When you’re writing essays, or articles, or your thesis, what’s your style? What do you think your reader makes of it? Do you use lots of abstract verbs? Is your writing personal? Impersonal? Do you even think of your academic writing as having a style? This full-day workshop will examine how adopting techniques from non-academic writing and creative styles can enhance your academic writing. The morning session will examine how to read as writers, considering ways this can broaden the choices we make about our own style. We’ll address how to communicate abstract concepts, and we’ll consider the relationship between narrative structure and voice. And we’ll go back to basics with paraphrasing, approaching it as a matter of voice. The afternoon session will be all about applying ideas and techniques to our own writing.  

The workshop is for participants from all disciplines. You will be asked to submit (a week in advance of the workshop) a single page of your writing, and an abstract of your thesis. This will help the facilitator to focus the guided writing activities that will run in the afternoon. 

By the end of the workshop you will have: 

1. Considered your own style of academic writing 
2. Examined the relationship between writer and reader 
3. Understood the benefits of reading as a writer 
4. Learned how techniques used in non-academic writing can be adopted in academic writing, especially useful when communicating abstract concepts 
5. Considered the relevance of narrative techniques to academic writing 
6. Addressed effective paraphrasing as a matter of voice