Learning through Writing: Reconceptualising the Research Supervision Process

Wolff, L. (2010)

International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 22(3): 229–237.

Abstract

This paper seeks to re-conceptualize the research supervision relationship. The literature has tended to view doctoral study in four ways: 

(a) as an exercise in self-management, 

(b) as a research experience, 

© as training for research, 

or (d) as an instance of student-centred learning. 

Although each of these approaches has merit, they also suffer from conceptual weaknesses. This paper seeks to harness the merits, and minimize the disadvantages, by re-conceptualizing doctoral research as a writing journey.” The paper utilizes the insights of new rhetoric in linguistic theory to defend a writing-centered conception of supervised research and offers some practical strategies on how it might be put into effect.

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