ABSTRACT
The theme of design education and academic writing seemed very problematic at several stages in this research. Debates about this theme are sometimes couched in quite adversarial terms. Some Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning through Design (CETLD) researchers, notably those from practice-based backgrounds, discussed their experiences of running projects in terms of a lack of confidence and a struggle to identify with the researcher label. The point here is that speaking about design as a student involves trying to convey how and why you work in certain way, not only through displaying sketches, visual research, materials exploration or models but articulating various intellectual and emotional processes of inspiration, observation and ideas development. In interviews with CETLD researchers, the notion of design education as special was referred to several times, particularly in relation to the difficulties some design students and staff had with academic writing.
