ThinkWrite - helping reduce the pain and fear of writing
ThinkWrite™ is a suite of flexible and affordable training courses that help research students and academics develop effective written and oral communication skills.
The growing suite of ThinkWrite courses has established a solid reputation for enabling a wide range of people engaged in research to build confidence in all aspects of communication. In 2008-2009 almost 1000 participants attended courses, and less than 10 expressed any sense of dissatisfaction. Many people explicitly stated that ThinkWrite courses were the most helpful and enjoyable courses they had ever attended.
Participants have ranged from Post-graduate students to senior academics and team leaders, and courses are frequently booked both by central training co-ordinators and by individual departments.
For more information, or to book a course, phone Veronica on
+44 (0)117 370 6320 or email 
See below for details of ThinkWrite courses:
Conference abstracts and Posters
You are in the middle of some good research and want to tell colleagues. Taking a poster to an academic conference is an excellent way of displaying your work and networking. This ThinkWrite course will enable you to write a targeted conference abstract and build goal-orientated posters.
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Quality Papers
ThinkWrite's most booked course: You have almost finishing a piece of research, you have your data and are ready to write a paper. Quality papers will help you advance your career by maximising the chance of publishing your work in the academic journal of your choice. The course lets you set strategical goals within the new Research Excellence Framework (REF).
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Planning and writing your thesis
Are you half way through your PhD or Masters course and wondering how you will ever collect your ideas into a thesis? Or are you coming towards the end of your grant and in need of advice on how to make the best use of limited time? ThinkWrite: My Thesis will help you project-manage the writing process so that the document meets university requirements without wasting time.
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Writing targeted grant proposals
Winning a grant is not easy, and grant writing always carries a distinct element of risk. It is, however, an essential part of academic life. This course helps participants improve their chance of succes by carefully targeting the right funding body with the right ideas. It shows how to develop an efficient grant-writing process that can minimise the time taken and leave you free to get on with your work, or write another grant.
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Speaking with confidence
Most training days in speaking let participants find their weaknesses, give them some tips and then send them away. This course is different. Here participants are encouraged to return to a series of two-hour training sessions, spread out over a number of months. Each time they attend, the participants present a short speech that aims to fulfil specific goals-vocal variety, clear structure in the speech, confident body-language etc.
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Peer review with purpose
You have published a few papers, and now journal editors have started asking you to help them out by reviewing other people's submissions. You will be aware that peer review is a critical part of academic life, but also fraught with difficulties. ThinkWrite's peer review helps you identify the different roles that peer reviewers can play and lets you approach your next review with greater confidence.
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Writing books: Message, Structure and Market
Are you hoping to write a book? This course let you take your basic ideas and information, and organise them so that the book flows well, has no repetition and misses out none of the important points. It introduces you to contracts and encourages you to think about marketing opportunities.
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Reflective writing
Reflective writing is an assessed part of some courses. It is also a valuable method of helping individuals think about their work and their lives. This ThinkWrite course introduces you to various tools that can aid reflective practice.
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Science writing for popular publication
Publically funded science requires public excitement in science. This can be enabled if scientists can introduce the public to some of the complexities, uncertainties and possibilities of science using normal language and formats. For academic scientists, this is not always easy. Having spent years developing writing that conforms to academic styles and structures, communicating outside their immediate peer-group requires a rethink. This course helps you break out of the academic box and see how to place work in public media.
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