PhD Writers: WRITE INTO THE NEW YEAR with the PhD Café!
Working on a dissertation this Winter in the Faculty of LA&PS? Join a community of fellow PhD writers! The Writing Centre’s graduate writing specialists will help you focus, goal set, project-manage, stick to a timeline, collaborate with committee members, and connect with peers.
The Writing Centre is offering two Winter term sessions of the PhD Café, both on Wednesdays, beginning Wednesday, January 10, and running for eleven weeks. This service is designed to support those students who are able to work on their dissertations at this time.
This very popular eleven-week PhD Café is designed to help LA&PS PhD students make writing progress, connect to a larger writing community, and stay focused/return focus on their dissertations. Multiple one-to-one appointments with the Writing Centre’s graduate writing specialist are included with registration and provide focused and detailed attention to drafts and plans. The Cafés are limited to approximately ten PhD writers and the Writing Centre specialist, and preference will be given to those writers at or past the proposal stage. Given the very limited amount of spaces available, registration does not guarantee a spot, and your name may be placed on a waitlist for a future Café.
The first PhD Writers Café will run IN-PERSON at York’s Writing Centre on Wednesdays between 9:15 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., beginning Wednesday, January 10, 2024.
The second PhD Writers Café will run VIRTUALLY on Wednesdays between 2-5 p.m., also beginning Wednesday, January 10, 2024. As this service is offered remotely, interested students will need a stable internet connection in order to fully participate. University-approved software such as Zoom and/or Teams will be used to facilitate group writing sessions.
All of these are free to York University students.
Registration for the Winter term is now closed. Please check out our other graduate workshops below!
Graduate Writing Series!
All workshops are on Thursdays via Zoom from 12:30 - 1:30 PM (registration required)
- Getting Started on your MRP / Thesis - Thursday, October 5, 2023
- Staying on Track: MR / Thesis - Thursday, November 9, 2023
- Breaking Down the Revision Process - Thursday, December 7, 2023
- Communicating Your Big Ideas - January 18, 2024
- Afterlife of Your Project - February 15, 2024
A workshop to help students in completing their graduate studies!
Student Testimonials
I had the absolute pleasure of participating in the graduate student café in the summer of 2020. I cannot stress enough how important it has been to me as a graduate student. It has had a positive impact on my writing and the direction of my research. When I began graduate studies, it was with the desire to find an intellectual community to challenge me and help me develop my thoughts. After seven years at York University, I can honestly say that this offering helped to fulfill these goals. Our café was a community of scholars, who have continued to meet as a group over Zoom since it ended. I would definitely recommend this to other students.
— Tyler Ball
PhD Candidate, Department of English
My sessions with Keith O'Regan in the Thesis Writing Cafe were highly effective in equipping me with valuable knowledge and skills specific to the challenges of producing a doctoral dissertation and fostering a supportive community of peers. Keith was always prepared for each session with a relevant and engaging topic for discussion, while also being open-minded to any topics that group members hoped to discuss. He was an excellent moderator of the discussions by always leaving space for people to first parse out their own ideas and concerns, before offering insightful and empathetic input of his own.
— Davis Vallesi
Graduate Student
