King's postgraduate research students and postdoctoral research staff can access and book places on the CDS training courses through our online system Skills Forge. For guidance about course bookings, see Booking & Course Availability.
Academic Writing: Focus on Feedback (CRSD76)
This workshop, delivered jointly between Brunel, Glasgow and King’s, invites participants to home in on feedback in its various forms as both giver and receiver. From peer review to exchanging drafts with a friend, this session explores general tips on different types of writing, strategies for providing peers with constructive and useful feedback as well as working with feedback on your own work, how to solicit good feedback through knowing your audience, being ‘correct’ vs. producing good writing and emotional vs. practical reactions and responses to feedback.
Blogging for Researchers (CRSD74)
Have you ever thought about writing a blog, but not sure where to start? Are you curious about what blogging could do for your research, or your career? Or would you like to develop your online presence, and think blogging could be part of the solution? If these questions resonate with you please join us for this short workshop to explore and discuss the qualities that make blogs a popular communication format, identify the steps anyone can take to conceptualize, plan, deliver and promote their first blog, and consider the positive implications of blogging for you individually.
Clear & Concise Academic Writing (PGR269)
This course will offer many tips for writing clearly and concisely. These tips will help you cut 10–30 per cent of the words in your current drafts – and communicate your ideas more clearly. It will cover topics such as: cutting excess words; making the verb work; letting the argument flow; avoiding ambiguity; and using an appropriate tone. We will look at various examples of good and bad practice. The session will include a lecture and some interactive editing exercises.
Collaborative Writing for Research Staff and PGRs (CRSD78)
This workshop delivered jointly between Glasgow and King’s focuses on the practice of collaborative writing. Participants will be invited to consider the differences between working together and working individually at different stages throughout the writing process, identify the positive impacts and challenges associated with collaboration, and work towards practical strategies to make future collaborative work a success.
Combatting Writer’s Block (CRSD39)
This course is for you if you are stuck trying to write a grant, paper, or just need to get going in a hurry. Come and get motivated in a judgement-free setting. You will learn about writer’s block and its causes, consider the thoughts and behaviours that can contribute to writer's block, discuss strategies in overcoming writer’s block and gain support and share your achievements with your peers. This course is aimed at research staff who are writing academic papers, grant proposals, monographs/books.
Fundamentals of Good Writing (PGR302)
This course will look at the key writing elements needed to write clearly, accurately and elegantly. We will look at the components of good style; common difficulties and areas of uncertainty in grammar, syntax, and punctuation; good use of the verb; how to recognise bad style and avoid it; the nature of English vocabulary and how to make best use of it.
Defining and Achieving Your Writing Goals (CRSD75)
We can’t always rely on inspiration to motivate our writing. Writing usually requires focus and specific goals – but working out the most efficient ways to set your writing goals and understanding how to adapt those goals can be challenging. You may find that you need more flexibility than a single goal-setting strategy to help you make the progress you want to see in your writing. This workshop, delivered jointly between Brunel and King’s, will explore various goal setting techniques, some myths around the writing process, and help identify goal-setting strategies that are effective for you.
How to Construct an Argument (PGR303)
This course helps you to develop clarity and logic by looking at what constitutes good argumentation. We examine the requisite vocabulary to structure and develop your thoughts; how to make transitions; how to establish hierarchies of argument; how to decide what to include and exclude; and write clearly and concisely. This course is aimed at any student wishing to hone rhetorical skills for PhD submission, and for their application in the wider world, such as publication or the workplace.
How to Write a Good Research Grant Application (for the Inexperienced Grant Writer) (PGR281)
This course is aimed at those who are starting to look for funding schemes and planning to prepare an external research grant application within the next 18–24 months or sooner. Advice will be given on how to identify appropriate funding schemes but the main focus will be on how to prepare a proposal for external funding paying particular attention to what the funders and the peer reviewers are looking for. Issues that will be covered include: where to look, and what to look for, when selecting an appropriate funding scheme; how funders make decisions and what qualities they look for in a competitive application; common reasons for failure; specific aspects of a grant application (formulating a good research idea, preparing a good project summary and rationale in support of the proposed work, presenting a credible research work plan and methodology). Tips on writing and presentation as well as how to respond to external reviewer comments will be provided. Participants will have the opportunity to interact during group exercises.
Open Access workshops:
Complying with Funders in Sciences (PGR199)
The Basics for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (PGR200)
Learn about the benefit and importance of Open Access Publishing. These sessions aim to alleviate confusion around publishing Open Access and the role of the author.
Publishing a Scientific Research Paper (PGR304)
To forge a career in science, you need to publish research papers in peer-reviewed journals. But the journal publishing system can be difficult to navigate. This course will give you insider insights from a former journal editor who knows scientific journals from many angles. You will learn how to choose a journal and get your paper through peer review, and some information on how to write and structure the paper will also be included. You will find out about innovations in peer review and publishing that could improve your publishing success, and you will get to see journals from the editor and peer reviewers’ point of view. This is an interactive course, in which you will look into the practices of the journals that are of most interest to you.
Running Effective Writing Groups (CRSD77)
Writing groups, retreats and ‘Shut Up and Write’ sessions in their various forms have become a standing feature of academic writing support. This workshop, delivered jointly between Cambridge and King’s, provides practical advice and starting points for anyone who would like to set up their own group within their department, faculty, or circle of peers more broadly. We will explore how to identify the need for a writing group and recruit members, highlight different writing group formats and trial activities and strategies to get the conversation (and the writing) started.
Writing a Literature Review for the Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences (PGR258)
Most research needs some kind of literature review, although its nature and position can vary. This session will cover different ways of handling literature reviews, while also identifying the core feature of all good literature reviews, which is to help you justify your approach, by identifying what is good, bad and missing in the literature. The session will also cover: literature searches; looking sideways at similar studies in other areas; and structuring and categorising your literature review(s). (NB We do not cover systematic reviews or coding the literature.) This session is suitable for research students in the arts, humanities and social sciences, at any stage of your PhD.
Writing a Literature Review for the Sciences (PGR259)
An integral part of research is engaging with the existing literature. At doctoral level this can be an inspiring activity as researchers interpret what has been published already. This session explores the relationship between your research and what already exists, covers the key principles of organising and critiquing published work and identifies the importance of key themes to help you structure your writing about others’ work. It is suitable for research students in the sciences at any stage of the doctorate.
Writing for Publication in the Arts & Humanities (PGR260)
This course is designed for early career researchers who have limited experience of writing about their research, as well as those who are now ready to submit research papers, journal articles or a monograph for publication. You will be introduced to the academic publishing industry; the different types of publishing, the grading of various journals, the peer review process, how publishing relates to the REF and your broader career. We will cover the stage by stage process of writing a journal article from submission to publication. Focus will be placed on writing style; how to read one’s own and other’s writing; different ways of constructing and demonstrating evidence and rhetorical styles; how to plan and write a journal (and the ways in which it is different from writing a PhD); the submission, peer review and redrafting process and how to put together a book proposal, as well as contribute to edited collections of essays. You should have a clear view of publications in mind but not necessarily a draft of an article.
Writing for Publication in the Social Sciences (PGR262)
This course is aimed at research students and early career researchers in the social sciences who have no, or limited, experience of writing for publication. The half-day session will cover issues including different ways of turning a PhD or thesis chapter into publishable work, structuring a paper, and how to find a good way of framing your paper. It will also look at how to deal with a rejection, how to deal with a revise and resubmit and how to use social media to advertise accepted papers.
Turbocharge your Writing (PGR270)
Learn the secret to high output, low stress scholarly writing, using clear and practical strategies that can greatly increase your writing productivity.
Writing Without Discipline (CRSD44)
The content of this course is suitable for individuals in any field of research who are interested in learning more about how we write, and develop new tools to help with writing. How can writing change your thinking? And how can understanding how people write, change the way you think about and approach writing? This interactive workshop uses video and face to face materials to help participants get to grips with creative writing methods and techniques to introduce new ways of building writing into your daily routine. The workshop will provide a framework for understanding how writing is constructed, discuss tools you can use to approach your writing and help you to think creatively about your writing habits.