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prof pat thomson @ThomsonPat

U Nottingham & Adelaide University. You can find me on Bluesky, LinkedIn and threads, as well as my academic writing blog patter, patthomson.net

Joined October 2011
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  • Followers 21,596
1,331 Photos and videos
On the processes of revising. patthomson.net/2026/06/07/lo…

Love your revisions

George Saunders won the Man Booker prize in 2017 with his novel Lincoln in the Bardo. Earlier that year he wrote about his revising process. My method is: I imagine a meter mounted in my forehead, …

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A little bit of serious fun about peer review. patthomson.net/2026/06/01/ho…

How to be Reviewer 2

Everyone in academia knows Reviewer 2. You ‘ve probably received their comments. You may even in a dark moment, have been them. This post is a practical guide to achieving full Reviewer 2 status. I…

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Thinking about your post thesis plan? These three words can help. patthomson.net/2026/05/25/ke…

Key words – dissemination, communication, sharing

Doctoral researchers are sometimes asked in their viva what their plans for dissemination are. Gulp. But this is a question worth thinking about. It’s not a trick question. Examiners are genu…

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This is a little question compared to the big ones about AI, but it’s one I’ve been asking myself a lot recently. patthomson.net/2026/05/18/wh…
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The @RSC_Learning and @CultureLearning have produced three new rapid evidence reviews for dance, music and drama. They show the significant benefits of arts education for children and young people. There is also more research needed rsc.org.uk/research/current-…
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prof pat thomson retweeted
Michael Merrifield@AstroMikeMerri
May 12
How totally totally crass to find the destruction of the thousand careers of a thousand dedicated staff “exciting.” 1/3 timeshighereducation.com/new…

Nottingham ‘would run out of money’ by 2031 without further cuts

Vice-chancellor defends deep job losses at embattled institution, insisting restructure will help it adapt to changed environment in higher education

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This week on patter @R_LehnerMear talks about turning her doctoral thesis into a scholarly monograph patthomson.net/2026/05/10/fr…

From thesis to monograph

This is a guest post written by Dr Rachel Lehner-Mear. She has recently published a book reporting her doctoral research on mothers and primary school homework. There’s nothing quite like holding y…

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This week I’ve posted about another key word - coherence in research design. patthomson.net/2026/05/03/ke…

key word – coherence in research design

Coherence in research design is not the same as coherence in academic writing, although the two are related. Research design coherence is sometimes described through the metaphor of a red thread, o…

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What does it mean for scholars to write concisely? This week’s patter has a quick look. patthomson.net/2026/04/26/ke…

key word – coherence in academic writing

Gratuitous pic of my dog Ted. A coherent piece of writing is one where the parts connect to the whole. That sounds obvious, but it can be difficult to achieve. That’s partly because the whole is su…

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This week patter has been reading about knowledge production and placemaking patthomson.net/2026/04/20/pl…

placemaking and the academic writer

I’ve just read a paper about epistemic placemaking. Epistemic placemaking is equipping and arranging places for knowledge work. The paper suggests that students might actively co-design t…

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What does it mean to write concisely? patthomson.net/2026/04/12/ke…

key word – concision

Concision is not the same as brevity. A short piece of writing can be wasteful with its words, and a long piece can be meaning-full right to the last sentence. Getting concise is about getting clea…

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Procrastination is not always negative. Academic writing… patthomson.net/2026/04/06/in…

in defence of procrastination

Procrastination often gets a bad rap in academic writing advice circles. It’s generally seen as a problem to be managed, a symptom of anxiety or perfectionism. In other words, it’s a pr…

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This week I’m looking at forwarding, a key aspect of working with literatures. patthomson.net/2026/03/30/fo…

forwarding – writing with other people’s texts

We’ve probably all read papers where the writer has treated the literature as something to be surveyed and reported. the result often takes the shape of the dreaded laundry list, where the writer p…

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What does writing as thinking mean, and where did the idea come from anyway… patthomson.net/2026/03/22/th…

the process of writing

People often refer to writing as thinking without necessarily knowing where and how this idea developed. It is in part from Linda Flower and John Hayes who published a paper in 1981 offering a…

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Vale Habermas, and a link to academic writing. patthomson.net/2026/03/15/wh…

what’s Habermas got to do with academic writing?

Jürgen Habermas died on Saturday 14 March, 2026 in Starnberg, near Munich. He was 96. The news has been moving through academic social media in the way these things do, with people sharing half-rem…

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Academic writers often feel uncomfortable. Thats often OK. Here’s why. patthomson.net/2026/03/08/ge…

getting comfortable with being uncomfortable 

Good academic writing means sitting with a discomfort that never entirely goes away. It’s not a discomfort that comes from having nothing to say. Most of us have more than enough ideas crowding the…

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It helps to know the differences between abstract between abstract and introduction if you want to avoid reader déjà vu. patthomson.net/2026/03/02/no…

not an echo chamber: abstract v. introduction 

Imagine a doctoral researcher finishing their introduction. They’ve carefully crafted the opening pages that situate their research question in the existing literature. Then they turn to write the …

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Riffing as an academic writing strategy. Helps to clarify meaning. patthomson.net/2026/02/21/ri…

riffing your way to meaning

In blues, jazz, and music that traces its roots to those genres, the riff is a repeated chord progression or set of notes that ties a song together. A guitar riff returns again and again in a song …

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This week patter talks about peer review as cruel optimism patthomson.net/2026/02/16/th…

the cruel optimism of peer review

A relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing. It might involve food, or a kind of love; it might be a fantasy of the good life, or a pol…

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Include a writing retreat in your 2026 plans patthomson.net/2026/02/07/wh…

why go on a writing retreat 

I’ve been thinking about all the writing that I need to get done this year. There’s three book contracts, yes three, and a host of papers which are undoubtedly going to need revising. Looking…

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