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Information for Graduate Students

As a graduate student, you are likely facing new academic challenges. The ideas about which you are reading, thinking, and writing are becoming increasingly complex, yet you need to find clear, concise, and engaging ways to express them. You are shifting from a focus on consuming information to a focus on producing and disseminating new knowledge and insights. You are expected to be fluent in the conventions of your discipline and to produce work that is free of grammatical and spelling errors.

Academic Skills works closely with graduate students to help them develop as scholars and writers as well as teaching assistants. We hope that you will take advantage of the many services that we can offer you.

Learn more:

Services for Graduate Students

Individual Appointments

Graduate students are welcome to book a free, confidential one-on-one appointment with an Academic Skills instructor.

Synchronous video, in-person, and asynchronous appointments are available to book in the Student Experience Portal.  

Writing Conferences

You can book a free and confidential appointment to discuss any aspect of your writing. Academic Skills instructors can help you organize your ideas, outline, or upgrade your grammar skills. They can also look at partial drafts and comment on grammar, organization, and clarity.

Time Management for Graduate Students

Graduate work often involves long-term research and writing projects that have few check points along the way. It can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of what you need to accomplish and, as a result, to procrastinate your work. You can book an appointment with an Academic Skills Instructor to discuss time management problems and to create a project plan that will work for you.

Grant Applications and Personal Statements

Academic Skills provides several resources to help you as you write graduate school or grant applications. Academic Skills is not an editing or proofreading service, but our instructors can comment on the strength and clarity of your writing and organization.

We also work with the Career Centre to offer "Apply Yourself: Writing the Graduate School Personal Statement," a workshop that provides advice on what to include in personal statements as well as how to write them.

Workshops 

Fall 2022 Workshop Titles

Trent Graduate Academic Integrity: Policy and Prevention

This workshop will help graduate students protect their academic integrity by introducing them to Trent’s Graduate Academic Integrity Policy. We will discuss highlights from the policy, including definitions and penalties for infractions. We will then delve into some prevention strategies in graduate writing by using properly constructed paraphrasing, attributing techniques, and citing of sources.

Time Management for Grad Students

Need help balancing competing time pressures and commitments from a variety of sources, such as research or course work, teaching commitments, university obligations, and personal life? This workshop will help with project management skills and prioritizing through the establishment of long- and short-term goals. The process of conquering the workload will become more manageable.

Managing the Graduate Reading Load

  • Date: Thursday November 3, 2022
  • Time: 1:00 – 3:00 pm
  • Mode of delivery: Hybrid presentation 
    • In-person: SH 105 (Scott House, Traill College)
    • Online: Via Zoom - you must register to receive the zoom link
  • Register: The Student Experience Portal Events Calendar

The graduate reading load can be overwhelming. This workshop will help graduate students understand the goals of graduate reading, the key challenges of reading large volumes of text, the process of reading, and methods to deal with the graduate reading load effectively and efficiently. We will discuss note-taking strategies and some of the common pitfalls of graduate reading.

Strong Writing for Grad Students

  • Date: Thursday November 24, 2022
  • Time: 1:00 – 3:00 pm
  • Mode of delivery: Hybrid presentation 
    • In-person: SH 105 (Scott House, Traill College)
    • Online: Via Zoom - you must register to receive the zoom link
  • Register: The Student Experience Portal Events Calendar

This workshop will explore principles of strong writing to achieve progress on many writing assignments from course-based writing to research proposals and thesis writing. We will explore the writing process as an aid in clarifying the thought process. We will discuss style and flow in writing, the needs of the reader, and the basis of strong writing, the paragraph.

Winter 2023 Workshop Titles

Winter workshop details and schedule will be posted in December 2022. 

Grammar for Grad Students

Have you ever received feedback and you are not even sure what it means? What is a comma splice anyway? Then this workshop is for you! We will delve into the mysteries of English grammar to help you edit and improve your writing. We will consider topics such as: sentence structure, punctuation, subject-verb agreement, modifiers, active and passive voice, and parallel structure.

Writing about Quantitative Data for Grad Students

Are you planning on including quantitative data in your research project? Then this workshop was created for you! We will discuss how to organize your analysis for quantitative data, how to write about statistics, the best methods to visually present your data, and how to refer to figures in your writing. We will conclude with a discussion of how to explain your findings in the results and discussion section of your thesis.

Writing about Qualitative Data for Grad Students

Are you planning on including qualitative data in your research project? Then this workshop was created for you! We will discuss how to organize your analysis of qualitative data, the process of analysis, a discussion of NVivo analytic software, how to create and write about themes, the best methods to visually present your data, and how to refer to figures in your writing. We will conclude with a discussion of how to explain your findings in your thesis.

Survival Strategies for your Thesis Defence

This workshop will help graduate students understand the thesis defense process by demystifying the presentation, question period, and evaluation processes. We will discuss your thesis talk, including knowing your audience, explaining the rationale for your research, and telling your research story. We will provide strategies to handle the question period and some general survival tips.

Motivation Mondays: Graduate Students Writers’ Group

The graduate student writing group will help to develop writers with tips to improve their writing as well as create a community of writers to encourage and celebrate achievements of writing. Graduate students will be encouraged to set realistic writing goals on a weekly basis to monitor their progress and to maintain momentum with their writing. The progress reporting will be a personal assessment followed by a discussion of progress as a group.

We will be meeting every Monday (except October 10) starting on Monday, September 26 to December 5 from 10:30 to 11:30 am. 

  • Writing tip of the week - 15 minutes
  • Motivational topic - 15 minutes
  • Discussion: Goal setting - 30 minutes

Come and join us in the newly renovated Senior Common Room (SCR) at Scott House, Traill College for coffee and snacks!

Register on the Student Experience Portal Calendar

Fall 2022 Schedule - Writing and Motivation Topics

  1. September 26
    1. Pre-writing strategies: Organizing your ideas
    2. Goal setting
  2. October 3
    1. Using your outline to manage time
    2. How to build momentum: 5 steps
  3. October 17 (no session October 10 - Thanksgiving weekend) 
    1. Focusing literature reviews
    2. The motivation equation
  4. October 24
    1. Reducing wordiness
    2. Blocking your time to write
  5. October 31
    1. Integrating evidence
    2. Imposter syndrome
  6. November 7
    1. Typical moves in a research paper
    2. Overcoming academic perfectionism
  7. November 14
    1. Paragraph structures
    2. Stress and burnout in Graduate students
  8. November 21
    1. Creating cohesion
    2. 5 ways to stop negative self-talk
  9. November 28
    1. Using passive and active voice
    2. Impulsivity and distraction
  10. December 5
    1. Revision strategies: Early and late stage revision
    2. Celebrate your progress

Graduate Student Blackboard Site

An online resource for graduate students developed by Academic Skills that contains a wealth of information geared to writing at the graduate level. Topics include narrowing a topic, literature reviews, revision strategies, and motivation and procrastination. This site is available to all graduate students who have registered for a workshop or who have signed up for Motivation Mondays.

Services for Teaching Assistants

Referring Students

As a teaching assistant, you can refer students to Academic Skills for help with their math, reading, listening, writing, and grammar skills. Referrals can be made either by emailing acdskills@trentu.ca (please cc the student on the email) or by providing students with information about our services. Students can book appointments directly at www.trentu.ca/sep

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Trent University respectfully acknowledges it is located on the treaty and traditional territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg. We offer our gratitude to First Peoples for their care for, and teachings about, our earth and our relations. May we honour those teachings.

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