a PhD candidate, researcher, and academic writing coach.

But I didn’t start out confident in research.

When I began my Honours degree, I had no idea what a literature review really was, how to build a theoretical framework, or what supervisors meant when they spoke in big academic language. I knew I had to write, but I didn’t yet understand how research actually worked.

So I did what many students do quietly and alone: I spent hours watching videos, working through tutorials, reading books, and trying to piece things together. Day after day, I taught myself how research is structured, how arguments are built, and how different chapters speak to one another.

Along the way, something changed. I began to see the logic behind good research. The “science” behind strong proposals, coherent literature reviews, and clear methodologies. The patterns behind what examiners and supervisors look for — and how complex academic ideas can be broken down into simple, workable steps.

By the time I completed my Master’s degree (cum laude), research no longer felt mysterious. It felt structured. Learnable. Human.

That journey is what shaped how I teach today.