Academic Writing Consultants
Our Retreats
These five-day immersive retreats take researchers off-campus to focus intensively on their work in the company of two professional writers and a group of their peers.
Each morning we run taught sessions, largely tailored to the needs of the group. The afternoons are reserved for private writing time. Each participant will be offered two separate tutorials over the course of the retreat. In addition to receiving detailed feedback from both tutors on their writing, we offer them an entire ‘tool kit’ of creative writing skills that will help them give their work a strong argumentative through-line and distinctive narrative voice.
This experience of immersion can be transformative to a writer’s thinking and development, and researchers may come to their own distinctive writing voice in a way that they have not done before.
"I came feeling stuck, overwhelmed and downtrodden, and am leaving feeling inspired, with a clarity in direction and confidence in my writing.”
True North Writing Retreats for Doctoral Researchers
Our retreats provide an immersive experience for students and tutors alike. They combine teaching in the form of group sessions and personalised individual tutorials with a strong emphasis on peer learning. They are intensive, creative and transformative: time and again, we find these retreats generate accelerated learning, filling students with confidence and purpose.
By the end of the retreat students will have:
-
Strengthened the solid spine of their thesis, and identified all its major points of articulation.
-
Discovered exactly what to cut and what to boost to turn their thesis into a coherent work that sings.
-
Learned how and where to place their most far-reaching ideas, so the work resonates with meaning for readers.
-
Better understood the nature and scope of their contribution to a given field of research.
-
Experienced the transformative benefit of immersion - away from the distractions of everyday life, and in the company of a peer group of students who are on the same journey.
-
Found a clearer sense of who they are as writers, and of how to access their own best creative state.
“I have learned so much about how I work, and how I can work if I allow myself space to be creative, playful even. That productivity isn’t merely about how many words end up on the page,
but the whole process.”
Editing Retreat for Third Years
This four-day immersive retreat builds on our extremely popular cross-year workshop Thinking Like an Editor. It aims to give students a working knowledge of the editorial process as practiced by professional editors – because it is led by professional editors sharing their own best practice.
By the end of the retreat students will have:
• Understood the role of each distinct stage in the revision process.
• Learned how professional editors approach a text and in what ways they intervene.
• Acquired tools for better copy-editing and proofing.
• Edited their own academic writing to improve clarity, flow and style.
“I really enjoyed it! Being able to break the editing process into easy steps was my main takeaway. I found the general group discussion really helpful - it's great to learn from a workshop convenor but peer-to-peer learning is so important too, and I’m grateful [we were given] time to do that.”
True North Retreat for Supervisors
and Staff
Even the most able students can produce writing that is difficult to follow. Or they struggle to organize their thoughts or clarify their contribution. Perhaps they have fallen out of love with their research project…How can we help these students to help themselves – and each other?
In this five-day retreat for supervisors and writing support staff, we share our tried-and-tested approaches to help students think deeply and laterally about their research, communicate their ideas with confidence and rigour, and stay motivated and productive over the long term.
By the end of the retreat participants will have learned:
-
How to help students find direction and focus.
-
Practical techniques for reading, note-taking and drafting that help students overcome procrastination and perfectionism.
-
New ways to help students find their academic writing ‘voice’ in order to write with clarity and authority.
-
Exercises to help students discover the story of their research and articulate their original contribution.
-
Creative and critical thinking exercises to help students recognize new connections and relationships within and beyond their research material.
-
Ways to help students stay motivated and support each other.