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 found #AcWri helped with my motivation as my own thesis deadline loomed. Stating my daily goals for writing and editing helped to organise my thoughts and it was always reassuring to know others were in the same boat.
You can find more discussion of the original #AcBoWriMo initiative at PhD2Published. There’s also plenty of writing tips and techniques on The Thesis Whisperer.
#AcWri live chats take place every Thursday at 6pm (GMT). More information on the community and summaries of past discussions can be found here and here.
The hashtag in use on Twitter