The relevance and consequences of academic literacies for pedagogy and research in practice-based postgraduate design

Research degrees are a recent phenomenon in the emergent academic design disciplines, and design practitioners and academics still debate their characteristics. Practice-based degrees may incorporate studio and other project work as part of the submission and the dissertation may exhibit variation in the visual and textual modes employed. The production of hybrid practice-based dissertation genres has consequences for research, supervision and writing pedagogies. The academic literacies approach stresses the need for students, faculty, and others to acknowledge the fundamentally underdetermined forms and conventions of dissertation writing and to work together for greater transparency in giving and getting feedback. If design fields wish to pursue the hybrid genres that practice-led project incorporating projects demand, a relevant writing pedagogy must be developed which looks beyond current conventions. Including evidence from an analysis of four recent practice-based doctorates with data from qualitative interviews with design educators, this paper argues for the relevance of academic literacies for dissertation writing and project work in design. In the final part of the paper I argue for the particular relevance of academic literacies for design research practice.