Pat Thomson
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patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson
@patthomson.bsky.social
3.2K followers 1.6K following 160 posts

Academic, educator, silversmith. Researching arts ed, school change, leaders work. Patter academic writing blog - Patthomson.net. Semi-retired. Working part-time @ U Nottingham & U South Australia. #FAcSS

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Arthur Frederick Thompson, known as Pat Thompson, and A. F. Thompson, was an academic historian specialising in 19th-century British politics and the trade union movement.

Source: Wikipedia
Education 38%
Art 20%
Posts Replies Media Videos

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · 2d
Three strategies to link paragraphs and improve the flow of
your academic writing. patthomson.net/2025/11/08/t...
three ways to link paragraphs
One of the things that separates just OK academic writing from really good academic writing is how smoothly it flows. You’ve probably read papers where every paragraph feels like a fresh star…
patthomson.net

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Paul Nightingale

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · 9d
Research aims and objectives aren’t the same thing but are related It helps to understand the differences and connections patthomson.net/2025/11/01/r...
research aims vs. objectives – what’s the difference?
You’re finally sitting down to write your research proposal and you’ve hit that section where you need to outline your aims and objectives. You stare at the page. Aren’t these bas…
patthomson.net

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · 11d
Good luck. Ups and downs are common & taking charge of a down period is A Very Good Idea.

Reposted by Pat Thomson

rosedwards.bsky.social
Ros Edwards @rosedwards.bsky.social · 12d
If you teach research methods, this is an amazing resource for inspiring approaches 🤩

www.ncrm.ac.uk/resources/tr...
Sparking ‘Aha’ Moments: A Resource for Teaching Research Methods
NCRM delivers research methods training, produces learning resources, conducts research and supports methodological innovation
www.ncrm.ac.uk

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · 15d
The PhD experience varies a lot. Like you I enjoyed mine when I did it (last century). But not everyone is the same. As a supervisor you have to understand and respond to diversity and different needs. And there’s a lot of research (some of it mine) to show how varied PhD experiences are.🤷🏻‍♀️

Reposted by Antoine Bernard de Raymond

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · 16d
Doing a PhD can feel like wandering through a forest with no map. You’re constantly questioning whether you’re smart enough, working hard enough or heading in the right direction. If you’re feeling this way, you’re not alone. More importantly, you’re not broken. patthomson.net/2025/10/25/b...
Building confidence during your PhD
Doing a PhD can feel like wandering through a forest with no map. You’re constantly questioning whether you’re smart enough, working hard enough or heading in the right direction. If yo…
patthomson.net

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · 22d
Two research terms to get clear on, contributions and significance patthomson.net/2025/10/19/r...
research contribution vs significance
If you’re a PhDer, you’ve probably heard these terms thrown around in seminars, thesis committees, and paper reviews: “What’s your contribution?” and “Why is thi…
patthomson.net

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · 26d
Hi Les Will Email you
academicdiary.bsky.social Les Back @academicdiary.bsky.social · 27d
@patthomson.bsky.social I stumbled on the review you wrote of Academic Diary, Pat. Thanks for such a thoughtful take. I have been thinking again about form working on a new project. Feels like the world of HE is a very different place now. Be great to be in touch again. Warm best wishes.

Reposted by Pat Thomson

academicdiary.bsky.social
Les Back @academicdiary.bsky.social · 27d
@patthomson.bsky.social I stumbled on the review you wrote of Academic Diary, Pat. Thanks for such a thoughtful take. I have been thinking again about form working on a new project. Feels like the world of HE is a very different place now. Be great to be in touch again. Warm best wishes.

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Oct 11
If you’re writing a discussion and conclusion it helps to know their relationship difference between claims and conclusion patthomson.net/2025/10/11/c...
claims vs contributions
If you’re deep in the throes of doctoral work, you’ve probably had that moment where someone asks you about your “contribution to knowledge” and you freeze up like a deer in…
patthomson.net

Reposted by Pat Thomson

thesiswhisperer.bsky.social
Thesiswhisperer @thesiswhisperer.bsky.social · Oct 7
Can you help us boost this signal? UTS colleagues are doing a governance project to talk back to the consultant led 'reform' of their university.

Please repost!! UTS people please have your say!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
UTS Governance Project Survey: A Staff-Led Collaborative Project
The UTS Governance Project is an independent, staff-led initiative to strengthen transparency, accountability and participation in how our university is run. Inspired by the ANU Governance Project, ...
docs.google.com

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Oct 4
It helps to understand the difference and relationship between research results and claims patthomson.net/2025/10/04/r...
results vs claims
Research results are not the same as research claims. This is one of those distinctions that sounds simple but can trip researchers up. But understanding the difference can be really helpful. …
patthomson.net

Reposted by Les Back

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Sep 27
Dealing with a toxic review? Write a Dear Reviewer letter… patthomson.net/2025/09/27/d...
Dear Reviewer
Every academic writer knows the sting of a harsh review. Every one. Including me. We’ve all had them. The review that is scathing, brutal and toxic. The immediate impulse is often to fire bac…
patthomson.net

Reposted by Pat Thomson, Lesley A. Hall, Jack Stilgoe

bnerlich.bsky.social
Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · Sep 26
Today's post delves a bit into the history of #sociology, memories of Erving #Goffman, and his use of #metaphor as method makingsciencepublic.com/2025/09/26/e...
Erving Goffman: Memories, method and metaphors
If you do sociology or, indeed, any social science whatsoever, you’ll come across the work of Erving Goffman. I have done too but never engaged with it as much as I should have done. This was…
makingsciencepublic.com

Reposted by Pat Thomson

bnerlich.bsky.social
Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · Sep 21
For weekend readers, some reflections on community engagement with #AI and #ELSI makingsciencepublic.com/2025/09/19/p...
Participation at the core: AI, ELSI and community engagement
Alondra Nelson, a sociologist, STS scholar and expert on AI policy and ethics, recently published a letter in Science proposing that artificial intelligence (AI) should adopt the Ethical, Legal, an…
makingsciencepublic.com

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Sep 21
Some pointers to writing a series of papers from the same project patthomson.net/2025/09/21/w...
Writing multiple articles from one set of data
So you’ve got this mountain of “stuff” that keeps revealing new secrets every time you look at it. Or maybe you’re doing a PhD by publication and panicking about how to sort out the art…
patthomson.net

Reposted by Pat Thomson

tobygreany.bsky.social
Toby Greany @tobygreany.bsky.social · Sep 15
We launched our UK Survey report from the #esrc Sustainable School Leadership research project today.

Big important findings on leaders' work (& workloads), well-being, career journeys & plans, professional learning, views on school contexts/ cultures & more!

www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/gro...
Sustainable School Leadership: Comparing Approaches to the Training, Supply and Retention of Senior School Leaders Across the UK - The University of Nottingham
www.nottingham.ac.uk

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Sep 15
Claude does satire. Who knew! @thesiswhisperer.bsky.social
emollick.bsky.social Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · Sep 15
Claude, "We all know among Sauron's many evils was that he ran Mordor using an Excel spreadsheet with multiple tabs. Show me the spreadsheet"

It made 12 tabs "so bureaucratically complex that even the Eye of Sauron would need reading glasses to review it." Some very funny stuff. Creative, even.

Reposted by Pat Thomson, Francesco Nicoli

emollick.bsky.social
Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · Sep 15
Claude, "We all know among Sauron's many evils was that he ran Mordor using an Excel spreadsheet with multiple tabs. Show me the spreadsheet"

It made 12 tabs "so bureaucratically complex that even the Eye of Sauron would need reading glasses to review it." Some very funny stuff. Creative, even.

Reposted by Brigitte Nerlich

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Sep 12
If you’re a doctoral researcher
You need to understand and practice criticality patthomson.net/2025/09/12/w...
what is criticality?
This is a post for all the people just starting their doctoral programmes. And for those supporting them. Criticality in scholarship is the practice of approaching all knowledge claims, including y…
patthomson.net

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Sep 5
A whimsy. Writing with the support of patthomson.net/2025/09/04/e...
emotional support objects
my favourite BIG mug, made by Robyn Cove Academic writing can be a pretty solitary pastime. Lonely even. There’s nobody to talk to in those moments when you just can’t seem to think your way throug…
patthomson.net

Reposted by Gerry McCartney, Les Back

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Aug 30
Use little windows of time to progress your academic writing patthomson.net/2025/08/30/f...
Five steps towards writing in fragments
The myth of ideal academic writing time persists. We all long to be in a quiet office, surrounded by books, with hours of uninterrupted time to craft elegant arguments. But the reality is very diff…
patthomson.net

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Aug 22
Academic publishing can be a hot mess of mixed emotions patthomson.net/2025/08/21/i...
I’ve just been published and I feel…
When Dr. Sarah’s first peer-reviewed article appeared in the Journal of Sustainability and Urban Policy, her social media announcements said: “Delighted to share my latest research on ur…
patthomson.net

Reposted by Pat Thomson

drhelenkara.bsky.social
Helen Kara @drhelenkara.bsky.social · Aug 18
Are you, might you become, or do you know a transnational scholar from the Global South? Or do you work with one or more? If so, this insightful, creatively written book will be of interest. It's part of the series I co-edit with @patthomson.bsky.social www.routledge.com/Insider-Guid...

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Aug 15
I’m secretly plotting a campus novel

patthomson.net/2025/08/15/t...
the cabinet of unrealised ideas
Ever thought about writing a campus novel? I often play with plots but never get around to the writing. And I get stuck on endings, just as I do when I write an academic paper! I recently dipped in…
patthomson.net

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Aug 8
Why are conference nerves to be taken seriously? patthomson.net/2025/08/08/c...
conference jitters
You know that feeling, right? It’s two days before your big conference presentation and you’re lying in bed at 3am, staring at the ceiling wondering if anyone will turn up. And if they …
patthomson.net

Reposted by Les Back

patthomson.bsky.social
Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Jul 30
Latest post on writer voice and identity complete with exercises patthomson.net/2025/07/30/w...
writer identity and voice
Still reading. This month it’s Schmit, John S (2022)The sociolinguistics of written identity, Constructing a self. Cham, Switzerland: PalgraveMacmillan. Schmit is a writing and linguistics professo…
patthomson.net

Reposted by Pat Thomson

bnerlich.bsky.social
Brigitte Nerlich @bnerlich.bsky.social · Jul 26
For weekend readers, my first Making Science Public post on my own blog site, reflecting on the current state of and challenges to science communication #scicomm - feel free to press 'subscribe'! makingsciencepublic.com/2025/07/25/m...
Making Science Public in a chaotic world
As you know, I am now gradually moving from my old ‘Making Science Public’ blog home at the University of Nottingham to my new personal blog home here. This wasn’t easy and lots of people supported…
makingsciencepublic.com

Reposted by Pat Thomson

deevybee.bsky.social
Dorothy Bishop @deevybee.bsky.social · Jan 18
New blogpost: gobbledegook papers as canaries in the coalmine- and more bad news for MDPI
deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/01/toma...
Tomatoes roaming the fields and canaries in the coalmine: another embarrassing paper for MDPI
Many publishers are getting nervous about infiltration by paper mills, who can torpedo a journal's reputation when they succeed in publis...
deevybee.blogspot.com

Reposted by Pat Thomson

raesnape.bsky.social
Rae Snape (she/her) FFCCT, NPQEL, Honorary Fellow Suffolk Uni 💛 @raesnape.bsky.social · Feb 18
Could I have a copy of this please @patthomson.bsky.social
I'm on a panel event soon at Kettle's Yard Cambridge on the importance of the Arts in Schools, and it would be great to understand what the research says.
patthomson.bsky.social Pat Thomson @patthomson.bsky.social · Feb 11
@sairskay.bsky.social I’d like to send you a copy of our arts rich primary school research project not sure how?