Now let's say that one writes in a perfect academic style and the other writes with vocabulary which a 12 year old would understand. In current academia, the second submission would be failed (even if the contribution the paper makes to the science field it is proposed to is important). I argue that a.i (in the near future) will be able to academicize the second paper, making it on par with the first. Now i am not saying that writing skills are therefore void and useless, but what i am saying is that person 2 does not deserve to be failed for his paper on the grounds of it being written simply. I understand that the second person would and should be failed in all time before now, but in the modern digitalized era, i think it is time to de-value writing as measure of intelligence

Yes, the details are guided by the science... I don't understand your comment

i do shorter ones too. Take your pick!