Welcome to the Graduate Writing and Presenting Lab’s Resources page! Below, you will find a mix of tools, worksheets, and videos of past workshops to help you through your writing and presenting projects. This is a great starting point, and as always, consider signing up for an individual appointment to dive into any of these topics further with our great tutors!

Writing Resources

Starting your Writing Projects

• Addressing the Blank page: The hardest part of a writing project tends to be the very beginning when you are facing the blank page. There are many strategies which aim to jumpstart your writing and keep you on track. One great resource is the Message Box, which helps you focus your central message and address large questions. There is also Free Writing, Mind Mapping, and outlining! In a previous workshop, we introduced each of these strategies. Try them out and see which works best for you!
• Outlining: Outlines are an important tool which help you brainstorm, organize your thoughts, and start your writing. This past workshop goes through all the details to start outlining your writing projects or presentations.
• Citation Management Softwares: As graduate students, we are constantly reading papers and trying to remember where we saved them. Citation managers are extremely helpful tools that allow us to keep track of all our research papers to read (or which have been read) and easily create accurate bibliographies. Some citation managers include Zotero or Mendeley. Check out this workshop to help you install and get started!

Publishing your Work

• There are many steps to publishing your research, and it can feel overwhelming. Follow our guide to publishing your work to help you get started!

Preparing Job Documents

• When applying for jobs, there are many documents you might need to prepare. These documents may differ if you are applying for an academic track or industry track position. Check out our workshops on both types of job documents and see successful examples!
• CV/Resumes
• Writing Teaching Statements

Writing for grants and fellowships

• Grant Writing Tool: For guidance on developing a project idea and on preparing to apply for grant funding, URI offers a Grant Writing Tool in Brightspace for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. Once enrolled, users can work at their own pace and use whichever modules are appropriate to the stage of their project. The tool assumes no prior experience.  Once you register, the Grad Writing and Presenting Lab will provide you access to the Grant Writing Tool Brightspace module.  Once you review the module, make an appointment with the GWPL to help you draft and perfect your grant application. Register here!
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program: If you are preparing an application for the NSF-GRFP, there are many resources online to help, including this compilation of previous winners. You can also find our informational session about this program here. Keep an eye out for our writing groups, occurring in the Fall and Summer, that will help you jumpstart your applications and give you lots of peer review before submission.

Presenting Resources

• Conference Posters: Presenting your research in a clear and concise manner is a great skill to have, but takes practice in developing. Check out our previous workshop on preparing your poster presentations.

Past Workshops

To view any previous workshops, please visit our Youtube channel. There, you will find an array of previous workshops that range from outlining to proper use of AI in the writing process. You can also see how to make appointments using our online scheduling platform. If you are having any trouble accessing the videos, please reach out to us at  gradwritingcenter@etal.uri.edu.