During mid-July, Martine Maron’s and April Reside’s labs came together to enjoy a three-day writing retreat at Noosa North Shore. A ferry ride across the Noosa River brought us to our accommodation set among paperbark forests and eucalypt woodland, just a two-minute drive from the beach!
Over the course of the three days, we enjoyed workshops facilitated by Martine, April and Hannah Fraser. The workshops looked at topics including communicating research to general audiences, writing tips for research articles and “perfecting your pitch”, where we all refined and practised our elevator pitch, so we could feel a bit more confident the next time someone asks, “What do you do?”
Photo credit: Martine Maron
Developing skills
These workshops certainly left me feeling that I had the tools to make my writing time more productive, and the confidence to communicate findings to a whole range of different audiences. As someone just starting out on their PhD, it was also very useful to understand the process behind getting your research published in different media, including journals and The Conversation.
So, to put these new-found tools to the test, “shut up and write” sessions were interspersed among the workshops, filling the room with the sound of concentrated work and making you switch on! After the writing sessions, we would pass on our work for immediate feedback. The aim of this was to break the habit of trying to perfect your draft before asking for feedback … and it is certainly a lot easier to modify your draft when it’s only a couple of paragraphs outlining what you plan to write about!
Photo credit: Martine Maron
And firming friendships
A productive day’s writing needs a good way to reset, and the Noosa North Shore location delivered this in spades. Sunrise and sunset beach walks, swimming in crystal clear water, a bit of birdwatching (dusky honeyeaters being a highlight) and evenings spent cooking and chatting helped establish new friendships and strengthen existing ones among the lab groups and made for a very enjoyable writing retreat.
It is experiences like these that make for a productive and friendly working environment in lab groups, where everyone knows what everyone else is working on, who we might ask for advice and who really doesn’t care that the State of Origin decider is on the telly! We couldn’t recommend it enough! Thank you to Martine, April and Kate for bringing it together.
Photo credit: April Reside
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