Screenwriting as research: how do doctoral candidates articulate the screenplay as a contribution to knowledge?
Date
2025
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Batty, C.
Holbrook, A.
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Journal article
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New Writing, online, 2025; online(3):1-19
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As screenwriting doctoral programmes thrive internationally, it is important to map the work being undertaken by candidates and better understand their development and success as creative practice researchers. In this study, we analyse a sample of completed screenwriting doctoral theses awarded in Australia between 2009 and 2023 to explore how candidates articulate the screenplay as a contribution to knowledge. Underpinning this focus is a desire to better understand how, and with what conceptual clarity, candidates have presented the screenplay (creative artefact) as a research outcome–an artefact that might be aimed at industry uptake, but which for the doctorate has a remit to contribute to knowledge. We draw on literature on screenwriting practice research, and doctoral learning and contribution, to inform the study. The thesis text was searched for reference or allusion to ‘contribution’, and the resulting corpus was examined for candidate awareness of, and fluency in, understanding, evaluating and articulating the role of the screenplay in knowledge production. Findings showed varying levels of cognisance of how the screenplay produces and/or communicates knowledge. Our composite descriptors illuminate ‘contribution text’ characteristics and how they reflect dimensions of doctoral development. The findings can inform screenwriting PhD pedagogies specifically, and creative practice doctorates broadly.
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Copyright 2025 The Authors. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Access Condition Notes: This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.