Suitability
Any postgraduate research students in the relevant disciplines who are
writing academic papers, dissertations or reports at any stage of their
studies and would value the opportunity to work collaboratively with the
tutor and their peers to understand and improve the effectiveness of
their writing.
If the course is full, then please register on our waiting list by
emailing your details to pgrdev@leeds.ac.uk.
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Description
This workshop adopts a participative approach to learning and teaching
and requires a high level of skill in reading, listening to and speaking
English. It is therefore suitable only for research students for whom
English is their first language or who are fluent in English as a second
language. (Participants who are in doubt should consult a member of SDDU
prior to booking, or attend the basic Writing for Research course).
Please bring the following with you to the workshop:
3 x paper copies of a 2 page extract from an academic writer whose style
you admire;
3 x paper copies of a self-contained extract from your recent academic
writing (eg research proposal, upgrade document, essay, dissertation
chapter, etc). This should be no more than 3 sides of A4 sides, typed,
double spaced and in 11pt font size.
Feel free to bring tablets or laptops to work with during the session.
The purpose of this course is to provide research students with a better
understanding of their own writing processes; to identify the language
features and conventions of research writing; and finally to develop
the confidence to apply this knowledge in the production of their own
written work.
Participants will gain knowledge and practical strategies to enable them
to approach the complex – and sometimes daunting – task of writing their
research articles, dissertations and reports with greater authority and
criticality.
The workshop will raise awareness of the writing process; outline genre
features of research writing; share techniques and strategies for
generating and organising research writing; share approaches to develop
confidence and knowledge in peer and self editing of work-in-progress;
and provide advice for further independent study.
The session takes a highly participative approach to learning. It
includes tutor talks but the main focus is tutor-led collaborative
activities where participants will work individually and in groups on a
range of practical examples, including their own and each other’s work-
in-progress.
Dr. Rebecca O’Rourke has varied and extensive experience of working with
writers and their writing: teaching adult literacy in Pentonville
prison; developing part-time degree provision in creative writing and
working as a freelance writer and journalist. She currently works in
the School of Education, where she runs the Academic Skills Workshop for
taught postgraduate students and is Deputy Director of the Clinical
Education programmes, and for Leeds Institute of Medical Education,
where she supports academic writing development for the new and early
career research group. She is an associate editor of Arts and
Humanities in Higher Education.
Positive statements from participants:
I feel more confident in facing the struggles of the PhD writing project
I am going to try the writing frames you introduced us to. It was a
great mix of approaches and activities, the hands-on activities with
samples (both the ones we brought and the ones you gave us) were really
illustrative and helpful.
There were lots of useful ideas from exchanges with peers and from the
interesting and helpful hand outs and activities. It has left me
reassured and motivated to write and to write more on a regular basis.
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