Writers’ Retreat – Writers’ Development Programme

Writers’ Retreat (Part of the Writers’ Development Programme), NUI Galway

Facilitator: Professor Sarah Moore, Associate Vice President Academic, Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of Limerick
Time / Date / Venue: 9.30am, Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 June, CA243 (BIS Suite, 2nd floor), J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics, NUI Galway.

Pre-registration required!

The next session of the Writers’ Development Programme will be a 2-day Writers’ Retreat facilitated by Professor Sarah Moore, University of Limerick. The focus of the Retreat is on producing quality written work ready for submission and publication (see below for details). It will take place on-site at NUI Galway from 9.30am on Monday 18 June to 5.00pm on Tuesday 19 June.

The Retreat is open to all academic and research staff of the Institute for Business, Social Science and Public Policy, the College of Business, Public Policy and Law, and the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies, NUI Galway. The Retreat is not open to PhD students. Participants do not need to have attended the previous sessions to take part in the Retreat.

If you would like to attend, please send the following information to valerie.parker@nuigalway.ie by Monday 11 June at the latest:

Name
Job title (Academic / Post Doc / Research Assistant etc.)
Discipline
School
College
Research Institute
Email

Please note that numbers are limited to 20, so if you do with to participate, please email Valerie as soon as possible.

This writers’ retreat will be a collaborative academic writing development experience for academics and researchers.

Some participants will have participated in a previous retreat, and others will be new to the experience. All will attend with the goal of preparing a paper for submission to a peer reviewed journal, (or an equivalent writing-related goal). The purpose of the retreat is to provide intensive supported time, space and facilitation for accelerating the achievement of writing goals, and to develop writing-related self-awareness so that participants can establish more positive and productive writing habits and strategies in the longer term.

Along with intensive tracts of writing, the experience will be punctuated by a series of workshops with the following themes:

• Getting started, setting goals and creating writing momentum: how to initiate effective writing slots
• Outline, structure, sequence and coherence in academic writing: how to create effective frameworks and structures for your writing
• Fluency, creativity, productivity and generativity in academic writing: how to ensure that your writing is genuinely creative and generative
• The dynamics of feedback on your writing: how to seek and use feedback
• Effective conversations about your writing: how to talk about your writing with a view to developing and enhancing it
• Dealing with destructive or insurmountable feedback: how to respond to negative perspectives on your work
• Effective interactions with editors, responding to journal reviewers, and revising work with the benefit of feedback
• Time and other obstacles – developing effective longer term writing strategies: how to create meaningful writing targets and give rise to writing achievements

The remaining time will be used for writing – some of this will be plenary writing, where we all write together in the same space, and some of it will be solitary. The patterns and rhythms of the writing slots and times will be discussed in more detail on arrival.

WRITING REQUIREMENTS

• Be as prepared as you can possibly be to ‘write – up’ a single piece of academic writing (e.g. a journal article, book chapter)
• If planning a journal article, have a ‘target journal’ in mind, preferably having discussed this with an academic mentor in advance of the retreat. Bring copies of journal papers that have appeared in your target journal along with notes for contributors, or anything that will provide useful guidelines for the structuring of your work
• Bring a ‘pack’ of useful literature that you’ll need in the writing of your piece – but be selective!
• Try to be prepared enough not to have to access the internet or return to your office at any time during the week (However, internet access will be available in a main area for those who do need it)
• Bring your own laptop (Don’t bring printers – there’ll be a central printing area with plenty of paper, ink, etc.)

Pre registration required!