Search Results for: writing
One of the books I love the most is “Authoring a PhD Thesis: How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Dissertation” by Dr. Patrick J. Dunleavy. Dr. Dunleavy is a professor of political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in London, England, and someone whose research I deeply […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– May 16, 2018
As I posted on Twitter in mid-May 2018, I’ve been reading a lot of books that focus on how to write a doctoral dissertation. I already have mine and I’ve already had doctoral students graduated, but I strongly believe that everybody can learn a new lesson on how to become a better PhD advisor. I […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– May 16, 2018
I’m definitely not someone who reads “pop psych” or “psycho babble” (short monikers for popular psychology, the easily digestible version of scholarly psychological findings), which is how some books on habits, speed reading, speed writing, etc. are categorized. I don’t read self-help books because I think I need them, but because they’re fun reading material, […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– May 5, 2018
One of the things I’ve learned through the years is that there is no single panacea for anything. In the line of research I do (comparative public policy), I always find that there are so many different ways of getting governments and individuals to do things and achieve certain goals that there is no single […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 29, 2018
I enjoy writing my blog because I can then use my blog posts to teach my own students and research assistants every technique I need them to know. As I said on Twitter the other day, my writings on this blog are a shared knowledge base. I just opened the knowledge base to everyone in […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 21, 2018
Before I left for ISA 2018 and AAG 2018, I purchased a ton of books. I have been doing way more work on waste (not only human manure but also municipal garbage) and while my water library is spectacularly well populated, I didn’t have enough books on waste, so my poor credit card took a […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 16, 2018
As I’ve stated before, I’m a professor at a very small university with wonderful colleagues so I enjoy the privilege of having smaller class sizes and a lower teaching load. However, I feel the same pressures to publish, teach, do service as many others because the expectation in my institution is that we behave as […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 16, 2018
I’ve been reading a lot of books on academic writing lately, not only because I’m writing my own, but also because they’re recommended to me, and I believe it is really important to situate your own work within the broader literature. So, I was thrilled to read William Germano’s “From Dissertation to Book” (you can […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 11, 2018
Slowly but surely I’ve been amassing a small library of academic writing books. Not because I love dispensing advice, but because a lot of people ask me to recommend books, and others suggest the ones that have worked for them. But first, a disclosure statement: I buy absolutely each and every single one of my […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– March 24, 2018
One of the biggest challenges we face in academic life on a daily basis is juggling multiple tasks within a constrained period of time. We are always pressed for time and wish we could read more, or even just make time to read. I’ve encouraged folks to test and see if my AIC Content Extraction/Conceptual […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– March 12, 2018
One of the skills I teach my students and research assistants on a regular basis is a method to find new citations across the literature. That’s what I (and others) call citation tracing. A paper I was reading said "there is a dearth of studies on street begging, and few if any analyse it's public […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– February 3, 2018
This 2018 I promised myself I would do things better and take time to reflect on how my processes have evolved and therefore, I wanted to share a couple of improvements I made to the Drafts Review Matrix I discussed in previous years. This time, I’ll share also a couple of things I do with […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– February 3, 2018
As I’ve noted before, many of the blog posts I write are about things that I know my own students and research assistants need (or will need). This is one of those cases. My students and research assistants often ask me “how should I write a powerful introduction?” It’s also one of the blog posts […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– February 2, 2018
Last year, my first Mexican PhD student graduated from our PhD programme in Public Policies. While I had graduated PhD students at other universities, Rafa was my first Mexican doctoral student and therefore, I was (and obviously continue to be) very invested in his success. I spent a week working with him and preparing him […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– January 27, 2018
One of the things I’ve been learning this 2017 has been dealing with rejection in a more constructive manner. Toward the beginning of the year 20017 I got a paper rejected from the top journal in my field and I literally shut the door of my campus office and burst into tears. This manuscript was, […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– December 25, 2017
This semester has been a bit more hectic than I expected, and keeping everything under control hasn’t been an easy task. But despite whatever challenges I face, I am determined to stay on top of the literature. I’ve written before about having a repertoire of reading strategies (quick skim to determine what a paper is […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– December 5, 2017
When I read what other writers who write about academic writing, I’m often left with the feeling that there is no room for manoeuvering in their advice. “Write 1,000 words a day, no matter what“. “Write for two hours every day” (and yes, I’m well aware that I am well known for advocating this approach […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– December 3, 2017
While I’m pretty organised and systematic in the way I do things, I always run the risk of thinking “wow, that’s a neat project and one I should pursue” without much regard for whether I have the bandwidth to actually work on something and function normally. This has been happening to me this semester (Fall […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– November 14, 2017
Even though I travel just about every week, I’m never very good at determining how many articles I can realistically read, or how many words I will be able to write. But I always use a time-based approach to my research. How much work can I do in the next hour? The next 30 minutes? […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– October 5, 2017
While edited volumes present a relatively easy choice for a reader (“oh, I’ll just read the chapters that I like/need/want”), non-edited volumes (authored books, be it single-author or coauthored) are a much more different challenge. Skipping chapters may result in missing key parts of the manuscript and overall argument. Luckily, this isn’t always the case, […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 29, 2017
Frequently, academics and students alike have to read entire books. To review, to prepare for doctoral comprehensive examinations, as part of a course, etc. I am well aware that our time is terribly scarce, and we are often overbooked. Yet we still need to read those full books for course preparation, literature reviews, and even […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 29, 2017
There’s an article making the rounds on the academic circuit on the importance of writing good sentences: HOW ACADEMICS SURVIVE THE WRITING GRIND: SOME ANECDOTAL ADVICE. In the article, Helen Sword encourages the reader to improve academic writing by recognizing that writing involves editing, and rewriting. I have previously blogged about the importance of valuing […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 11, 2017
Before I became an academic, I worked for a consultancy company. As you may know, you bill your time (much like lawyers) by the hour. The main currency of work in consulting is your hourly rate and the number of hours you work. I didn’t really like that approach, but I ended up continuing as […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 9, 2017
As I went through the first few pages, I realized that I had read Boice’s book at some point in my doctoral degree, but never paid much attention to the book, to be perfectly honest. It wasn’t until I decided that I would write up my experiences as a faculty member on the tenure-track that […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 6, 2017
I have read a lot of books, and on this page I am posting the ones I’ve read and of which I’ve posted my reading notes. Note: I don’t consider these “book reviews”, nor do I post my reading notes of every single book I read. I have categorized my posts by broad area (e.g. […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– August 26, 2017
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