Open workshops

This session is for students who are already reading for their dissertation and who have perhaps begun to plan or draft. Participants can use the session to produce a working plan and an abstract to help guide their writing.

This session will be all about the close work – or what writers like to call line-by-line editing. This is not necessarily something to leave until the end. The session will use the three Cs – clarity, conciseness, coherence – as benchmarks for the strong sentences that will make up your dissertation. Techniques for managing your word count will also be addressed in this workshop.

Participants will be asked to submit a sample page of their writing a week before the workshop. Two or three samples will be selected for editing demonstrations. Authors will remain anonymous and these samples will not be distributed with the slides after the session, except to the authors themselves, who will receive a before-and-after version of their sample.

This workshop is not discipline specific – the techniques will apply broadly to students of both the sciences and humanities.

This session is for students who are already reading for their dissertation and who have perhaps begun to plan or draft. Participants can use the session to produce a working plan and an abstract to help guide their writing. Come along to the workshop with your research question/statement.

We will focus on planning the shape of your dissertation, and finding a way in. We will examine four ways to approach structure, and look at how you might address what’s at the heart of your thesis.

This workshop is not discipline specific – the techniques will apply broadly to students of both the sciences and humanities.

This workshop is open to all postgraduate taught (PGT) students. 

A dissertation is a significant piece of academic writing and a major investment of time and effort. It is also the defining feature of a Master’s degree, so it is worth presenting it well.

This interactive session will introduce strategies to help you incorporate revising into your personal writing process.  It will highlight tricky things which tend to catch students out, suggest useful tools and offer tips to help you submit your best work. 

You will be expected to produce significant pieces of academic writing for your Masters e.g. reports, essays and your dissertation! They are a major investment of time and effort, so it is worth spending time polishing it by properly proofreading and editing.

This interactive online session will introduce useful tips and strategies to help you incorporate effective proof-reading and editing into your writing process.

This session will not cover:

• Subject or discipline-specific advice
• English Language advice
• Feedback on individual pieces of work
• Proof-reading or editing of individual pieces of work

This session will take place via blackboard collaborate (virtual classroom). Booking is required in order to receive the workshop link and further information about how to join the session.

This workshop is open to all postgraduate taught (PGT) students.

A dissertation is a significant piece of academic writing and the defining feature of a Master’s degree, so it is worth taking time to consider your structure.

This interactive session will help you step back from the detail of your writing and take an overview of your dissertation.  It will suggest practical ways you can isolate the main themes of your work and develop a convincing order to present your ideas.  We will also discuss the purpose of key sections of academic dissertations. 

You will have the opportunity to self-review your dissertation outline, but the tutor will be unable to give subject-specific advice.

Pre-course work:  Participants are asked to have a one-page outline of their own dissertation during the session.

What does this workshop not include:

• Subject or discipline-specific referencing, formatting, or advice.
• English Language advice.

An opportunity to discuss the effectiveness of your writing for your dissertation with a writing advisor.

These consultations are for PGT students who are submitting their dissertation this year. They are online, 50 minute, one-to-one appointments where you discuss how effective your words are at communicating your point. At the start of the consultation you will decide what you want to focus on. You will then be asked to read your work aloud before discussing the effectiveness of your writing. All you need is a few pages worth of writing from any section of your dissertation.

This is not a proof-reading or editing service, and advisors will not be able to comment on content, argumentation, subject or project specific aspects (e.g. methodology or statistics), or offer English Language advice.

Please be aware, as part of the booking process you will be asked the following questions:

• What is the subject area/discipline of your dissertation?
• What section of your dissertation do you want to focus on in the consultation?
• What aspect of your writing do you want to discuss in the consultation?

You must provide some detail here to make effective use of the appointment i.e. you cannot answer n/a, don't know etc. We may contact you for further clarification. If you do not provide enough detail, we may cancel the booking and offer it to another student.

All consultations are are at UK BST time; convert to your time zone here.

These consultations will be held via Teams which you can access through your student account. You will receive further information about how the consultation will run and attending it 1-2 days before your consultation.