Checking In

You’ve read things. Maybe you read online articles or novels or just social media posts, but you read. You also write: you’ve written papers for school, emails for work, text messages to friends and family, and maybe posts on social media. Regardless of the specific activity, reading and writing aren’t foreign to you. So what makes it so different in graduate school?

In graduate school, you’re reading scholarly writing: writing meant for other experts, not laypeople. You’re learning to write as a professional, which is a specific type of writing. By the time you have your doctorate, these things will be second nature to you, but it’s intimidating at the beginning! For this discussion, talk about one of the following:

1. What is it like for you to start learning to read and write like an expert? Is it intimidating? Empowering?
2. How are you managing this experience with becoming a scholarly writer as you start your doctoral program? What advice would you offer your colleagues?
3. What is it like becoming reacquainted with the fundamentals of writing, such as grammar and punctuation (things that we typically study in elementary school)?

Response Guidelines

Read the posts of your peers and respond to at least one other learner. Please make sure your response is substantive.