DWLresearch

On 5 th July the University of Nottingham is hosting a Postgraduate Research Conference open to all postgraduate researchers from the East Midlands universities. Attending conferences is a key part of postgraduate life. Whether as a delegate or a speaker, conferences are a way to raise your profile and meet others working in your discipline. Often participation in a conference can lead to publication or to offers of collaborative work. Therefore it is a good idea to get experience in a friendly and interdisciplinary environment. The Postgraduate Researcher Conference offers you a chance to practice your presentation skills in a supportive environment. It also provides an opportunity to hone your networking skills and meet other students from across the region. For all the benefits that virtual networks can bring, it is important to remember that face-to-face networking with your peers is also valuable. The day will run in a conference format and cover a wide range of topics. T...

It can be difficult as a busy postgraduate student to think beyond your upgrade or final submission of your thesis. However, giving your post-Phd career some thought is time well spent and will help you plan ahead as much as possible. Perhaps you have changed your mind about the career you would like to pursue and are unsure how to make the transition. Maybe you are unsure which skills are important to your future employability. The Academic Practice Unit at Leicester offers a number of careers workshops tailored specifically to postgraduate students. The courses listed below are open to postgraduate students of all colleges. The full list of workshops offered can be found here . Dates for your diary! 30 March Changing Your Career 8 May The Skills Employers Want 1 June Employability Skills Boot Camp 20 June ...

Following the recent GSMZ workshop, here are a few posts which might be of help to attendees and other would-be bloggers: Posting your work in progress on research blogs ( Vitae ) Writing for blogs ( Andy Coverdale ) On collaborative blogging as a scholarly activity ( Ernesto Priego ) 'Social Media: Friend or Foe?' (Leicester) provides plenty of advice on copyright issues. The blogroll (right-hand side) has recently been updated, but I would welcome your own suggestions in the comments below. If any of you have started blogging since the workshop, let me know! It would be good to put together a list of Leicester postgraduate bloggers.

The writing process can sometimes be lonely for postgraduates. You might be spending more time working from home and having less contact with fellow students. Or you might feel like the only person struggling with a problem over writing methods and techniques. A supportive online community has emerged on Twitter under the hashtag #AcWri. Dr Jeremy Segrott describes how #AcWri aimed ‘to bring together people who were engaged in academic writing to discuss some of key challenges, techniques/strategies that can help get published, and to generally provide a forum and way of connecting people engaged in the common - yet often fairly isolated business of writing for publication.’ #AcWri is the legacy of the #AcBoWriMo community which was initiated last November by Dr Charlotte Frost . #AcBoWriMo stood for ‘Academic book writing month’, but it was adopted by postgraduate students and academics engaged in all types of writing: journal articles, thesis chapters, and research proposals. I...