Writing Centre breathes new life into theses
IT was the fear of seeing their slavishly-compiled theses lying dormant on a bookshelf and attracting nothing but dust that spurred Meredith Nash and Kirsty Sangster into expanding their writing talents.
The pair of post-graduate researchers hoped to find an audience beyond academia for their respective doctoral manuscripts, and sought input from The University of Melbourne's Writing Centre for Scholars and Researchers which is housed within the School of Graduate Studies.
The nature of their work was vastly different.
Meredith Nash's research on the relationship between pregnancy and body image had already attracted mainstream media interest because of its appeal to the burgeoning lifestyle market, while Kirsty Sangster's subject matter dealt with the victims and survivors of unimaginable human rights abuses.
But they shared a wish to take their work to a wider audience, and both are currently working closely with mentors within the publishing industry in the hope of transforming their research into books that appeal to a non-specialist, commercial audience.
Ms Nash always envisaged a book as an accompaniment to her research project 'Women's experience of pregnancy in public', but concedes she had little idea how to turn that notion into reality before she began her involvement with the Writing Centre.
"I had it in my head right from the start that I wanted to market my ideas in a public forum, but like so many people I didn't know how to go about it," she said.
"The Centre taught me how to take a small slice of my research and make it accessible and interesting to people other than academics. All students should be aware that this service exists."
"You can't be confined to the University, or the world that academics relate to. Otherwise so many PhDs lay dead on the shelf."
"I believe there's no point in doing research if everyday people don't know about it."
Ms Nash initially cultivated a media profile out of desperation. She needed to speak with a large number of pregnant women in order to complete her research, so she sent out a media release outlining her project in order to solicit assistance.
Within the space of a day, she was contacted by 15 individual journalists and television programs, all of whom were fascinated by the subject matter and wanted to explore it in greater detail.
Since then, she has been a regular guest on television, as a commentator in newspapers and magazines around the world, and maintains a website that attracts contributions and feedback from a huge audience.
"People have said to me 'why do you want to write for mainstream media and trade publications rather than academic books' and I tell them it's simply because there are women out there who want to know about other women's experiences," Ms Nash said.
"There is tension between dumbing down with your research, while at the same time wanting to make the results of that work available to the widest possible audience."
Dr Sangster's first inkling that her thesis 'The terrain of broken justice - voices from the Truth Commission' could reach a wider readership came when her academic peers told her that "it wasn’t boring enough to pass as a PhD"
.However, she mistakenly believed that creating a book from her research would be simply a matter of sending her well-written, easy to understand thesis to publishers.
"It wasn’t until I became involved with the Writing Centre that I realised that my text was completely academic, and far too narrow to be published as a book," Dr Sangster said.
"What they taught me was the importance of the book proposal. I had always thought it was about the quality of the book.
"I now understand that the publishing world is so competitive, and publishers get so many manuscripts pushed in front of them that won't even look at your writing if the initial proposal is no good."
Dr Sangster admits that her desire to have her work published in mainstream markets was partly fuelled by a sense of respect to the abuse victims and their families who shared their painful stories with her.
But, like Ms Nash, she was also driven by a view that she had put far too much effort and commitment into writing her thesis to have it studiously ignored by all but other researchers and academics.
Through the Writing Centre, she has been working closely with Associate Professor John Armstrong from the University’s philosophy department, himself an acclaimed author, in order to construct the book and alter her writing style to appeal to a non-academic audience.
"You put your heart and soul into writing that thesis material because you think it is important, but it's dead after you finish with it ," Dr Sangster said.
"I was very keen to try and translate my academic work into a book that non-academics could read. It's not about re-writing the thesis, it's about writing a book with the thesis almost as background material.
"I knew that I could write in a style that I was interested in, but to even get a publisher to look at it I needed to make it an exciting read."
Simon Clews, director of the Writing Centre, said the importance of knowledge transfer within universities highlighted the need for researchers and academics to connect with a broader audience."We have to accept the fact that the old-fashioned notion of an academic life - schooling followed by a PhD, a bit of tutoring and then a lectureship tenure - just doesn't exist any more," Mr Clews said.
"If you are going to be able to pay your mortgage, you need to look at multiple streams in which you work.
"The world has changed, and now expects you to do more with your knowledge."