This year, I participated in #AcWriMo (an effort initiated by Dr. Charlotte Frost to encourage academics to focus almost solely on writing, I assume with the intent that their productivity goes up). I even joined the Google Documents’ AcWriMo Accountability Database so that I could track my progress. I was quickly derailed in reporting back […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– December 3, 2012
A few years ago, I thought of using NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which happens in November) as a driver to force me to complete my academic books (all four of which are at various stages of publication at the moment). Like it happens with almost anything, someone else thought of this idea too (PhD2Published, […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– October 21, 2012
I teach workshops on a broad range of topics in the higher education and academic realms. Some of the topics I cover in these workshops include research design, academic writing, qualitative methods, mixed methods, project management, writing for broader audiences, strategies for thesis completion, etc. This is a sample of workshops I’ve taught for universities […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– July 16, 2024
Dr. Jessica A. J. Rich is an incredible researcher, scholar, and writer. Her book, “State-Sponsored Activism: Bureaucrats and Social Movements in Brazil” is a textbook model for how to write a book in so many ways. I also study social movements in Latin America, so it was important for me to read her book and […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– February 27, 2024
I brought Francine Prose’s book, Reading Like a Writer with me on a research trip to London in the fall of 2022 for 2 reasons: 1) I thought the plane I was taking would not have power plugs in each seat so I believed I wouldn’t be able to work, and 2) I wanted to […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– February 26, 2024
I’ve taught a few workshops this year on academic writing and there’s always at least one attendee who has already completed their PhD and is looking for strategies to craft their book. Sometimes they’re looking to convert the PhD dissertation into a book, or write a new one. I promised those attendees I would write […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– July 16, 2023
Much of what I do here on my blog, when I teach courses and workshops on academic research and writing, and with my own students and thesis writers is help them frame their research, “sell their ideas”, and create a narrative that showcases their innovative approach to their research. Last year, in October I visited […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 3, 2023
I have been thinking about how I can help my students with their theses, particularly because our programs are rather compressed and they need to get a lot done in a very short period of time. I’ve been working on developing a strategy to discern “the gap in the literature” that I plan to test […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– March 30, 2023
A good friend of mine who recently completed her doctoral dissertation asked me recently in a quick one-on-one consultation how she could go about converting her doctoral dissertation into articles. I suggested a process that I will share now. Though a number of doctoral candidates are required by their programs to publish articles out of […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– March 13, 2023
I wrote the thread that originated this blog post on October 1st, 2022. I had not been able to blog for many reasons, one of the key ones was that I did not have time to blog. Most of the time, I plan my entire month by the end of the previous one. I did […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– February 19, 2023
There’s been a lot of discussion on Twitter over the past few days now from academics and tech people about calendars, synchronization and collaborative work, and I really don’t have the time to read them all but I wante to put in my two cents, so here it goes. In a previous life (I started […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 25, 2022
I had been waiting to get my hands on this book by Mario Luis Small and Jessica Calarco for a very long while, as I was on Twitter while Jess was writing it and witnessed the conversations on here about it. I finally received my copy this week, so I decided to write a few […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 22, 2022
By all measures, I’m pretty well networked now. I have a globally popular blog and Twitter account (follow me there if you want, @raulpacheco). People from all over the world read my blog, regularly use my resources in their teaching and their own teaching, and I have solid networks across multiple fields and disciplines (political […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– September 4, 2022
I like solving and putting together puzzles. Photo credit: Olga Berrios on Flickr. Photo license: CC-BY 2.0 I like assembling evidence and theories to think about the problem, which can also be a metaphor for a puzzle (or as my dear friend Amber Wutich said, a jigsaw). I actually don’t like the type of physical […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– August 27, 2022
Those of you who have followed me for a time know that I do love taking notes off articles with the Cornell Notes method. I find it a very useful note-taking strategy when you are reading materials (articles, book chapters, books, etc.) Some people use it to take notes during class, but this is not […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– August 19, 2022
As anybody who reads my blog knows, I think a lot about the mechanics of research and especially I have written a lot about how to conduct a literature review. This week, because I have been very ill, I have had a chance to think deeply, and I believe that I have finally found the […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– July 22, 2022
I have written several times here (on my blog) about how overworking almost has taken me to the actual tomb. What disappoints me and angers me (and yes I’m disappointed and angry with myself) is that it’s July of 2022 and I am writing about it yet again. As a good friend on Twitter responded […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– July 3, 2022
I’ve had an absolutely bonkers pair of months (April and May, and June is gearing to be the same). For the first time in 2.5 years, I attended in-person workshops (2!) I am, of course, behind on absolutely everything. I used to be a very big proponent of the “write whenever you have a small […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– June 30, 2022
You may have noticed discussions on #AcademicTwitter regarding how studies in the US are written as though generalizable for the world. This is not uncommon: that’s the training that many are exposed to, focusing populations that are what in psychology is termed, WEIRD. Participants are mostly Western, Educated, from Industrialized, Rich and Democratic countries. Often […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 23, 2022
I used to hate on the Ventilation File and this blog post is about how I changed my mind about it. The Ventilation File is a document (or a folder with a series of documents) where you go vent (hence the name) and dump your frustrations regarding your writing rut (if you are in one). […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 1, 2022
I used to be the Editor for the Americas of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Because of my experience and expertise in qualitative methods, qualitative data analysis and qualitative research, I am often asked for advice on writing up qualitative research, or undertaking qualitative data analysis, which I am happy to provide as well […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– October 29, 2021
As most people who read my blog and have ever taken a course from me or attended one of my workshops (or even follow me on Twitter), I really love writing blog posts and Twitter threads that will help them in the future adopt my techniques. As most of the people who have read my […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– July 16, 2021
A good friend of mine (Dr. Myriam Houssay-Holzschuch, Université Grenoble Alpes) recommended two books and my website for anyone starting graduate school (Dr. Houssay-Holzschuch is a human geographer). Since I’m half human geographer half political scientist, I immediately decided to follow her advice and buy the two books she recommended. One of them was “A […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– June 20, 2021
This blog post has a terribly long blog post, but I think it’s worth including it in its entirety. I recently taught two workshops where I was asked about calendar management. Two years (and a metric tonne of international travel and fieldwork) later, I found myself over-exhausted. Part of it was that I was trying […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– June 17, 2021
THREAD: on making your claim of novelty and contribution to the literature VERY clear with an example from Dr. Lisa Pinley Covert’s book. This blog post will be of interest to book writers, article and book chapter writers and thesis writers. Note how Pinley Covert makes her research question clear. Pinley Covert establishes that this […]
By Raul Pacheco-Vega
– April 29, 2021
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