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Winter 2013 WORKSHOPS
Workshops are co-sponsored by the Rackham Graduate School.

Grants and Fellowship Workshop for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
Alan Hogg
Thursday, January 24
12:00-1:30 in the West Conference Room

This workshop will provide an overview of writing grant and fellowship applications in the sciences. We will start with an overview of resources to identify funding opportunities, and move through meeting application requirements, how to develop and write components of a proposal, and how to avoid common errors in proposal writing, finishing with the reviewer’s perspective when evaluating proposals.

Alan Hogg has taught at the Sweetland Center for Writing since 2008 and specializes in writing in the sciences. His PhD is in atmospheric chemistry, and he has worked in neurobiology and archaeological conservation. He is also a freelance science writer.

Academic Writing in the Social Sciences & Humanities
Jamie L. Jones
Wednesday, February 6
12:30-2:00 in the West Conference Room

This workshop is designed to help graduate students identify and meet the challenges of academic writing in the Social Sciences and Humanities.  This workshop will offer practical suggestions on how to:

• Contextualize, frame, and test an effective argument
• Strengthen the structure of an argument
• Identify writing conventions in your discipline
• Situate your work within the existing scholarship of your field
• Write with clarity and precision at the level of sentence, paragraph, and section
• Solicit and respond to feedback from advisers and peers

This workshop will be useful for Social Science and Humanities graduate students writing seminar papers, dissertations, conference papers and articles.

Jamie Jones teaches in the English Department, Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, and the Sweetland Center for Writing.

Writing Persuasive Personal Statements
Paul Barron
Monday, February 25
11:00-12:30 in the Common Room

This session considers personal statements as a form of argument and focuses on their underlying rhetoric. The workshop will:
• Review examples of calls for proposals and decode their language to see more clearly how best to respond
• Construct general principles about audiences for statements of purpose and how to write to meet their needs
• Offer tips on easy ways of preparing to write and enrich the statement
• Share exercises on how to conceive of the statement as an argument
• Consider what UM statistics say about why proposals are rejected
• Review a list of things (and words) to avoid in statements of purpose

This workshop will be useful for any graduate student applying for fellowships, grants, or other opportunities whose applications require some form of statement of purpose.  It will not address how to identify grant or fellowship opportunities.

Paul Barron teaches a variety of writing courses in the English Department, Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, and the Sweetland Center for Writing, where he also serves as co-director of the Dissertation Writing Institute.

Academic Writing in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Disciplines
Alan Hogg
Monday, March 18
11:00-12:30 in the West Conference Room

This workshop will provide an overview of writing at a professional level in the sciences. The information discussed will apply equally to journal papers, dissertations, and other graduate level writing. We will cover drafting and revising techniques, discuss how to best target your audience, go over the structure of scientific writing, and focus — at a sentence and paragraph level — on what your reader needs from your writing.

Alan Hogg has taught at the Sweetland Center for Writing since 2008 and specializes in writing in the sciences. His PhD is in atmospheric chemistry, and he has worked in neurobiology and archaeological conservation. He is also a freelance science writer.

Effective Writing Plans and Goals
Shelley Manis
Tuesday, March 26
1:00-2:30 in the West Conference Room

Balancing the demands of writing with the array of other graduate school responsibilities—planning discussion sections, building syllabi, grading, acting as a research assistant, reading for classes, being a diligent citizen of your home department, etc.—can seem overwhelming.  The good news is, it can be done, and it can be done reasonably. This workshop focuses on how to develop productive academic writing habits. The purpose is to instruct participants how to plan a project, set goals, and meet them, and students should leave the workshop with their own writing plans in place. We will discuss specific approaches to:

• Understanding your individual writing needs
• Determining appropriate form and scope of projects based on purpose, audience, and time constraints
• Breaking projects into manageable stages
• Setting reasonable, achievable goals
• Time management (especially working effectively with limited time)
• Moving back and forth between research and writing
• Moving back and forth between projects
• Building in accountability
• Making the most of peer groups
• Incorporating feedback for revision

Shelley Manis teaches at the Sweetland Center for Writing, where she also serves as the new media specialist and as an advisor to Minor in Writing students.

Writing Your Way Through the Dissertation
Louis Cicciarelli
Wednesday, April 10
11:00-12:30 in the West Conference Room

While the dissertation is the final achievement of your graduate education, writing the dissertation is a process few face without struggle.  Little prepares graduate students for the enormity of writing these extended and original academic arguments.  This workshop will consider how writers can better manage writing their dissertations, and in fact, use writing as a way through the whole process.  The workshop will offer strategies that address writing practice, work routines, and divisions of labor.  This workshop will also present approaches to writing issues that dissertators in particular encounter, including: clarifying dissertation expectations, audience and working with committees, and the expanded role of revision for dissertators.  The workshop is intended for writers from all disciplines who are in the midst of writing their dissertations and in search of strategies and approaches that can help advance their writing practice.

Topics include:
• clarifying expectations of a successful dissertation
• audience and working with committees
• reflective mapping strategies
• best writing practices for dissertators

Louis Cicciarelli teaches writing in the English Department, Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, and the Sweetland Center for Writing, where he also serves as co-director of the Dissertation Writing Institute.