Research as a second language
One blog I always find myself going back to is by Thomas Basbøll, who is the Resident Writing Consultant at Copenhagen Business School. He calls his blog Research as a second language.
I was prompted to mention it now as I was reading his article Free Time, Blank Pages, and other Catastrophes.
As I hurtle/stumble towards the end of my thesis, I find myself wondering about the practices associated with "doing" a PhD. Here, at the University of Auckland Business, or at least in this part of the Business School, a thesis seems to be a largely individual exercise. And yet it doesn't have to be that way. A colleague has some theses from a renowned Swedish institution. The detailed structure of each PhD thesis is very similar to each other … down to the number of paragraphs per section.
Clearly there has to be a greater level of congruence between practices there than, say, where Saku Mantere did his thesis (which exhibits some lovely ideosyncracies).