My Experience at a Dissertation Writers Retreat

Hello everyone,

It is now December and the snow is starting to settle onto the ground and bring festive cheer to everyone! Well, I say everyone. I know a lot of people are not a fan of the snow and cold and prefer a nice warm sunny day, but Christmas is just round the corner! Although Christmas this year is going to be very different and harder for a lot of people, I hope everyone will be safe during the holidays and enjoy the celebrations as best as they can.

What I want to talk about today is my experience at a dissertation writers retreat on December 10th to 11th, hosted by the Own Your Future, Dr Julie Jonkhans, Doug Campbell (Senior Writing Advisor/Graduate Programmer, Writing Support Centre, Workshop Facilitator) and Paul Schmidt (Associate Director,Writing Support Centre, Workshop Facilitator) at the University of Western Ontario. The dissertation writers retreats at the University of Western Ontario are usually hosted by the Writing Support Center. This time, because of COVID and the use of online platforms, the Writing Support Center is working closely with Own Your Future to organize these sessions. Own Your Future is a development program where it offers workshops, short courses and group or one on one support sessions to help graduate students develop skills that will benefit their research and academic life after grad school. I have attended a few sessions hosted by Own Your Future in the past and I found them very insightful. When I got an email notification saying they would be hosting a dissertation writers retreat in December, two thoughts came to my mind: (1) "Oh! Own Your Future is hosting it! I know it will be a good session." and (2) "This will be the perfect opportunity to start writing the introduction/literature review chapter for my PhD thesis. It will make the Spring term a lot less stressful!". After those thoughts passed, I decided to register and prepare for the retreat!

Image credit: University of Western Ontario/Own Your Future

Now a writers retreat entails, as the name suggests, focusing entirely on writing a paper, project, manuscript, thesis chapter, or proposal. Normally, in person writers retreats will be hosted in a large room where everyone sits at one desk and turns on airplane mode on their phones and computers. You want to remove any distractions and focus solely on writing. Social media, emails, text messages and phone calls all constitute as distractions that need to be removed. However, because we have moved to the virtual world, turning on airplane mode on your computer is no longer a possibility. Instead, the organizers have to hope that you are able to reframe from logging onto your emails, social media accounts and favourite procrastination websites during the writing sessions.

The writers retreat was two days long and on each day two writing sessions were organized. The first one was from 10 am to 12 pm (EST) and the second one was from 1 pm to 4 pm (EST). For a lot of people, two-three hours of constant writing sounds very intimidating, almost as if you are having to force your brain to continuously work even after you have reached a point where you need a short 5 minute break. I thought that as well before starting, but as soon as I began writing, it became easier to keep putting new information onto my Microsoft word document and think about what I need to write about for the rest of my chapter. One person attending the retreat did ask if they could follow the pomodoro technique since they normally use it to study and write in their own time. The hosts had no issues with that method since they know it is effective. They did still ask that you reframe from going on social media and your phone because it could lead to distractions that would have you take breaks longer than recommended. The entire retreat was not even about the writing sessions. Before each session, we were given short 10-minute seminar talks about the fear and motivation that comes from reviewer and supervisor comments, and how to best respond to and absorb feedback even when it is extremely critical. I found these seminar talks very interesting and really helped motivate me to start writing when the sessions began.

If you are reading this and you attend the University of Western Ontario, I would highly recommend attending a writers retreat in the future. Own Your Future and the hosts said they are planning on running more retreats. Probably monthly with everything organized over Zoom. Normally, in person retreats are held once or twice a semester but with the attendance they got for this virtual one and the strong positive feedback they got from the audience (including myself), they decided to plan for more retreats. If you want to learn more about the retreats I have left a link at the end of this blog post.

If you do not attend the University of Western Ontario, I would highly recommend checking to see if you institution offers dissertation/thesis writers retreats. If you cannot find one, then maybe you could start your own. Several of the attendees and I created a spreadsheet to start up our own writing sessions if people were interested. You would be surprised at how effective it is to write when you are with a group of people with similar goals in mind. A lot of us were not expecting to stay connected after the retreat was over so it shows how powerful working on your work with a group, and another reason why I highly recommend attending future writers retreats!

I found the retreat useful for me personally because I sometimes struggle to get into the mindset of writing about my work. Not that I do not enjoy my own work, but I have a struggle with writing and staying consistent with my writing ability and motivation. Working in an environment with others who also want to focus solely on writing and aim to complete a writing goal really helps drive you to work more and harder. I think working in groups, even if you are not all working on the same type of research or assignment, can really help give you the motivation and drive to want to write and put your work on paper. I will end by saying, you will be seeing me at the next dissertation writers retreat, and if you are from the University of Western Ontario, I hope to see you there as well :)

If you are interested in getting information about Own Your Future and learning more about what they offer, here is a link to their website: https://www.uwo.ca/ownyourfuture/

I also want to give a shout out and big thank you to Doug Campbell, Paul Schmidt and Dr Julie Jonkhans for organizing the event and making it extremely welcoming for myself and everyone involved.

See you guys next time!