Organisations
As a consultant, I work with universities and colleges to design and deliver research and grant writing courses and workshops best suited to students and researchers across the disciplines.
Decide what sort of assistance you are looking for and contact me to find out about my reasonable rates.
Services
Intensive Research Writing Course (IWC)
The intensive writing course (3 hours per week for 1 semester, 36 hours) is suitable for research students who are actively writing theses or papers for publications. Depending on the student discipline, the course either follows the textbook 'Academic Writing for Graduate Student's (Swales and Feak 2012) or 'Writing Scientific Research Articles' (Cargill and O'Connor, 2000) as well as introducing students to a range of online writing resources.
Students will learn and use academic language patterns, as identified using a genre approach, which are central to academic writing. In addition to using a textbook, students will collect and analyse journal articles from their discipline and speciality area, in order to observe discipline-specific patterns, register and style.
During the course, students will receive weekly, detailed feedback from the lecturer and their peers on both assigned writing and sections of draft thesis chapters or papers.
Becoming a Researcher Workshop
This popular full day workshop is particularly tailored to first year HDR students. We will discuss what it means to be a researcher, including how to manage research, maintain motivation, work well with a supervisor and structure the overall shape and message of a proposal and a thesis. Using authentic texts in participants’ disciplines, we will analyse patterns commonly found in quality research writing.
To help participants learn to write smoothly, we will apply a variety of cohesive approaches to participants’ own draft writing. Participants will bring along: two scholarly journal articles from their specific research area, their thesis title, a draft table of contents, an example of current writing such as a draft proposal or chapter (no matter how rudimentary), a mug, and a sense of humour!
Each participant receives a comprehensive research writing workbook and ‘show bag.’
Project Managing Your Thesis Workshop
The pressures on Higher Degree Research (HDR) students to complete their theses ‘on-time’ are considerable. Yet distractions and setbacks can quickly derail a promising research project. HDR students will reach timely completions by activating their support team, and by being accountable to realistic benchmarks through a workable action plan.
This hands-on workshop will introduce supervisors to a simple but effective thesis management program currently helping to improve HDR completions in three Australian universities.
Contact me to find out how to book this workshop for your college or university.
The Persuasive Art of Grant Writing
Convincing a panel of experienced ARC assessors that a research project is worth funding is a specialised art. I will introduce a new approach to grant writing based on key linguistic principles.
Participants will learn to hone the central aim of the project, highlight the project’s significance, clearly articulate its contributions, and boost competency claims about the research team. T
his workshop is designed for early career researchers as well as seasoned researchers in an open exchange of collegial knowledge and grant writing experience.
It is relevant to grant writers from all disciplines.
Writing Publications Retreat
This full day workshop is particularly targeting second or third year research students or early career researchers who are working on a potentially publishable piece of writing.
During this retreat, participants will practise the writing techniques of successful writers while working on their current drafts, setting realistic writing goals. We will examine the construction of a cohesive message through outlining, word choice, sentence and paragraph structure and strategic placement of the main idea/argument.
The day will consist of guided writing sessions punctuated by short input sessions and opportunities for small group feedback. To make the most of this focused writing space, communication with the outside world will be limited (phones off, no internet), and lunch is provided by the host institution.
Each participant receives a comprehensive retreat workbook. Online follow-up sessions are recommended to ensure participants are publication ready.
Supervisors' Writing Workshop
Whether you supervise a few research students or are responsible for a whole swag of them, each one comes with their own unique traits.
How do you keep each student on track with their research? How do you motivate them? How do you encourage them to 'write early, write often?'
In this workshop, we will explore thesis management tools which can help both you and your students to stay on track to meet research milestones.
We will also practice using a range of writing tools and techniques to help you to pass on the writing skills your students need.