Information on IAD writing retreats for research and academic staff, and a guide to running your own writing retreats. What is a writing retreat? The aim of a writing retreat is to allow researchers to use dedicated writing time to progress any project in a supportive environment. Most of the day is taken up for writing, with brief scheduled discussions to generate solutions to writing problems, develop drafts, lead to research-orientated conversations and provide feedback on writing in-progress. How do I find out about upcoming writing retreats? The IAD run regular writing retreats as part of their core programme. You can check upcoming dates for writing retreats and writing hours here: Writing support for researchers Running a writing retreat You may also be interested in running your own writing retreats and to help with this the IAD have produced a ‘Facilitators Guide’. Writing Retreat Facilitator Guide (PDF) The guide includes information and ideas around the structure of different in person retreats, the things to think about before and during the retreat and your role as facilitator. It’s a useful document for anyone thinking about running their own retreat in their School, Institute or Society. Write Fest WriteFest - An Infographic that summarises WriteFest 2020 and provides some ‘Top Tips’ for writing from home. WriteFest 2020 (PDF) Online Writing Retreats If you are looking to run online writing retreats, here are somethings to consider: The Writing Retreat Facilitators Guide is still a useful reference tool for planning and running online writing retreats. The online platforms you could use are Blackboard Collaborate, MS Teams or Zoom. Make sure you send the joining link to your participants in plenty of time, a couple of days before then follow-up with a reminder the day before. During the planning session, encourage participants to share what they are going to be working on in the text chat. As facilitator, advise participants that you will manage the timings. Telling participants when to start and finish the writing slots. It’s often useful to update participants when they have 10 minutes before the end of the session, so that they can finish up on time promptly. It’s useful to remind participants to turn off emails/phones/distractions and focus solely on writing. A padlet has been created by the IAD to share achievements and writing support – please feel free to share this with your participants and add to it: Writing Padlet If you would like more information on organising/leading writing retreats please email: Research staff and principal investigator (PI) support Contact details Email: iad.researchers@ed.ac.uk This article was published on 2024-02-26
