JADE THE JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION Issue 2 | August 2014 EDITORIAL ‘Snack’ and ‘Binge’ Writing by Prof. Rowena Murray Page 5 ARTICLES Articles, case studies and paper submissions. Page 9 HIGHLIGHTS Short articles, pilot work and breaking news. Page 34 LETTERS Letters to the editor. Page 41 JADE THE JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION ISSN 2051-3593 CONTENTS | ISSUE TWO About JADE publishes articles, case-studies, papers, reviews, teaching tips, letters to the EDITORIAL editors, interviews and student submissions from every School and Department at Keele University. 5 | ‘Snack’ and ‘Binge’ Writing Prof. Rowena Murray provides an editorial piece for the second Author’s instructions and submission edition of the J.A.D.E. journal. procedures are available from our website: www.jadekeele.wordpress.com and you can contact us directly via our email: [email protected] ARTICLES Submitted articles are subject to peer review. 9 | HR’s Development of Recruitment and Selection e-Learning Managing Editor Andy Davies, Human Resources Dr. Russell Crawford Associate Editors 18 | Can Creative Writing be Taught? Dr. John Howlett; Dr. Cath Bücher; Lisa Oliver, Freelance Writer Miss Georgina Spencer; Dr. Jackie Waterfield; Miss Ally Bird and Dr. Janet Lefroy 24 | Flashbulb Memories Layout Editor Deanna Fallah, Ross Hill, Kayleigh Steel and Adam Stephens, Mr. Daniel Harding School of Psychology Administrator Miss Samantha Shaw HIGHLIGHTS Telephone +44 (0)1782 733007 34 | The Global University – Activities in Email International Recruitment and Development [email protected] Elissa Williams and Kate Whiston, International Recruitment and Development Web http://jadekeele.wordpress.com/ 38 | Event Report: Involving patients and Address learners in medical education research: 59-60 The Covert, Keele University, Keele, ST5 5BG benefits and challenges of co-producing evidence Dr. Russell Crawford, LPDC LETTERS 41 | The A Minus (1980 to 1985) Den Cartlidge 42 | Student Reflections on inning an “Anatomy Challenge” Adam Ashmore and Mohamed Elkawafi, School of Medicine 4 | JADE EDITORIAL | 5 FORWARD EDITORIAL elcome to JADE. JADE has been Professor Rowena Murray devised and developed in the Learning and Professional Development Centre Director of Research | University of the West of Scotland for Keele staff and students that wish W to improve student learning through owena Murray graduated Melbourne. Her teaching and scholarly inquiry. Most importantly, JADE provides a with MA (Hons) from research focus on academic medium for writers to share their practice, their learning Glasgow University and writing, the subject of her journal and their research findings with others. PhD (with Distinction) articles and books, including Rfrom Pennsylvania State How to Write a Thesis, Writing Teaching scholarship is a journey of discovery and University and is a Fellow of the for Academic Journals and The personal growth, however when scholarship is shared Higher Education Academy. Handbook of Academic Writing with others through collaborative inquiry, conversation (co-authored with Sarah Moore). or by publication, the potential for learning expands and She is Professor of Education, Her research has been funded by grows. To that end, the JADE initiative joins a range of Director of Research, in the School Nuffield Foundation and British established schemes and activities at Keele intended to of Education at the University of Academy. encourage and disseminate scholarly inquiry. the West of Scotland and Adjunct Professor at Swinburne University, [email protected] I hope you experience the joy of the scholarship of teaching and learning as you participate in reading, writing, contributing, reviewing or editing for JADE. ‘SNACK’ AND ‘BINGE’ WRITING Dr. Jackie Potter Head of the Learning and Professional Development Centre EDITORIAL FOR JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION For this paper I was invited to write about snack writing – writing in short time slots. I have written about this elsewhere (Murray 2011, 2013, 2014a), “...people but it is such a productive strategy, and seems to work on so many levels – generating text, boosting confidence, getting into the writing habit – immediately that it is worth writing about again. see their For this paper, I decided to deploy seven rhetorical modes (Fahnestock and Secor 1990). Whenever I introduce these rhetorical modes in potential courses, people immediately see their potential for academic writing. Learning about rhetorical modes during my PhD had a major impact on my writing: I learned a repertoire of structures, each with its set of for academic components, and saw that using these modes would make my writing more coherent. It also made my writing process more coherent and less writing”. stressful. The following sections provide definitions of each mode, followed by examples of the modes-in-action in 100-word sections, all focusing on the subject of snack writing. 6 | JADE EDITORIAL | 7 PROF. ROWENA MURRAY ‘SNACK’ AND ‘BINGE’ WRITING Description: include different features, uses, and Comparison and contrast: describe both, using same experiences. Be specific. components of each. Describing snack writing includes detailing what to do, where When people compare and contrast binge and snack writing they and when to snack write and how people think and feel when focus on the differences between the two. Binge writing involves they write this way. People snack write for as little as 10-15 writing for long periods, without breaks and not stopping till the minutes, or sometimes for as much as 90 minutes. They draft writing’s finished. Binge writers say they do their best writing freely and revise later. They do this in offices, cafés and at home, this way and cannot see the point of snack writing. Snack writers during the working day, at the start and end of the day and on use short timeslots, break for food, activity and rest and sleep the way to and from work or study. They say snacking makes and say they stop before completing a writing project, knowing writing easier and less stressful. It is less daunting and more they will be able to start again. Both snack and binge have a role productive to write little and often. in academic writing. Perhaps binge writers could adopt features of snack writing. Narrative: put events in an order, with time markers, explain selection of events. Analysis: explain how a subject divides into parts and what holds parts together. A narrative account of people learning to snack write starts with their willingness to try new strategies. At first, they questioned Analysing snack writing involves identifying its components. whether writing for short spells would be any use – it was not We can break it down into concepts, practices and behaviours. how they usually wrote. Then they agreed to try it, to see for Conceptually, snack writing involves thinking of writing not only themselves what it was like and whether or not it worked. Those in terms of audience, purpose and content, but also in terms of who tried it found it was much more productive than they had numbers of minutes and words. The practice of snack writing expected. At this point, many continued with snack writing, involves short and regular bursts of writing, which may require writing with others who wanted to write this way. Finally, many behavioural change. This may require confidence, but regular adapted snacking strategies for other research and work tasks. snack writing seems to develop confidence. This analysis explains why snack writing works – it prompts us to define the many sub-routines involved in academic writing and to define Process: explain steps, order, links and progression. writing in terms of sub-goals. Explain selection of steps. The process of snack writing involves three steps. The first Classification: explain how elements can be grouped is defining a timeslot of between 10 and 90 minutes: when using a principle of division. and for how long will you write? This time can be planned or spontaneous. The second is deciding on your writing goal: Classifying the many activities involved in writing demystifies what it is you want to write about, and can write about, in this the complex process and helps us see where we can improve timeslot? The third is to start quickly and keep going, without our writing practices. These activities include thinking, reading, stopping to edit or check references. You can do that later. talking, reviewing, contextualising, managing time, prioritising, Editing and checking displace the writing. Whenever you can, innovating, selecting, outlining, composing, revising, editing, to make writing possible, write ‘unplugged’ from internet, phone proofreading etc. These elements can be grouped into three and other devices. sets: preparing to write, generating text and revising. Snack writing helps by privileging the second – generating text – and separating it from the other two. This simplifies the complex process of academic writing. However, the snacking approach – doing sub-tasks in short time slots – can also be applied to these other activities. 8 | JADE ARTICLE 1 | 9 PROF. ROWENA MURRAY Introduction sessions and were requesting ARTICLE | 1 a more tailored and shortened In early 2013, Human solution. Each mode, in each of the above sections, provides a different Resources (HR) were tasked representation of the subject of snack writing. It is not just that each with providing Recruitment & At the end of 2012, it was mode uses a different structure. There is a different emphasis in Title Selection training to up to 250 becoming clear to the HR each section. Different information about the subject is provided in HR’s Development of Recruitment and Selection e-Learning senior academic staff to ensure Advisors that the established each one. Different interpretations are offered. there are sufficient numbers of method of delivery was not Author(s) independent panel members providing the flexibility that was The modes can, of course, be combined in academic writing. One Andy Davies to support interview panels for required by recruiting managers or two of the modes are suited to writing literature reviews.