Turning your dissertation into a journal article – Stage 1: Deciding Turning your dissertation into a journal article is fundamentally a painful process; root-canal treatment can be more relaxing. You will be taking a dissertation or thesis ranging from 12 to 90 thousand words and cutting it down 5,000 words. You may have worried about every word, cared about ever comma and imbued passion in every paragraph – but – no one gives a damn! The blood, sweat and tears involved in the initial output has served its purpose – you have gained your degree. Congratulations! Celebrate the moment, take…
Graduation Robes and their Illegal Trade!
Normally I would borrow my graduation robes from the University’s chosen provider of gowns to the multitudes (for a small fee, of course), they really are the modern-day Dick Turpin of graduation services. The students en masse may be thrown to their tender, if extortionate mercies, at least this university pays for the academics’ graduation robes, and it really is quite a good service. You turn up late, looking like a shambles, someone throws a gown, hood and a white bow tie at you and everyone hopes for the best! A more fun way of doing is to play academic…
Non Payment of Fees
Before my musings about non payment of fees – if you are a student who is worried about this topic, please reach out immediately to your academic advisor / tutor / or whatever they are called in your institution – they are there to help. Do not sit on your own and panic about non payment of fees – that is not going to solve the problem – getting help will. Many students ask: “Will non payment of fees get me chucked out of university?” Getting cash in the bank seems to be the only thing universities care about…
COVID Exam Cheating
Gone are the days of hollowed out rubbers, false fronts on calculators or body art – COVID exam cheating is a whole new skill-set. Here we are in December and its COVID online exam time again. This is potentially the third time this year that students have been given some form of online, open book, or take-home examination so it will all go swimmingly! So you would think. COVID exam cheating is being raised to an artform. Now, my students, have all started to log into Zoom – no, this is not for invigilation nor an attempt to…
Top 10 Hints on How to Cheat in Exams
Now, before the moralistic Daily Mail readers amongst you panic, this is not actually a guide on how to cheat in exams. It is more accurately a list of the top ten hints on how to cheat in exams, or really ways, over my career some students have been caught cheating in exams. How to Cheat in Exams 1: It’s just my Allergies! The carefully written notes on tissues is far from an original idea. Particularly on those well-known brands of ‘Pocket Tissues’, you know the ones 10 neatly folded paper tissues in a packet. The neat student is…
Christmas Exam Disaster Time
An exam disaster is not common, but when it happens, it is normally spectacular. It’s Christmas time and everyone is getting excited! Some of my more annoying colleagues have not only insisted on decorating their offices; their tasteful ‘peace and goodwill to all academics’ is spilling out and polluting the corridor as well. I didn’t see this exam disaster coming, and there was nothing I could do about it. It was very close to the end of term there were only a few staff drinks parties to attend and the horrendous ‘All-staff Christmas Lunch’ – that is unequivocally a different…
Ontology, Epistemology and Business Research
Oh why, oh why, oh why on earth are you wasting your time with ontology, epistemology and business research – there must be better things for you to do! Now, just for the avoidance of doubt there are. Especially if you are an undergraduate or masters (not doing an MRes or MPhil)… there are many, many, many better things. If you are unsure, think about all the things you enjoy doing, and go and do one of them! I am sorry, if you are PhD student, you really do need to get your head around this. Even if you…
Who Cares About Credit
The common tempestuous cry from students has become “Is this course credit bearing?” or “What credit do I get for doing it?” However, just as frequent is the faculty refrain, like Sirens on the rocks ready to wreck any new fangled management plan cruising past, “Is there workload credit for doing this?” Some fundamental shift has happened, especially in the contemporary, utilitarian, transactional Business School – neither staff nor students will engage, unless there is a credit or two attached to whatever they are being asked to do. Credit and Business School Certainly within a Business School, university education has…
How to Pass Your Final Exam
The Final Exam is Coming! The final exam can often make or break the overall result. I have worked in systems that, regardless of the overall grade, if the final exam is failed then the whole course is gone too. I have also worked places where the final exam pass mark is so low that even if they just write their name on the front of the answer paper, in the correct box, it would potentially account for being half way to a pass. However, please note, that in this type of institution, it is unlikely that the student can…
Plagiarism Police
Well today was really wasted, it was my first meeting with a member of the Plagiarism Police. It was never going to go well, as I had a pile of marking to do and no time to waste. Just as I was getting going, I hit a wall. It turns out one of my idiot undergrads had copied a chunk of one of my own articles and stuck it in the middle of their essay. Now, for me, the greatest surprise was not that they had done this, but that I had actually been paying close enough attention when marking…