Generative Dialogue for Academic Writing

This blog outlines an online participatory event which was offered as part of the writing series BAICE ran for PGRs.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

The aim of the event was to explain generative dialogue as a method for supporting academic writing. The presenters, Mercy and Shona, wanted also to create a space for participating students to try it for themselves. We co-presented the session and planned it so that dialogue was a central part of it.

MERCY: Hi. I am Mercy, a second-year PhD student in the Department of Education at the University of Bath. My research explores how language practices in schools can be reimagined in Nigeria through an anti-colonial theoretical lens. I am deeply passionate about decolonial work. As co-chair of the Decolonising Education Collective (DEC), one aim is to bridge gaps between theory and practice in decolonising work.

SHONA: Like you, Mercy, I am part of the staff-student collective that makes up DEC and, along with my educational research, also see decolonisation as praxis. Finding alternatives is a crucial part of effecting social change.

MERCY: Like writing differently. The chapter submission that this workshop is centred around was my first publication of my PhD —written when I was just three months in. Having the opportunity to co-author it with my supervisor and write in a way that felt like a conversation—where the message is not just read but truly heard—made it an exceptional and formative experience.

SHONA: I totally agree with you that writing together was an excellent experience. As one of your supervisors, it helped me get to know you in a way that ordinary conversations during supervision does not. I was also keen to spread the method of generative dialogue and so, when we were invited to this event, wanted it to be interactive. Below we outline a brief account of how generative dialogue developed, how we demonstrated it in the seminar, and some of the outcomes of the session.

Generative dialogue methodology in theory and in practice

Dialogue for generating knowledge is not a new idea. Socrates used it as a pedagogical tool with his students, acutely targeting questions to probe their understanding and make visible areas of confusion or conflation. While Socratic teaching methods are common practice in classrooms internationally, the published academic text rarely shows the dialogues behind the finished article. However, dialogue can be an epistemically-just method of presenting different knowledges as equally valued, avoiding the hierarchies of knowledge that academia re/produces[1]. Shona’s co-edited book used dialogue to connect silos of knowledge between academics and practitioners in Global Citizenship Education[2]. Chapter authors responded to provocations and presented the knowledge they generated as unfolding play scripts, in the format Mercy and I used above. Generative dialogue also structured a chapter co-written by Mercy and Shona for The International Research Handbook on Anti-Colonial Education. We felt that the method demonstrated that dialogues could support epistemic equality, in this case between PhD student and supervisor. The workshop for BAICE student members on 19 March 2025 was a way to share the method using a structure to reflect the method used in our chapter.

Our chapter identified four main parts in the accepted abstract and made them into provocations to guide dialogue (see Figure One). Then we sat down together in person and talked in response to each provocation in turn. We recorded the dialogue on Teams, producing a rough transcript which we then tidied up and used as the chapter draft. One joy of writing this way is that text comes ‘alive’: it jumps off the page, communicating with an urgency that reaches the audience more as a listener than a reader and contrasts with traditional academic writing. Added to this, the to-and-fro of dialogue evokes the Socratic method, provoking dialoguers to think in-depth and identify areas of consonance and dissonance, each allowed to stand, avoiding the false construction of a consensus so common in academic writing. The next section explains the workshop.

The workshop generative dialogue as decolonial praxis

The seminar was structured so participants could first understand generative dialogue and how we used dialogue in our chapter and then try it themselves, with ample space for dialoguing and reflection. The first half of the session introduced the provenance of generative dialogue in more detail than we gave above and demonstrated the method we used for our chapter. Participants then had the opportunity to try it for themselves in breakout rooms, returning for collective reflection. We guided the first part with slides that showed the abstract and the four provocations that came from it. An example is shown at Figure Two, where a sentence in our abstract is in bold and, in yellow, the third provocation we developed from it.

Screen shot of an example of making part of the abstract into a provocation
Screen shot of an example of making part of the abstract into a provocation

Once we had given examples of the four guiding provocations, we returned to the first – What consequences did your education have on you and your community? – and showed participants an excerpt from the transcription of our recorded dialogue. Then we contrasted it with the text of the accepted chapter. We pointed out some differences, such as the insertion of citations for the publication. When we were talking, we just used authors’ names or their concepts. We then read aloud a section of the dialogue from the accepted chapter to demonstrate how realistic it was – it sounded just like a conversation. The equal credence given to ‘speakers’ in generative dialogue is the element that works against epistemic hierarchy and serves as decolonial praxis.

Everyone had a go!

After our demonstration, we gave the participants a chance to try generative dialogues around three topics that students might have in common, with the option to make their own topic. The prepared topics were:

  • How has your writing changed as a student during your studies?
  • What areas of academic writing are you confident and less confident in?
  • What has influenced your writing – academic or otherwise?

Participants worked in breakout rooms for 30 minutes before coming back together to share their examples in group discussion and reflect on the experience and the method.

Participant reflections of generative dialogue

In the shared discussion, participants spoke about the multiple uses of the method in academic writing and in undertaking a doctorate more broadly. It was fascinating to hear how the different groups expanded ways to apply the method.

For example, a first-year PhD student felt that dialogue was a good way to begin academic writing, as it offers more freedom to express oneself rather than being confined by strict academic conventions—a kind of soft landing. For another student, dialogue served to clarify internal questioning about how to position themselves or decide how to proceed with their writing—should they use a particular theory or method? What might be the advantages or drawbacks? If they structure their argument in one way, what are they highlighting? And what would an alternative structure mean? In this sense, dialogue becomes a valuable tool for learning through questioning. Interestingly, for one student, the dialogue could be between them and themselves—a thought-provoking perspective.

Others discussed how dialogue could be used as a methodology and incorporated into the thesis, as it enables honest explanation and justification—a different way of approaching methodology. Another group spoke about dialogue in relation to the pedagogy of dissonance, where it can be used to reflect on decisions and choices, particularly in connection with internal dialogue and questioning–strengthening and clarifying justifications.

The outcomes

The dialogues that emerged from the breakout rooms gave students space to reflect on how they might incorporate dialogue into their own research—and they truly embraced the opportunity.

  • Anne: Dialogue opened my mind to endless possibilities and fresh thinking.
  • Hodges: Dialogue is a light-hearted approach to academic writing.
  • Lizzy: Dialogue demystifies academic writing.
  • Wanwei and Min: Dialogue allows for learning to take place through questioning.
  • AS and Kayonazz: Dialogue is a way to bring our positionality into our work and allows us to express internal dialogues.
  • Sheriya and Thomas: Dialogue allows us to value difference through the multiplicity of thoughts that it provides – a pedagogy of difference.

These reflections continued to evolve, eventually blossoming into broader questions: How might generative dialogue find a valued place in scientific research? and What potential does this method hold for making knowledge more accessible, particularly through the use of inclusive language that generative dialogue fosters?

The seminar introduced an alternative approach to the learned conventions of academic writing that is instilled during doctoral study. While it is arguably important to be able to write conventionally, it is perpetuating, unquestioningly, traditions of epistemic inequity. Generative dialogue is one way to do differently, in a liberatory way, in the hope that uncontested practices reproducing knowledge hierarchies can begin to be openly seen as part of the colonial apparatus of Eurocentred coloniality.

Where could generative dialogue take you?

We wanted to leave you with this provocation, to ask if you can think of some way of using this method in your own academic work. If so, we would love to hear from you!


[1] McIntosh, S. & Wilder, R. (2022). Towards epistemically-just research: a methodologies framework. Cultural Studies ó Critical Methodologies, 23(3), 235-245. https://doi.org/10.1177/15327086221138981

[2] Kang, S.L. and McIntosh, S. eds., 2022. Enacting equitable global citizenship education in schools: lessons from dialogue between research and practice. Taylor & Francis.

Mercy O. Martins

Mercy O. Martins

Mercy O. Martins is a Nigerian second-year PhD researcher at the University of Bath, where she examines language practices in Nigerian secondary schools through an anti-colonial lens. Her work explores how colonial legacies continue to shape language policies and marginalise indigenous languages, particularly in non-classroom spaces within schools. Using participatory and Indigenous methods—including map-making, drama, and talk circles—she centres the voices and experiences of students, teachers, and parents. Mercy co-chairs the Decolonising Education Collective and serves as the Postgraduate Student Representative for the Department of Education and the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She has presented her research at international conferences and co-authored papers on decolonisation, contributing to wider conversations around linguistic justice and educational equity in African contexts.

Shona Mcintosh

Shona Mcintosh

Dr Shona McIntosh is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education at the University of Bath. Her research interests focus on methodologies for epistemic justice as applied to research into educative practices in compulsory schooling, particularly on global citizenship education and climate education, in England and internationally. Working with decolonial theories primarily from scholars in South America and Africa, Shona has critiqued traditional research methodologies that emerged during European colonization, and proposes delinking from them to move towards epistemically-just knowledge creation. This approach drives her research and collaboration with others. Shona also teaches decolonisation at Master’s and doctoral level, is an active member of Decolonise Education Collective (DEC) in the Department of Education. She is an anchor member of DECkNO, a University-wide research and practice collective, co-lead of the Research and Writing strand and is co-editor of the working paper series Multiversum. ORCid: 0000-0002-9223-3949

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