Write Fest 2021
Write Fest
November is Academic Writing Month, an academic write-a-thon that happens every year, inspired by NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) but catering to the specific needs of academic writers. It’s hosted by PhD2Published, as an online space where the global academic community can pledge their writing projects, record progress, and share thousands of writing tips via the #AcWriMo hashtag on Twitter. The festival aims to provide protected time and space for writing to help you develop good writing habits and strategies, overcome blocks with a proactive approach, protect academic writing as part of the working day and spend some time writing with others in a social environment.
We will be joining the University of Sheffield WriteFest (#AcWriFest21) initiative, by bringing together people from across the university to recognise and celebrate writing. We will be running a range of workships, webinars, writing groups and much much more.
We are running the following sessions during WriteFest 21:
- Academic writing for PGRs - 01/11/2021, 11am-1pm
- Mapping your thesis structure using Lego Serious Play - 01/11/2021, 2-4pm
- Conducting a literature review: critiquing, structuring and writing - 04/11/2021, 2-3pm
- Academic writing coaching: how to start writing - 05/11/2021, 11am-12pm
- Introduction to publishing your research in journals - 08/11/2021, 2-3pm
- Academic writing coaching: developing an argument - 12/11/2021, 11am-12pm
- Creative approaches to decolonising research and writing: The power of words -17/11/2021, 11am-12pm
- Academic writing coaching: dealing with writer's block, 19/11/2021, 11am-12pm
- Writing a chapter, 22/11/2021, 2-4pm
- Academic writing coaching: dealing with feedback, 26/11/2021, 11am-12pm
- Drafting your thesis webinar, 29/11/2021, 2-3pm
You can find a full list and book on to upcoming courses on Inkpath, a booking system designed specifically for researcher training and development programmes.
SUAW is an online writing space supported by the Doctoral College and run by a team of PGRs. It is open to anyone across the PGR community, whatever subject your are studying and wherever you are based. SUAW offers structured sessions using the pomodoro technique, which Cirillo (1980) named after a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato. The objective of the pomodoro technique is to focus on one short task for 25 minutes, followed by a 5 minute break. The aim is to find support (or a sense of belonging) in the PGR community, avoid procastination and improve productivity.
SUAW is an excellent online space to start that bit of work you have been putting off or delaying. Common uses of SUAW include; writing ideas, chapter outlines, coding, making notes, planning work or and getting words down. Each participant sets their own agenda, and everyone is welcome.
Our popular Shut Up and Write sessions will continue throughout November, using a slightly different format! Each day we will have one all calendar slot to cover our current sessions. This will be open all day, incl. when there will be no facilitator, but you can work in there.
SUAW takes place on our PGR Writing Microsoft Team, you just need to request to join!
Don’t forget we have lots of online resources available on our ELE page. For #WriteFest21 we want to highlight:
- Starting Your Literature Review online resource
- Writing your thesis online resource
- Writing journal articles online resource
We will also be launching our new resource on Academic Writing for PGRs as part of #WriteFest21 on our NEW open access resources website. Watch this space!
The WriteFest team at Sheffield have also put together the AcWriVox YouTube playlist, containing videos on academics sharing their writing processes, habits and spaces.
As part of #WriteFest21 we are keeping a tally of all the word written by our PGRs! Use our handy online form to keep a log of your daily total, and track your progress across the month!