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
- The2is: New Graduate Research Video Competition (2021)
- Services for Teaching Assistants
Services for Graduate Students
Individual Appointments
Graduate students are welcome to book a free, confidential one-on-one appointment with an Academic Skills instructor.
Winter 2021: All appointments are currently offered remotely via phone, video, or email. Book an appointment in the Student Experience Portal.
(Log in with your Trent student credentials. Navigate the left menu and Select Peterborough Campus Appointment Bookings. Next, select Academic Skills and Book by Appointment Type. Select a synchronous phone or video appointment or an asynchronous email feedback appointment to book an available appointment in the next 14 days.)
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.
Summer Writers' Group - 2021
Let's use this summer to make progress on your writing!
The purpose of this group is to support writing and productivity, to encourage effective goal setting, and to establish accountability for graduate students writing for course work, a master's thesis or MRP, or a doctoral dissertation.The writers' group will meet weekly throughout the summer to offer a point of connection for graduate students to support student writing goals.
The meetings will be held virtually via Zoom. The first meeting will be held on Monday, May 31 from 10:00 to 11:00 am EST.
Register in the Events Calendar or email Academic Skills.
Graduate Student Virtual Writing Boot Camp, May 5, 6, 7
Calling all Trent graduate students who are planning to work on their MRP, thesis, or dissertation over the summer of 2021. Join your fellow graduate students and learn how to increase productivity as you progress with your writing.
The Writing Boot Camp will take place virtually from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm on Wednesday, May 5; Thursday, May 6; and Friday, May 7, 2021.
This is a virtual writing boot camp held via Zoom in the comfort of your own home. We will be modelling daily writing processes to promote effective and efficient writing strategies. Each day will begin with a brief workshop on a writing-related issue. Academic Skills instructors will be available to meet students individually (via Zoom or online) to discuss writing projects and creating their own writing goals. During breaks we will offer activities to promote physical and mental wellness. We will wrap up by reviewing daily goals and preparing for the next day's writing.
Register for one day or all three days. Complete this registration form.
Sample Day Schedule
9:00 - 9:30 am: Overcoming Barriers to Write and Goal Setting
9:30 - 12:00 noon: Writing on your own
Academic Skills instructors available to have one-on-one appointments to discuss goal setting and writing
12:00 - 12:30 pm: Lunch – on your own
12:30 - 1:00 pm: Virtual walk – photography competition
1:00 pm - 3:30 pm: Writing on your own
Academic Skills instructors available to have one-on-one appointments to discuss goal setting and writing
3:30 - 4:00 pm: Review of daily goals and preparing for next writing session
Workshops - Fall & Winter
Fall Workshop Titles
- Time Management for Graduate Students
- This workshop will help graduate students balance competing pressures and commitments for their time from a variety of sources, such as research or course work, teaching commitments, university obligations, and personal life. This is particularly important with remote learning. Through the establishment of long- and short-term goals the process of conquering the workload will become more manageable.
- Managing the Graduate Reading Load
- 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. Note-taking strategies and some of the common pitfalls of graduate reading will also be discussed.
- Strong Writing for Grad Students
- This workshop will explore principles of strong writing to achieve progress on many written 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. The needs of the reader will be considered to help with style and flow in writing. Some common grammar issues will also be discussed.
Winter Workshop Titles
- 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.
- Presenting and Writing about Data (Quantitative) for Grad Students
- Are you planning on including quantitative data in your research project? Then this workshop was created for you! We will discuss general thesis organization principles that will save you time and energy, 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 both the results and discussion sections of your thesis or dissertation.
- Presenting your Research for Grad Students
- You have been working on your research for what seems like ages and now you are ready to present your findings to others. We will discuss the main principles for presenting conference papers from all disciplines, how to present your research in the form of a poster presentation for a conference, and how to discuss your project in a short ‘elevator talk’ or Three-Minute Thesis format. We will focus on how to communicate difficult subjects to wider audiences by paying attention to audience, clarity and concision, and overall communication skills. As well, we will focus on presentation skills in an online environment.
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