Speaker: Dr. Katie Homar is the Director of Academic and Engineering Writing with NC State’s Graduate School Professional Development Team. She facilitates writing workshops, writing retreats and related programming for graduate and postdoc trainees, in additional to managing the Graduate Writing Certificate program. Since earning her PhD in English and certificate in TESOL from the University of PIttsburgh, Katie has taught writing to college-level students for nearly a decade. She enjoys her current work at NC State for opportunities to learn about research across disciplines and help students communicate their work to a variety of stakeholders.
Description: Do people say that your writing is wordy? Building clear, concise sentences is a challenging, but essential skill in both academic writing projects and in the workplace. In the first part of this interactive workshop, participants will learn how to recognize the “symptoms” of wordy writing and practical strategies for fixing it. In the second half, participants will apply these techniques to their own writing projects (ex. Papers, articles, resumes and cover letters) and/or give feedback on others’ projects. Using Richard Lanham’s famous “Paramedic Method” for concise writing and other approaches, participants will leave the session with strategies for “user-friendly” sentences.To get the most out of this workshop, you should have access to a sample of your own writing such as a paper, article, chapter draft, resume, cover letter, or email. If you are not currently working on a writing project, you can use an older piece of writing in order to practice the concise writing and editing techniques. Questions? Contact Dr. Katie Homar in the Graduate School School (kshomar@ncsu.edu).