Katherine Firth

@katherinefirth

Writes about writing, especially for PhDs and researchers: poetry, music, food. Blogs at Research Degree Insider

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Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· 18d

Some fabulous shots from the race at the stage when the chicken was just behind me (click on the running photo for full chicken glory 😂🐓

In front of the cathedral. A person walking. A person running. A person in a full sized orange inflatable chicken suite

A person running in front of the art gallery, pursued by a massive chicken suit

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Jul 19

The chicken beat me. See it in the crowd ahead of me just after the finish line

Chicken in the distance in a crowd at the finish line

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Jul 19

Confidently expecting to be beaten by a vegan chicken in this morning’s 10k race

Person in a blow up chicken costume surrounded by runners walking to the start line

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Jul 12

See for example, from the mss of The Watsons (written after the first version of P&P, but before it became the P&P we know and love and cheer on as others discover in all its perfection)

The manuscript
The manuscript is written and corrected throughout in brown iron-gall ink. The pages are filled in a neat, even hand with signs of concurrent writing, erasure, and revision, interrupted by occasional passages of heavy interlinear correction. There is no pagination, no clear or regular paragraphing, and no separation of speaking parts one from another. (Over a third of the Watsons fragment is cast in direct speech.) The manuscript is without chapter divisions, though not without informal division by wider spacing and ruled lines. The full pages suggest that Jane Austen did not anticipate a protracted process of redrafting. With no calculated blank spaces and no obvious way of incorporating large revision or expansion she had to find other strategies - the three patches, small pieces of paper, each of which was filled closely and neatly with the new material, attached with straight pins to the precise spot where erased material was to be covered or where an insertion was required to expand the text.? All three patches are carefully cut to the shape of their written texts and, unlike the quired leaves, are materially tailored to fit narrative need: in the patches to Quires 9 and 10 the only indication of where they are to be placed is provided by the pin holes. The best clue we have that they represent a later stage of creation rather than immediate second thoughts is that all three are written on paper which, though common to themselves, is not used for the bulk of the manuscript. The patches are on thicker paper with distinct chainlines; they may even come from the same sheet and represent a single concerted act of revision.

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Jun 20

Okay dudes, it turns out the em-dash AI problem? A lot of it is me. I may also have contributed to the ‘rule of 3’ problem, and the long paragraph problem. Anyway, none of them are ‘problems’, they are good writing when done intentionally with purpose. Write your own voice 🫶 ✨📚

KATHERINE FIRTH
AUSTRALIAN ACADEMIC WRITING SCHO.
• 568 STRENGTH • TOP 8%

GPT-5.5 SAYS
ACADEMIC DEVELOPER AND WRITER KNOWN FOR WORK ON DOCTORAL
EDUCATION, ACADEMIC WRITING, AND RESEARCH COMMUNICATION.

GPT-5.5
GPT-5.4 MINI
CLAUDE OPUS 4.S
CLAUDE HAIKU 4.5
GROK 4.20
GEMINI 3.1 LITE
KIMI K2 0905
DEEPSEEK V4
LLAMA 3.3 70B
LLAMA 3.2 1B
GLM 4.7 FLASH
MISTRAL 3.2 24B
OWENS SB
IN THE WEIGHTS • COM

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Jun 14

This from our weekend

Yarra river reflecting blue sky and gum trees

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Jun 1

Hey @thesiswhisperer.bsky.social our book (not that one, the red one) is 11 in Booktopia Best Sellers in Academic Study Skills. www.booktopia.com.au/books/text-b...

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· May 9

It’s a soup night

Golden broth in a Chinese blue and white patterned bowl

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· May 3

The album actually works better outside (the rain has stopped for long enough to walk the dog) Shadowy Light, traffic, dogs, voices, wind in the dying leaves, a little raven laughing

graffitied cobbledi laneway glistening in sun after rain

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· May 3

Missing tech that ‘just worked’. Maybe someone could invent… buttons? I love a button. Maybe a dial. (Shadowy Light makes me want to cry. This is such an incredible album.)

You think about other things it might do. Setting OpenClaw up to control an AC unit sounds very neat but requires a more comprehensive smart-home setup, which you commit to, and it eventually works. Wrestling with an eBay skill helps you realize that 95 percent of what you enjoy about eBay is browsing, not actually buying things. A vague plan for a meal-prep and shopping-list app explodes on the launchpad as you realize it would involve convincing your spouse to change numerous well-thought-out habits, too, and that the main challenge around shopping and cooking isn’t data synthesis and ingredient inventory but that, basically, “things happen” and “Thai actually sounds good tonight.”

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Apr 25

Cannot recommend this novel highly enough. Pleasurable, elegiac, perfect. Good prose, good architecture, food, music, bird watching, Neolithic archeology, old trains, 1980s Japan, coming of age, deeply human.

Cover of
Summer at Mount Asama
" fell in love with this beautiful novel'-HIROMI KAWAKAMI,
Translated by
Margaret Mitsutani
Author Masashi Matsuie

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Mar 6

What’s up with the Kleenex Puppy/Kitten? It’s giving: no, ugh, and wut??

Kleenex golden retriever cuddles kitten going ‘mehp, ugh’

Golden retriever snuggles kitten who goes ‘merp? eeh’ 🫤

Golden retriever sits looking sorry behind a small grey cat who has seen stuff 👻

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Jan 24

My family chat is LOSING THEIR MINDS over this absolutely magical book. In case you want some joy, or have a stick-lover in your life

Cover of book: Sticks: A collection of sticks & the people who love them, from the founders of Stick Nation

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Dec 24

Research flat lay on Xmas Eve. Bourdieu. Averroës. Coffee. Box of party treats for tomorrow’s guests.

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Dec 23

Vale to Chris Wallace-Crabbe, iconic Melbourne poet and delightful human being. Here is one of his poems (from Telling a Hawk from a Handsaw)

One Step after Another

Could it be
that our trailing lives are seen
by the perhaps god
as being sweet and brief
like the first scent of summer rain?

It's that last wriggle
on feet of sand
as you ease off wet bathers
under a sarong-like beach towel without showing off all your goodies.

Tesserae much like this
apparently, alas,
make up a life:
there's no getting away from it.

When you come to realise
that God is not the answer
but the question
then you are on your way
to wise confusion
or even to humility,

apologising too
for all that sand on the lino floor.

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Nov 14

Said mines

Books, note books, coffee cups, a water bottle, a laptop, folders

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Nov 10

It was a blast to talk to Amra Pajalic on her podcast about all things #3MinuteThesis. Amra won the La Trobe University 3MT competition,—listen in to hear Amra’s journey and how 3MT made a difference. 🎧✨📚 Available on all the pod platforms: amrasarmchairanecdotes.buzzsprout.com/2448457/follow

Tile Amra’s Armchair Podcast with Amra Pajalic and Katherine Firth

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Oct 24

Anyway, you too need a Toga Return/ Togari Turn Sonic. I got mine from Bungu Store Tokyo. ✏️🫶✨📚 bungu.store/products/man...

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Oct 24

You use the crank to hoick in the pencil, even a totally flat, never touched one. You then wind the crank half a dozen times, and tiny shavings fall. Suddenly, the pencil is ejected—perfectly sharp, perfectly smooth, and not a millimetre of pencil wasted

Fancy pencil sharpener. Tiny pencil shavings. 2 totally untouched pencils made sharp and a blunt pencil resharpened.

My expensive Blackwing double sharpener that takes half the pencil every time I need to retouch the tip

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Oct 24

My doves, my dears. Magic pencil sharpener! I spent a silly amount of money on Japanese stationary that I wasn’t sure I needed (I did need it, this story ends well). You will not believe this pencil sharpener though

Fancy semi transparent pencil sharpener, with a crank handle

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Oct 10

What’s in the drawers of your desk? I have a bureau that I bought when we lived in Cambridge and I was doing my PhD, not-quite 2 decades ago. Today I sat at it and realised it was still full of old UK stuff 🧵1/5

Little Edwardian wooden fold down desk with green leather inlay, pigeonholes, drawers and papers

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Oct 7

#CommunityInWriting Day 2 Book Launch for the new #ShutUpandWrite book Available for pre-order now www.routledge.com/Wellbeing-an...

Haidee Hicks speaking on a panel with Andi Salamon, Abbe Winter and Narelle Lemon

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Oct 5

#CommunityInWriting Symposium Day 1 at Deakin Downtown #SUAW #Shutupandwrite Sneak peek of new book cover ✨📚

Moleskin Cahier, Midori pencil, She speaks bookmarks, new book sneak peek

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Sep 17

Inside you are two wolves

Black and tan dachshund looking shy, demure, unbothered, on her sofa

Black and tan dachshund showing her belly, side eye, ears flop

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Sep 7

“As far as I’m concerned, we’re all comrades in a war that has infinite fronts. Nobody can fight on all of them…But there is no neutral territory here. There may be plenty of front lines, but there are no sidelines.” open.substack.com/pub/experime...

Personally, I care a lot about science because I think the expansion of knowledge is the only thing that makes us better off in the long run. But whatever, some people want to clean up the park, other people want to help sick kids, and other people want to save the shrimp. Godspeed to all of them. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all comrades in a war that has infinite fronts. Nobody can fight on all of them, and I won’t ask anyone to join mine if they can do more good elsewhere.

But there is no neutral territory here. There may be plenty of front lines, but there are no sidelines. The best way to prevent people from taking themselves out of the fight is to recognize that there is no “out” of the fight. There’s no room for anyone to play the Switzerland strategy—“I’m not involved, I’ll just hold on to your valuables while you guys fight it out!” The sum total of our actions will either make the world better or worse. Which is it gonna be?

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· May 20

The perfect food for jet-lagged eating is congee with all the toppings. Feeling energised and moved by the tips, challenges and sharing from the room.

Rice porridge, soy marinated eggs crispy shallots and anchovies, XO and chilli crisp

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· May 20

Since I’m talking about wellbeing, I’ve got myself the water, the coffee, the SNACK BAR to keep up the energy through the Aussie nighttime.

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· May 3

Just the most glorious weather for a run, to queue up in the sun with a flat white, vote, and support the local school by having a #democracysausage

Sausage in bread with onions mustard tomato sauce

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Mar 1

Behind the scenes of a symposium and concert on Dietrich Bonhoeffer—an inspiration to us all. With @melbournedean.bsky.social

Signing books, piles of them, pens, hands. Journeying with Bonhoeffer: Six Steps on the Path of Discipleship by Andreas Loewe and Katherine Firth

Katherine Firth@katherinefirth· Feb 28

“Great courage is, again, to hold your eyes as open to the light as to death.” Only makes sense near the desert, where the light will kill you, even as it makes you more alive than you have ever been. ✨📚