As we enter week 2 of WriteFest at the University of Edinburgh, we thought it would be useful to highlight all the writing support available from the IAD for research staff and students, and Principal Investigators (PIs).
WriteFest is an annual event that celebrates academic writing. It aims to give researchers space and time to focus on writing projects and is run by several different Universities for their researchers, to raise awareness of academic writing and the type of writing habits that you can adopt via writing retreats, writing hours, etc.
Writing Retreats
The IAD is running different writing retreats as part of WriteFest 2024. These include morning and afternoon writing retreats (online and on campus), online researcher writing hours, online PI power hours, and hybrid PI writing retreats. We are also running ‘Room to Write’ sessions – these sessions are not facilitated by the IAD but give our staff and students a dedicated room and space to write. These are running w/c 11th November, with morning and afternoon sessions available during the week.
Narrative CVs Writing Retreat – 27th November 2024
On the 27th November we will be running Narrative CV writing retreat. The retreat is aimed at staff currently writing narrative CVs for career or research-related applications who wish to make progress on these. The writing retreat will give participants dedicated time to work on their narrative CVs in a supportive environment, with opportunities to discuss and get feedback from peers. Facilitators will provide a brief introduction to narrative CVs outlining their structures and possible content. There will be opportunities to ask questions of facilitators, to discuss issues with peers, and gain information on further resources and support.
Guest Blogs
We’ve just had a couple of great guest blogs from our colleagues in the English Language Education department titled ‘Helping your students find their voice on their PhD writing Journey’ and ‘Your PhD Writing Journey’. We have a few guest blogs from previous years including ‘Who’s afraid of the big blank page?’ and ‘Writing retreats and containment’, with another guest blog planned for later in the month!
WriteFest Padlet
Our WriteFest Padlet is available to share writing support, add writing articles you’ve found that are useful, share writing hints/tips, or to look for some writing inspiration. Please use this virtual space to share and celebrate writing achievements.
Writing Resources
We have built up a bank of writing resources to support researchers with their writing projects, these include ‘Writing an Abstract’, ‘Writing a Literature Review’, ‘Writing Productively’, ‘Academic Writing in the Sciences’.
Our PGR SharePoint space has a dedicated ‘Writing’ section, which houses these writing resources, and for staff these can be found on our Online Resources section of our webpages.
We also have a writing retreat facilitators guide for anyone interested in running their own retreats. The guide gives ideas of different retreat structures, and the things to think about before and during the retreat in a facilitator role.
All our workshops, retreats, resources and links to writing support can be found on our WriteFest webpage, make sure to go and have a look and get involved in WriteFest this November:
