Please find descriptions and registration links for the events offered in Spring 2025 below.
Dissertation Acceleration & Navigation Group (D.A.N.G.)
The Dissertation Acceleration and Navigation Group is a week of focused and dedicated writing time designed to jumpstart the dissertation writing process. If you have passed your proposal and want help jumpstarting, progressing or finishing your dissertation, we can help!
January 2024 DANG attendees have reported an average of 24 pages drafted during the event.
When: Jan. 13 – Jan. 17, 8:45 a.m. – 4:15 p.m.
Where: Student Success Center
We will have structured writing time with scheduled breaks before we break for lunch (provided). The afternoon sessions will pick back up on with another presentation on an associated topic, sometimes from outside guests, before launching back into structured writing time. Each day will end with getting organized, reflecting on successes, and creating a plan for the next day.
GradsWrite Groups
GradsWrite writing groups are writing groups for graduate students where you can meet to talk about your writing goals, share ideas with others, and spend time writing with the accountability that a writing group offers. We will be running several meeting times each week and you can join any meeting times that fit your schedule. Please sign up and select the best times that fit your schedule at the link below.
GradsWork Groups
GradsWork Monday night and select Saturday morning sessions are drop in work session where graduate students can get out of their offices, homes, coffee shops, or normal work space and be in community with other graduate students. Whether you are working on dissertations/theses, assignments for coursework, conference proposals/papers, article drafts or revisions, teaching lessons, or grading, all writers and projects are welcome.
When: Mondays, Jan. 27-May 5, 5:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.* and
Saturday, February 1, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Saturday, March 1, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 5, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
*Please note there will be no GradsWork Session on Monday, March 24th for Spring Break.
Where: Writing Center space in the Student Success Center
What to expect: We will invite participants to share goals at the beginning of the session, then work quietly and independently for the duration of the session. No general writing instruction will be provided at the sessions. We will invite participants to report progress and/or future goals at the end of the session.
No registration necessary! Please feel free to drop in.
GradsLearn Series
The Writing Center, in collaboration Campus Writing Program, will be hosting a 4-part GradsLearn series from Feb. 25 – Mar. 18. Each week, one speaker will present on topics related to graduate research and writing processes. Lunch provided.
Learn how to use the library’s research resources and how to keep track of those resources in your writing process. Great for grad writers beginning the research process or working on literature reviews and feeling overwhelmed with keeping their research organized.
Speaker: Kimberly Moeller, Instructional Librarian, from our Library Information Service
When: Tuesday, February 25, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Where: Conley House
Register here.
At this GradsLearn presentation, learn how to vary your sentence structure and improve transitions in your writing. And, as bonus content, learn how AI can aid in your research and writing process. Great for grad writers who have hit a bump, who want to try AI but have been apprehensive, and writers for whom English is a second language.
Speaker: Dr. Christy Goldsmith, Associate Director of the Campus Writing Program
When: Tuesday, March 4, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Where: Conley House
Register here.
Learn about the writing process and how to organize your writing with the academic writing structures expected in graduate academic writing. We’ll cover prewriting, drafting, and revision with a focus on organization, flow, clarity, and cohesion from the whole paper down to the paragraph level. Great for grad writers at any stage in the writing process.
When: Tuesday, March 11, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Where: Conley House
Register here.
Dive deep into the revision process with this workshop and learn how to revise your academic writing at the sentence level for clarity. We’ll focus on academic language issues including subject-verb agreement, parallel structure, verb tenses, passive voice, and pronoun antecedents. Great for all grad writers learning to write in academic written English.
Speaker: Nate Fackler, Graduate Writing Consultant, Writing Center
When: Tuesday, March 18, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Where: Conley House
Register here.
Teaching & Research Statements
The Writing Center, in collaboration with the MU Graduate School, will host an introduction and 2 workshops as part of the Teaching and Research Statement three-part series. The first presention will introduce writers to the teaching and research statement documents. The following 2 workshops will focus on looking at writers’ drafts of these documents & providing feedback on these documents. These workshops will be helpful to graduate students who have a draft of each of these statements and would like outside feedback as they continue revising these drafts.
Getting Started: An Introduction to the Teaching & Research Statement documents
The Getting Started presentation will focus on introducing graduate students to teaching and research statements, their purposes, their differences, and their potential drafting processes.
When: Friday, February 21, 2025, 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Where: Townsend 111F (GradHub)
Workshopping the Teaching Statement
If you have already begun drafting your statement and would like feedback on your draft, please bring it to the workshop! We will begin by offering a structure for helpful feedback on these particular statements and then will break into groups for real-time feedback.
When: Friday, February 28, 2025, 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Where: Townsend 111F (GradHub)
Workshopping the Research Statement
If you have already begun drafting your statement and would like feedback on your draft, please bring it to the workshop! We will begin by offering a structure for helpful feedback on these particular statements and then will break into groups for real-time feedback.
When: Friday, March 7, 2025, 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Where: Townsend 111F (GradHub)
Thesis & Dissertation Formatting Workshops
The Writing Center will host 3 thesis and dissertation formatting workshops in Spring 2025.
These workshops will walk graduate writers through the formatting guidelines from the MU Graduate School and will demonstrate how to set up the thesis/dissertation document according to those guidelines. Participants should plan to bring their own laptops (to the in-person workshops) and documents and should already have Microsoft Word downloaded to their device.
Please note: As the focus for this workshop is formatting, no writing instruction will be provided.
When, where, and how to register:
Friday, April 4, 2025, 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Townsend 111F (GradHub);
Tuesday, April 15, 2025, 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m., Townsend 111F (GradHub)
Thursday, May 1, 2025, 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m., Zoom
Finals Week Writing Retreat
The Writing Center, in collaboration with the MU Graduate School, will host a Finals Week Writing Retreat. This is an extension of our GradsWork weekly sessions, above. Lunch is provided to the registrants. We do ask that attendees pre-register at our link below, and are able to commit to the full writing day.
Please note: This retreat, like our GradsWork Sessions, are quiet spaces to work in community with other graduate writers; no general writing instruction will be provided at the sessions.