Hot Topics: November is Academic Writing Month

Did you know that November is Academic Writing Month? In this blog Sarah Allsop invites you to join this international initiative to commit to writing this November and build a writing habit for the future.

What is Academic Writing Month?

Based on National Novel Writing Month, since 2011, Academic Writing Month (also known as “AcWriMo”) has run as an annual internet-based writing event during which participants challenge themselves to meet a self-set writing goal during the month of November. AcWriMo was set up in 2011 by Charlotte Frost (founder and director of PhD2Published). Several institutions now have annual writing months or ‘WriteFests’ and you can follow the movement on social media using the hashtag ‘#AcWriMo’ or ‘#AcWri’.

PhD2Published highlight 4 main aims of the month:

• To think about how we write,
• Form a valuable support network for our writing practice,
• Build better strategies and habits for the future,
• And maybe – just maybe – get stuff done!

How do you get involved?

AcWriMo is a personal journey and commitment to writing, so how you get involved is up to you. The concept is that you set yourself a writing goal and then can access advice and support from others also taking part.

There are 6 basic rules:

1. Decide on your goal – a paper, thesis, project etc.
2. Declare it – write it down to help to stay accountable
3. Draft a strategy – have a plan of how much time and when you are going to commit to writing
4. Discuss your progress – let others know you are doing writing month, again to help your motivation and accountability
5. Don’t give up – stay focussed to achieve your goal and don’t get side-tracked. If you miss a session you had booked for writing, that’s ok, but don’t let one missed session derail your whole commitment.
6. Declare your results – share your successes however small – every step is a step further in your writing journey, and importantly announce your final result. Why? The writing community benefits not only from sharing successes but also knowing and learning from what did or didn’t work and being reminded that, we’re all human!

Where can I find out more?

Lots of institutions have writing events during November. Here are just a few to get you started:

• PhD2Published: The original host and founder
• University of Oxford Academic Writing Month
• University of Edinburgh WriteFest
• University College London WriteFest
• University of Sheffield WriteFest

BMERG also offers short writing support sessions that run through the year as ‘Shut up and write‘ sessions for all University of Bristol staff and students. For more information on these please contact brms-bmerg@bristol.ac.uk.

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Why don’t you make a commitment today to writing throughout November, and add it to the comments below?

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