Interviews:
Participants:
- PhD student A (Year 2)
- PhD student B (Year 6)
- PhD student C (Year 3)
- Academic support tutor
Below are the edited interview transcripts, with key discussion points, my reflections, and a summary of the resources students identified as needed. The transcripts have been anonymised and condensed to focus on key topics. Each interview lasted around 1 hour. (For a rationale of the methodology and an explanation of how codes and themes were generated, see the Methods Used blog.)
Reflective Analysis – interviews
Across the interviews, writing for publication is shown to be a complex process influenced by confidence and institutional structures. Rather than seeing publication as a straightforward outcome of postgraduate research, participants consistently saw it as something peripheral to their PhDs.
One recurring issue is how writing is framed within the university. For many students, writing is primarily oriented towards assessment and examination, which shapes how they understand audience and purpose (academic support tutor). Publication, by contrast, is imagined as exposing work to judgment beyond the safe space of supervision. This shift appears to generate anxiety, particularly for practice-based researchers who already feel that their work sits uneasily within academic conventions (PhD student A and B). PhD student B goes further and notes that there is a gap between PhD writing conventions and the expectations of writing for publication, and that making this transition is not always obvious.
PhD student A also perceives support structures as fragmentary: writing workshops and academic support services exist, they are experienced as episodic or skills-based, rather than as spaces that support the longer process of developing work for publication. Supervisors play a crucial role, but their influence varies widely depending on their own publishing experience and attitudes. As a result, pathways into publishing often appear accidental rather than intentional. (PhD student B, Alison Green, and my own point during an interview.)
Emotional responses to writing and feedback are central across all three interviews. Fear of rejection, concerns about originality, and the vulnerability involved in sharing personal or practice-based/led research impact how students approach publication. Participants described writing as something tied to confidence, identity, and wellbeing. This might explain why publishing is often avoided even when students recognise its benefits.
Some of the barriers that emerged across the interviews relate to a lack of knowledge about how to access publishing opportunities, such as conferences and calls for papers, as well as uncertainty around the most adequate academic journals to publish their work. PhD student A expressed interest in support that takes the form of peer engagement, closer to a community of practice, offering emotional support and a space to exchange ideas throughout the publishing process. Ideally, this would be combined with guidance from someone in a supervisory role, particularly in relation to developing arguments and shaping the writing itself.
Available resources at UAL
This section analyses existing student support and resources at UAL. Not all of these are explicitly designed to support writing for publication, but they address specific skills and practices that are relevant.
The analysis draws on conversations with PhD student participants, my own experience of using these resources as a student, my experience of providing some of this support, and my reflective analysis of how these forms of provision operate in practice and their value for students.
Academic support group sessions / workshops
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Purpose and scope: these sessions aim to build general academic skills and confidence through group-based strategies. Examples of workshops: Creative Writing Workshop (In-person); Multilingual learning: Working in multiple languages.
Accessibility and engagement: workshops are generally accessible – bookable via moodle, but engagement is necessarily limited by time and group size. Students interviewed pointed out that they do not receive tailored feedback on their own writing.
Pedagogical approach: the approach is skills-based and strategic, focusing on specific areas (e.g. creative writing, multilingual learning). Writing is discussed conceptually and worked on directly.
Value: these workshops complement other support but do not offer a pathway towards publication.
Academic support 1-to-1 sessions
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Purpose and scope: the purpose is to offer individual academic support to help address specific students’ needs.
Accessibility and engagement: support is highly time-limited (20 minutes per session, limited bookings per week), which restricts level of engagement. Access and quality vary by college and staff availability.
Pedagogical approach: depth depends on the tutor. Engagement with ideas and structure is inconsistent, and support does not include proofreading or sustained language development.
Value: participants reported some frustration with the lack of time and limited engagement with conceptual and publishing-related issues. There is value for targeting specific questions as students reported that support for writing and writing for publication is inconsistent and often depends on the tutor’s experience.
Academic support online resources
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Purpose and scope: These resources aim to support independent learning.
Accessibility and engagement: highly accessible and flexible, with short activities (5–20 minutes). However, engagement is necessarily self-directed and non-interactive.
Pedagogical approach: skills-focused and modular, addressing specific aspects of writing (e.g. cohesion, citation, proofreading). Resources such as Pathways for Publication explicitly address publishing.
Value: Useful as reference tools, but limited in addressing emotional, disciplinary, and process-based challenges of publishing. These resources support specific skills but do not connect them into a coherent developmental pathway towards publication, with the exception of Pathways for Publication, which explicitly focuses on publication rather than academic skills alone.
Doctoral School workshops and writing retreats
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Purpose and scope: these sessions recognise writing as a sustained practice and acknowledge publication as an important part of doctoral development. They include writing retreats, writing workshops, and presentations on publishing processes and peer review delivered by academics, publishers, and other professionals in the field.
Accessibility and engagement: writing retreats and workshops offer protected time and space, which students value highly. Engagement is deeper than in short-form support.
Pedagogical approach: process-oriented and community-based; combines structured input with peer interaction. Inviting published academics demystifies publishing practices.
Value: participants reported these sessions as particularly helpful, especially those addressing peer review and publishing processes. These workshops come closest to addressing writing for publication in a more holistic way, but they tend to be one-off rather than embedded over time. They do not usually support students’ individual writing in depth. While students can bring along pieces of writing produced during the workshops, there is rarely enough focused time to work through whole texts, largely due to time constraints – unless the peer review group (my group) is invited to take part.
Doctoral School – Paddlets
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Purpose and scope: These resources aim to provide a centralised database of guidance, including links to open calls, academic publishing resources, and other types of support for PhD students.
Accessibility and engagement: The paddlets are easily accessible online. Interviewed students noted that they often lacked knowledge of publishing platforms and open calls, which these resources help to address.
Pedagogical approach: Offer curated links, explanations, and prompts that support students through the publishing process and encourage independent exploration.Value: They help bridge knowledge gaps about academic publishing, increase students’ awareness of opportunities, and support early-stage engagement with publication.
Reflective Analysis – UAL resources and support
The analysis shows that most existing provision focuses on isolated academic skills rather than the publishing process as a whole. Group workshops and online resources are accessible and useful for developing confidence and specific techniques, but they do not offer personalised engagement with students’ writing or with publication pathways. One-to-one academic support can address targeted questions, but is time-limited and generally variable in depth. Doctoral School workshops and writing retreats come closest to addressing writing for publication holistically, particularly by acknowledging writing as a process and by helping demystify peer review.
Preparing for Publication – Peer Review Group
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Purpose: help students prepare for publication at any stage of their writing; assumes collaborative peer learning improves skills.
Accessibility and engagement: voluntary; self-selected; active participation required.
Pedagogical approach: peer review, collaborative, reflective, text-centered.
Value: complements other workshops/resources; personalised support on own writing, which is a key gap elsewhere.
Reflective Analysis – Preparing for Publication – peer review group
The peer review group addresses a gap by providing text-centred, community-based support, with a focused on a single piece of writing – its content and language – and also creates opportunities for students to connect with peers who have publishing experience or are working towards publication. [The next step would be to evaluate the peer review group. The rationale for not conducting a review of the group I facilitate is explained in the blog Methods Used.]
JAWs – Journal of Arts Writing by Students is an interesting resource, although not part of UAL, that could be included in a future iteration of the study.
JAWs – Journal of Arts Writing by Students is a student-led, peer-reviewed journal that offers an accessible entry point into academic publishing. It provides students with a supportive and publishing environment, enabling them to develop confidence, gain experience of peer review, and understand the conventions and expectations of scholarly writing. This journal was started by UAL students, but now it operates across other institutions, not just UAL.
References:
Clarke, V. & Braun, V. (2018) Thematic analysis – an introduction. Lecture, University of the West of England, Bristol. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv7C53yvLqk (Accessed 3 January 2026)
Creswell, J.W. (2018) Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. 6th ed. Sydney: Pearson Education.