Academic Support

Wednesday & Thursday Workshops

studying

Weekly Wednesday and Thursday Workshops (Online 2:00-3:00PM Atlantic Time)

The Writing Centre’s Weekly Wednesday Workshops are a series of synchronous sessions on a variety of important topics in academic writing. The sessions are led by experienced Writing Centre staff members and run every Wednesday and Thursday from 2:00-3:00PM Atlantic Time (with the exception of a few cross-listed sessions marked with an asterisk that are 90 minutes in length). The sessions are free to join, and no pre-registration is required. You can join the session through this link. 

If you are interested in any of the topics we have covered in the past, please check out our Online Resource Guide or email Kala Hirtle for video recordings.

Fall 2024 Schedule

Thursday, Oct. 24 2:00 – 3:30PM Writing Quickly in Class: Effective In-Class Writing Strategies Many classes across disciplines require students to write within the classroom or exam space. This might be for a short-answer quiz, an in-class essay, or a reflective response. This 90-minute workshop will review strategies for in-class writing tasks to ensure students can write with clarity and confidence.
Wednesday, Oct. 30 2:00 – 3:30PM Critical Thinking for Research [Cross-listed with GradPD] Successful academic writing requires the ability to think critically about the questions you want to ask in your research, the materials you encounter in trying to answer those questions, and the way you incorporate those materials into your own work. This workshop will give students the opportunity to practice asking critical questions to improve their academic research and writing skills.
Thursday, Nov. 7 2:00 – 3:00PM Putting Words Together: Sentences and Clauses Learn about the different ways words and clauses can be joined into sentences and how to use these different kinds of sentences in your writing. This workshop will also include a discussion of active and passive constructions. 
Wednesday, Nov. 20 2:00 – 3:00PM Putting Words Together: Paragraphs Strong academic documents are built on strong paragraphs. This session will focus on deconstructing drafts at the paragraph level to rebuild stronger papers. We will focus on developing ideas within the paragraph unit with emphasis on crafting strong topic sentences, developing cohesion and concision, varying sentence structures, and building logical flow and transitions. The workshop will conclude with an independent workshopping activity.
Thursday. Nov. 28 2:00 – 3:30PM Finding your Voice: Building confidence as a scholarly writer [cross-listed GradPD] This workshop aimed at undergraduate students identifies the qualities and characteristics of traditional academic writing and offers participants techniques and strategies for finding their own unique academic voice. The workshop will ask participants to reflect on and apply the knowledge presented through a short, independent writing activity. For this, they should bring a paragraph or two of recent academic writing to the session. Participants will leave with tangible resources as well as techniques to further develop and hone their academic voice.
Wednesday, Dec. 4 2:00 – 3:30PM Writing the Literature Review [GradPD] A literature review attempts to analyze what scholars have written about a given topic or question. Comprehensively and critically reviewing the literature allows authors to not only situate their own work but to persuade readers that the work is necessary and worthwhile. This workshop will focus on structuring the literature review using writing strategies to summarize and synthesize the literature while maintaining or establishing your own voice.