Abraham Lincoln said, ‘the best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend’. With respect to thesis examiners, the opposite is closer to the mark—the best way to destroy a friend is to make them an enemy. ‘Friend’ and ‘enemy’ are hardly accurate descriptions of the relationship between a candidate and an … Read more
The phrase ‘due to’ tends to be overused in academic writing and, although it is becoming increasingly acceptable in modern usage, your writing will be more professional and concise if you understand when it is most appropriate. Often, ‘because’ or ‘because of’ should be used instead. If you could substitute ‘attributable to’, ‘caused by’ or … Read more
How many of the following ‘symptoms’ apply to you right now? avoiding getting started with writing doing vast amounts of research but not writing it up redrafting written work over and over again but still not being happy with it not finishing nearly completed written tasks avoiding showing written work to others, especially supervisors writing a … Read more
This is not a command from a particularly cranky and irritated supervisor, but an increasingly popular strategy used to facilitate short bursts of productive writing in a fun and social setting. ‘Fun’ and ‘social’ are not words students or academics generally use to describe the hard slog of the usually solitary pursuit of academic writing, … Read more
It doesn’t really matter to a two-year-old watching a certain classic Australian pre-school TV program whether the lyrics of the introductory song read ‘theirs a bare in they’re’, ‘there’s a bare in their’ or ‘there’s a bear in there’ (the correct version); because they all sound the same. English has an abundance of groups of … Read more
A former president in an Asian country felt compassion for a man on death row. On the hour of the man’s scheduled execution, the president was asked by his chief of staff if the execution should proceed. He was in the middle of a meeting, and mouthed the words ‘don’t hang him’ to his chief … Read more