If you're like me, in the summer you want to spend time outside, but at the same time there's a desire to do something enriching and work on research and writing. With these contradictory impulses in mind, I'm going to write some reviews of books that would likely be a help in working either on writing or doctoral research.
The first book I recommend to all graduate students is one on doing research writing called They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein. This is a great book, in my opinion, wherever you are in your academic life. It's simply written, easy to understand (it's written on an undergraduate level), but offers important advice on doing research writing.
The book is yet another book about writing, but it is about the very specific style of writing academia requires. It offers concrete suggestions and templates for "moves" like presenting the research of others while transitioning into ones own. It also contains essays and exercises, which can be useful practice, but I found it best to take their suggestions and then apply them to my own work.
I haven't read anything else that's explained half so well how to use the arguments of others (whether they agree with you or not) to help set up your own work. Those sort of rhetorical tools are very useful in helping construct a literature review.
Let me know what you think!
