FAQ (frequently asked questions)

General FAQ

CSU Writes is a writing facilitation program designed for professional researchers and academic writers who are interested in boosting their productivity as they develop a sustainable writing practice. We primarily serve faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students who write for publication, submission, and/or degree completion. Our programs are based on a variety of research-based practices and models for academic writing productivity, writing containment, and writing in social spaces.

CSU Writes is department-independent, allowing it to serve ALL students, faculty, and post-docs across campus. We are funded by Office of the Vice President for Research and the Graduate School.

As involved as you would like or have time for! Join a workshop here, drop in for an afternoon of a writing retreat there. Our programming is designed as a “take what you need” resource, so there is no pressure to stay involved when your workload becomes too heavy or your writing needs change. We do ask that if you sign up for a workshop or retreat or if you join a writing group or take course that you commit to completing the event or program in which you enrolled. It takes a village for academics to write, early, often, better, together.

The Writing Center offers feedback and advice for individual student writers on their writing process. CSU Writes supports writers a bit differently. We facilitate researchers and scholarly writers who are experts or becoming-experts in their fields by addressing the professional challenge areas we face: space, time, energy and momentum (both personal scheduling and across projects), general writing skills, and specific collaborative writing challenges. In this way, CSU Writes supports writers across their career spans through workshops, retreats, editing/feedback groups, accountability options, and collaboration facilitation.

Yes; although, we do not yet provide many 1:1 feedback options. Currently, we have openings for only a couple consults each week. If you wish to have regular feedback on your writing, you can sign up for a peer-feedback group. Within these small (often, interdisciplinary) groups of 2-5 peers, writers swap manuscripts for feedback and discussion. We offer groups for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty, and grant writers. Select groups (like the grant groups) are facilitated. Check the website or email us to see if we are offering feedback writing groups this semester!

In 2022, we are piloting a program called “International Writes.” If you are a non-native English writer, you can benefit by attending our on-campus writing session hosted by an English language and writing instructor who can answer your questions in real time. You can attend show up & write, and when you need clarification on English word choice or sentence structure, simply raise your hand and the instructor can help. We also offer many grammar- and style-based workshops and online resources that can help demystify sentence-based challenges or can help build skills that are often difficult for non-native English writers (and native English speakers!). Check out our popular workshops on such topics as Punctuation, Passive and Active Voice, Avoiding Plagiarism, and Revising for Clarity and Concision (among others). Be sure to register in advance!

The Write to Publish (W2P) courses offer a community-based program for guiding writers through the manuscript publication process from start to finish. The community aspect of these suites allows for built-in accountability and regularly scheduled time to work on completing each task to maximize productivity and progress.

Yes! Depending on the workshop topics, we will record and post to our website so you can review them as your schedule allows. In 2022-23, workshops that include a writing component or a group lesson will be held in person. Workshops that offer information and are most often presented as a lecture will be held virtually and recorded. Please keep in mind –– attending the workshops live (whether in-person or virtually) is the best way to engage with the material, participate in a community of like-minded writers, and ask questions to clarify or personalize the information to your own situation and needs. As often as possible, try to join us “in real time.”

Writing groups are small groups of writers (often interdisciplinary) who meet regularly (ideally, every week) to set writing/project goals for the week and then check in about their progress. This form of accountability is based on research showing that having to account for your progress to someone else on a regular basis helps writers be more likely to meet their goals –– Think: voluntary, low-pressure deadlines to put some spark in your step. Regular accountability can have a huge impact on your overall productivity.

Beyond standard accountability groups, writers have the option to incorporate feedback-swapping with group members to provide the benefits of peer editing on a writing draft. Writing groups could also be used as a protected space to sit down a write on a regular basis. These groups are meant to be tailored to your group’s needs, so make them work however is best for you!

This is up to you and your group. Once your group has been formed, you get to decide how often and for how long to meet, which will depend on what you all agree to do during your meetings. Do you just want to run through your goal-meeting and goal-setting points? 15-30 minutes might be reasonable. Do you want to reserve time to just talk research or review a presentation for an upcoming conference with your peers? Maybe set aside 60-90 minutes (about 1 and a half hours) for each meeting. Do you wish to “show up & write” together? One, two, or more hours a week would be great!

Graduate Students

  • GRAD WRITES: Graduate student-tailored workshops
  • GRAD RETREATS: Graduate student (& post-doc) community writing retreats (1-2 day sessions)
  • DATA writing groups: Dissertation And Thesis Accountability
  • Write to Publish (W2P) Suites
    • Write to Publish I: 13-week workshop course to build article for publication
    • Write to Publish II:13 weeks of accountability for manuscript building
  • Book Club
  • show up & write. Mon-Fri 8am-4pm

Please do! Many of our workshops and programs are geared toward efficiently approaching and crossing the finish line of a writing project, which absolutely includes your thesis or dissertation. In fact, many of our community-members swear by the value of GRAD Writing Retreats and show up and write sessions for finishing their theses/dissertations!

Faculty

  • FACULTY WRITES: Faculty-tailored workshops
  • FACULTY RETREATS: Faculty (& post-doc) community writing retreats (1-2 day sessions)
  • Write to Publish (W2P) Suites
    • Write to Publish I: 13-week workshop course to build article for publication
    • Write to Publish II:13 weeks of accountability for manuscript building
  • GRANT WRITES: includes NSF no-deadline options
  • NREL Writes
  • Book Club
  • show up & write. Mon-Fri 8am-4pm

Post-Doctoral Fellows

Postdoctoral fellows have the best of all writing worlds because they have access to all CSU Writes’ offerings, whether in the FACULTY, GRAD, or TEAMS offering streams. CSU Writes also partners with the CSU Postdoc Association (CSU PASS) to host DOC-designated writing retreats and workshops. So, keep an eye out for DOC Writes announcements early each semester.

  • Workshops & Writing Retreats:
  • Write to Publish (W2P) Suites
    • Write to Publish I: 13-week workshop course to build article for publication
    • Write to Publish II:13 weeks of accountability for manuscript building
  • GRANT WRITES(w/ NSF no-deadline options)
  • NREL Writes
  • Book Club
  • show up & write. Mon-Fri 8am-4pm