(the doctoral researcher and)

social mediaPat Thomson

Free download on UCL Press

• social media is not making us more individualistic• for some people social media does not

detract from education – it is education• equality online doesn’t mean equality

offline• social media is not making the world

more homogeneous• people feel that social media is now

somewhere where they live as well as a means for communication

text work/identity work• the academic self is

formed/performed through writing• choice of literatures, choice of

tradition - epistemology/methodology, writing choices• feedback from others – how I think

they see me – the role of supervision but also peer review, audience questions… • institutional, disciplinary, policy

frames

we have a digitally distributed “identity”• whether we like it or

not• whether it’s

consistent or not• which is searchable

by anyone any time• which hangs around

and never entirely goes away

taking charge of our digital identity and (inter) actions

•different kinds of activities•different degrees of involvement• It’s about your choices

the doctoral process: being and becoming

• liminality Mary Helen Ward: a space that is not closed down• practices of reflexivity Jon Rainford:used social media for communicative reflexivity ( internal conversation held with another), found social media a stimulus for autonomous reflexivity, and engaged with others in meta-reflexivity ( using Margaret Archer)

blogging a doctoral selfWriting as a personal exercise done by and for oneself is an art of disparate truth - or, more exactly, a purposeful way of combining the traditional authority of the already-said with the singularity of the truth that is affirmed therein and the particularity of the circumstances that determine its use (Foucault, 1997, p. 210).

Mewburn and Thomson survey of doctoral bloggers:• creating a scholarly persona • knowledge sharing • ‘slow thinking’ • pleasure seeking

doctoral blogsit’s a case of pick and mix - Tweet plus collector blog plus personal blog, collector blog and tweet, tweet an instagram etc• “collector blogs” cover a range of topics - https://

phdlife.warwick.ac.uk; http://humanrightsdoctorate.blogspot.co.uk• content focused blogs - https://louisapenfold.com; https://

vckhoo.com• reflective blogs - http://suewatling.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/phd/;

http://www.balancingjane.com; https://chris-dalton.com/category/personal-development/

DIY doctorate?

• the rise and rise of advice• the proliferation of information available 24 hours• the development of a feral space – essay mills, rate my

professors, editing and proofing services, coaching, online chats, personal experiences, pedagogical resources.

google•the writer’s diet•writefull•grammarly

•Andy Miah’s A-Z of academic software

this advice is given to school students about ‘provenance’When using sources from the web, the most important factor is reliability. There are a few questions you should ask yourself:• How recent is the page? Any reliable source should have the date that it was last

updated somewhere.• Does the page give its sources? If an article claims that 100 VR games are released

every year, where’s the evidence? The page should link to evidence of any facts or quotes.• How reliable is the author? If you can’t trust the author, you can’t trust the content. Is

the author an expert in what they’re talking about? Check them out.• Is this a primary source (first-hand, like a tweet with a picture of a car crash that the user

saw) or a secondary source (second-hand, like a news article about the crash)?• If it’s a primary source - is the person credible? Do they have evidence?• If it’s a secondary source - is it thoroughly researched? Is the source primary, or is it

an article about an article about an article? Is it n=1?• Is it an advert? More and more content on sites like The Guardian is sponsored by big

brands. This doesn’t mean the content is worthless, but take it with a big pinch of salt.

Howard Rheingold has popularised and populated the notion of ‘crap detection’

an example - Pat ThomsonUniversity webpage:

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/education/people/patricia.thomson

Twitter: @ThomsonPat - https://twitter.com/ThomsonPat?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Blog: http://patthomson.netCurated posts: https://wakelet.com/@patter

Facebook author page: https://www.facebook.com/writingwithpatter/Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/patthomson

Photos: https://www.instagram.com/pat_thomson/Curated collections of web materials: https://nz.pinterest.com/patthomson/

About me: https://about.me/pat_thomson

publications

• https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pat_Thomson• https://nottingham.academia.edu/PatThomson

• https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=7UqNBRwAAAAJ&hl=en

• http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pat-Thomson/e/B001IXNYV0• https://www.routledge.com/products/search?keywords=Pat+Thomso

n

research project blogs• http://cracl.net• http://researchtale.net• www.getwet.org.uk• www.signaturepedagogies.org.uk• http://performingimpactproject.wordpress.com• http://valueliveart.wordpress.org.uk• http://alternativeeducationresearch.wordpress.comData base of project videos• http://vimeosignaturepedagogies

google•explorations of style•doctoral writing SIG•the researchcompanion.com•viva survivors• literature review HQ

worries and risks – your choices

• privacy• piracy and plagiarism• trolling and abuse• surveillance and

censorship• time• identity online

but you’re out there anyway. google regularly to see what “you” is online