Writing Groups in Computer Science Research Labs

Adam Doupé and Janet L. Kayfetz

University of California, Santa Barbara

FIE 2013 – 10/26/13

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Typical Grad Student Feedback

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What Other Ways?

• Workshops– Infrequent

• Academic writing class– Quarter long focus– Hard to scale

• A writing group– Weekly focus on writing– Grad students teach themselves

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Research Lab Writing Group

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Implementation

• Meet weekly ~30 minutes– We’ve had ~35 meetings in the last year

• 10 minutes teaching/discussing a writing concept– Introductions, data commentary, word choice,

genre, academic tone, the writing process• 20 minutes group editing

– Try to tie the piece being edited to the previously discussed writing concept

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Group Editing

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What Went Well

“You see how everybody (even the good writers) are struggling to write even a single paragraph: If you are a bad writer and your writing skills-related self-confidence is near zero (i.e., me), it’s a huge help to boost your confidence! Writing is hard. Period. It’s good to know.”- First-year PhD Student

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Improvements

• Reliance on a leader

• Attendance

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WRITING GROUPS IN COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH LABS

Adam Doupé

Email: adoupe@cs.ucsb.eduTwitter: @adamdoupe

Special thanks to Giovanni Vigna and Chris Kruegel for their support