Research

I started my doctoral research in January 2017, based in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics. My supervisors are Dr Adam Mearns, Prof. Mark Reed and Prof. Andrea Whittle.

My work is focused on REF2014 Impact Case Studies. I am investigating whether there are linguistic differences between case studies that received the highest score (4*) and those that received low scores (1*/2*).

To this end, I have built a corpus of all known 4* Impact Case Studies from REF2014 across different Units of Assessment and another corpus of the known 1*/2* case studies in those Units of Assessment where high-scoring case studies are identifiable. I am comparing different language features across high- and low-scoring case studies. So far, I have compared keywords and lexical bundles, as well as conducting a readability analysis using Coh-Metrix. A preview of my findings can be found here, together with findings from a thematic analysis of a similar sample together with Mark Reed and colleagues. Please see here for our paper.

Presentations:

Invited workshop for the Office of National Statistics on writing impact case studies, 17 July 2019

Language in REF2014 Impact Case Studies – What additional knowledge can we use for 2021? Part of the panel Understanding, finding and demonstrating additionality for REF2021 with Sumi David (University of Exeter) and Juergen Wastl (Digital Science) at ARMA conference, Belfast, 18 June 2019

Comparing high-scoring and low-scoring REF2014 Impact Case Studies. Presentation at CCR Birmingham Corpus Linguistics Summer School, Birmingham, 27 June 2018

Academic Writing across Genres: Language Choices in Research Articles and Impact Case Studies. Paper presented at CLAVIER conference, Bari, Italy, 1 December 2017

ARMA Conference, Belfast, June 2019

Previous studies:

2012-2013: MA Applied Language Studies and TESOL, Durham University (Distinction)
Dissertation: First-person Pronoun Use by Early Career Researchers and Senior Scholars in Dead Sea Scrolls Research:A Corpus-based Study (please contact me for a copy; see here for a poster)

2007-2008: MA Biblical Studies, Durham University (Distinction)
Dissertation: David in the Qumran Community: The David of the Old Testament?

2004-2007: Undergraduate education in Theology and Jewish Studies at the universities of Freiburg, Tübingen and Halle (Saale), Germany