Academic Writing Consultants
Our Workshops
In person or online, our workshops are highly interactive: we encourage students to engage with us in continual discussion, and to participate in call-ins, pair work, writing exercises and in sharing feedback on those exercises, so there is a genuine dynamism in the room.
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Our approach is to treat all students as writers and to demonstrate how tried and tested creative writing techniques, drawn from our ongoing professional practice, can give academic writing a clear focus, lucid writing style and strong narrative - with no loss of rigour.
We know that the sessions are demanding. They are pacy and intense; students work hard, and have all kinds of insights into their work that they can capture in the moment.
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We offer a range workshops. Contact us if you have specific requirements.
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“The workshops were beautifully layered day after day, spot on, well paced, demanding, thoughtful.”
A Selection of Our Workshops
Reading Like a Writer
Close reading is very different from the way academics are trained to skim read and distil argument from a text. We introduce you to reading for technique, and use examples as a stimulus for writing exercises.
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Thinking Like an Editor
This workshop addresses the problem of privileging research over writing up. We show you how to tighten your argument, feel for pace and flow, avoid repetition and learn what to cut, instilling the practice of knowing where your reader is at all times. Expect red-pen exercises.
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Getting Published: How to Write a Research Paper
Writing research papers as a doctoral student can be daunting; this workshop aims to make this process that little bit easier. You'll explore your own research project for suitable topics, then present them in a way that clearly demonstrates their originality, significance and rigour.
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Thesis Writing for First Years
We aim to help establish good writing habits, anchored in two key ideas: your personal investment in the topic, and your ability to practise skilled questioning. We’ll spend as much time thinking about focus – how your thesis will be different and why it matters – as we spend thinking about cultivating the kind of wide-open thinking your research needs to make nuanced connections.
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Creative Thinking for Researchers
This workshop delves into the writing process. Where and when do you get your best ideas? And how do you capture them? What do you do when you feel blocked or demotivated? Can you cultivate frames of mind and ways of working that will help you access a highly creative state at will?
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Drafting to Crafting
Writing is a dance between creativity (drafting) and the critical process (crafting), which are separate, yet overlapping activities. The first half of this workshop will give you tools to get your raw material onto the page, interrogate your ideas more deeply, and find your own unique voice. Next, you will step into the shoes of your reader and revise your material so as to make your ideas clear to follow and compelling to read.