Effective Goal Setting

6/13 @ 2PM; register here

In this webinar, designed for students in varying stages of the writing process, The Writing Center will discuss how to schedule time and keep oneself accountable to academic research and writing goals and deadlines. They will also discuss habitual writing goals and project-based goals. Participants will make a plan for completing their writing goals, breaking down long-term goals into manageable short-term goals. They will also go over some web apps that can help with this process.

 

Taking Smarter Notes

6/15 @ 11AM; register here

When doing research, many people take notes in ways that don’t help them enough. Less organized people jot down their ideas on loose papers that can easily get lost, and more organized people gather their notes into project-based books and folders that may never get consulted again when that particular project is finished. This webinar introduces participants to a particular note-taking system, the Zettelkasten, that can serve as a life-long research and learning companion. It is a way to take and store notes so that the ideas you develop over your entire career are always at hand and never get lost. Whether you are taking courses, reading for orals, or already writing your thesis or dissertation, consider the enormous long-term advantages of taking smarter notes.

 

The Academic Book Review

7/13 @ 12PM; register here

Many academic journals publish reviews of recent books in their field. These reviews are one of the most significant ways in which scholars around the world become aware of the books in question. Consequently, the academic who writes such a review plays a crucial role in shaping the preliminary judgment readers make, thereby influencing the field as a whole. In graduate school, many seminars include a book review as a writing assignment, and advanced graduate students often see them as an ideal starting place for trying to get published. In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the generic conventions of the book review. The Writing Center will also address the rhetorical and political considerations one needs to make when critiquing senior colleagues, as well as the practicalities of getting placed in a journal.

 

From Essay to Article

7/26 @ 3PM; register here

This webinar will introduce participants to the process of submitting an article to a peer-reviewed journal. It will cover issues like (1) the key elements of an article, (2) choosing the right journal, (3) understanding what editors and reviewers do after you submit (and the ways this knowledge may affect your revision choices), and (4) responding to reviewer comments if you get a “revise and resubmit.”

 

Statement of Purpose

8/14 @ 8PM; register here

Among the documents one has to craft for a PhD application, the statement of purpose is one of the trickiest to get right. On the one hand, you need to demonstrate that you have some kind of research agenda already in mind. On the other hand, you aren’t a PhD student yet, so how are you supposed to know what you are going to research? This webinar helps participants understand the expectations of the readers they are writing for and how to strike a good balance between personal narrative and academic certainty.

 

Cover Letter

8/16 @ 8PM; register here

The academic job cover letter is a crucial document in any candidate’s application material; often, it makes the first and most lasting impression on members of a search committee. In this webinar, participants will learn how to approach the writing of their cover letter in a way that makes a coherent and compelling argument about their suitability as a candidate rather than simply repeating information contained in their CV.