Doctoral students are under increasing pressure to publish in journals whilst they are in the process of researching and writing up their theses. However most PhD students only receive limited training in academic writing either indirectly through feedback from their supervisors or as part of a basic training course in research methods in the first year of their studies. Such a level of provision in writing training can be inadequate especially for students with weaker writing skills whose first real exposure to academic criticism of their writing may come from an anonymous review of their first attempt at writing a journal article or conference paper. This can be a very discouraging and emotionally damaging experience which can inhibit such students from becoming confident communicators within their chosen research community.
In response to this and at the request of some of their own students sigma in conjunction with the Mathematics Education Centre (MEC) at Loughborough University set up a series of intensive writing workshops for its mathematics education PhD students. Through these workshops they aimed to create a safe environment for students to collaborate ask questions and experiment with writing techniques in order that they could build confidence as scholarly writers. The workshops were also attended by some external mathematics education PhD students.
