The pandemic presented a variety of challenges for graduate student writers, and many now find themselves 1-2 years behind in their lab work and corresponding publications. We would like to offer graduate student writing workshops during the Spring and Summer 2023 terms to help boost students’ productivity and get them back on track with their writing and publications. The workshops would be modeled on TC 610: Technical and Professional Communication for Graduate Students. This course is designed for graduate students who are producing a significant piece of writing and/or oral presentation(s) and who wish to refine their skills as academic and professional communicators.

One component of TC 610 is a weekly workshop, during which students work together to improve their writing and their classmates’ writing by providing feedback; the course instructors facilitate this process. During the workshops, students apply writing principles learned during lectures and one-on-one meetings. The workshops are also an excellent opportunity for students to support one another as they grow more comfortable with academic and professional writing processes.

We propose offering writing workshops this spring and summer to help engineering graduate students improve their writing and presentation skills, specifically, skills and techniques for creating high-level written documents: e.g., dissertations, proposals, articles, and presentations. We would use a portion of the course content from TC 610, but much of the workshop time would be spent reviewing students’ writing and providing feedback for revision.