In-person workshops

Connect with colleagues

Identify what's stopping you

Feel better about writing

Information is everywhere. If you want to learn anything you can ask Dr Google and get, at the very least, enough information to get you started. Academic writing is no different — there is no shortage of blog posts and books and courses that will teach you a step-by-step process for getting it done.

For years I also taught a writing process. In fact, I still teach it. But what I also know, as a coach, is that for many people a process isn't enough. People love my training courses and feel inspired to take action on the day of the event; however, I've no doubt that when they get back to their desk and the rest of the real world, many still struggle to find time to write, to say no to requests on their time and to overcome the fear of rejection to submit their document.

That is why my workshops are a blend of teaching and coaching. I will give you a step-by-step process to follow when writing your paper. But I will also help you overcome the emotional hurdles that result in writer's block. This is actually the work you need to do but that is rarely addressed in the world of academia.

I prefer to run these workshops in person because I want participants to do the work. It is easy to hide behind a computer screen or multitask and think that you'll revisit the materials 'later'. But later never comes and the opportunity is missed. Instead, together, you will connect with your peers and actually try the techniques that I teach, so that you can hit the ground running when you get back to your office.

What workshops do you offer?

Below are the outlines of workshops I currently deliver. I am also happy to create customised events for your institution.

How do I book a workshop?

If you would like to get some training at your organisation, please contact me today.

Many academic staff members and graduate students find that when they finally get to the computer to work on their journal article or thesis, they don't know what to write. Some people find a blank page (or screen) daunting and rush to fill it with a stream-of-consciousness brain dump. Or they avoid writing altogether by finding something else to do.

When they finally have some text on the page, it is often poorly structured because they have not thought about who the document is for and what its purpose is. Deep down they believe that they are an imposter so their draft is more focused on what other researchers have said rather than being confident about their own research findings.

In this workshop, you will learn how to get it right from the start, by considering your reader and purpose, planning the content and creating text that flows logically. You will create an outline for your document so that you feel excited to start writing.

By the end of the workshop, you will be able to:
• analyse a document’s audience and purpose
• create a detailed document plan
• write a draft that follows a logical structure.

Duration: 2-4 hours
Delivery: In person
Cost: $2500+GST plus travel from Canberra
No. of participants: Up to 30

Once the draft is done, the most common next step is for authors to fiddle with it indefinitely, out of a fear that it's 'not ready'. For journal articles in particular, this is a problem because there is usually no deadline. Before you know it, months or even years have passed and the paper remains unpublished. And by then your motivation for finishing it has dwindled and you have many other half-finished papers that also need your attention.

In this workshop, you will learn how to edit your writing efficiently and then have the confidence to submit it, whether it be to your supervisor, co-authors or journal editors. You will learn how to tighten up your draft and say what you mean, without forsaking accuracy. You will also learn about the copyediting and proofreading stages of the publication process.

By the end of this workshop, you will be able to:
• look at your own work objectively
• apply simple principles to make your text a pleasure to read
• copyedit and proofread your manuscript.

Duration: 2-4 hours
Delivery: In person
Cost: $2500+GST plus travel from Canberra
No. of participants: Up to 30

Every week I get enquiries from students, just as their thesis is due for submission, who want to hire an editor to help them.

Unfortunately, they haven't allowed enough time and/or don't have the budget to hire a professional.

It’s great that there is more awareness of what professional editors can do. But most academics and graduate students don’t understand how much time it takes to read something carefully, let alone edit it. In addition, because of the time required, most people underestimate how much it costs to have something professionally edited. I also know that a lot of students just don’t have the budget to hire someone.

It's not their fault. Even though publishing is a huge part of being an academic, there are few universities who teach these skills to their staff and students.

I’ve taught editing for almost 20 years. To help students prepare their thesis as best they can for submission, I have created an in-person, hands-on workshop, specifically teaching students how to edit their own thesis.

This is a one-day event with me in the room. Participants would bring a completed thesis chapter draft (anything other than a methods chapter) to work on. By the end of the day, they will have the confidence to actually do some simple editing steps on their thesis.

Of course, it is not possible to teach someone everything they need to know about editing in the space of a day. My aim is to give students an understanding of the process and some simple tools they can use to check the structure of their chapter, polish the sentences, copyedit for consistency and proofread to find typos.

Participants will gain an understanding of just how much time and effort it takes to edit a thesis. This means that those who have the right budget will know to start looking for a professional editor early in the process. On the other hand, those doing it by themselves will understand that they need to start sooner rather than later if they want to improve their draft before submission.

Duration: One day
Delivery: In person
Cost: $4000+GST plus travel from Canberra
No. of participants: 10-30 (the smaller the group, the more individual feedback I can give)

Thank you for your wonderful workshop ‘Getting the story right: Writing the first draft’. I have been suffering from ‘Can't get started’ disease and your workshop helped me immensely. What I really found helpful was the workbook exercises alongside your reassurance that free writing and bullet points are okay to begin with. I went home after your workshop and wrote out the entire first draft of my literature review. It was in bullet point form, but once I did this I was then able to start writing sentences and plugging in my evidence. This was such a relief to me! And my supervisor was incredibly impressed with my progress at our next meeting. So thank you from the bottom of my heart and the top of my brain — you were able to connect the two for me.
LM, PhD student, Newcastle

We have been offering Malini’s workshops to our HDR students for three years now, and they have been extremely popular. Students gain a lot from the structured process and opportunity to apply specific techniques to their own writing. Malini workshops provide participants with a clear writing process based on her extensive experience that helps students reflect on their own writing style and identify structured opportunities for improvement.
HDR Education Coordinator, Adelaide

Contact me today