Shut Up and Write: Write Well with Others

Abstract

Why are students finding it so hard to write productively? How can students break free from distractions—digital distractions in particular—as well as the challenges of writing in isolation? And what can libraries do to alleviate this growing issue of struggling to be productive especially since writing is a central part of academic life? This presentation will offer insight into the weekly “Shut Up and Write” sessions that Gerstein Science Information Centre began offering in January 2019. The original Shut Up and Write movement began in 2007 in the San Francisco Bay Area but has quickly spread across the globe. The initiative had a major online presence on social media, connecting writers as they dedicated a couple hours of their time to focus on whatever writing they needed to get done. It used the Pomodoro technique, an effective way of structuring writing time by having writing “sprints” followed by short, scheduled breaks—making it easier for writers to sit down, write, and recuperate. Though the official virtual Shut Up and Write sessions have retired, the movement still lives on, and can be incorporated into your own library. This presentation will cover what academic writing groups are and how they differ from simply spending the day in the library, the benefits of writing in a communal environment, either virtually or in person, and how an academic writing group as such can be integrated into your library to better assist students with the discipline, structure, and set of practices which can improve focus on their academic work. We will walk you through the steps we took in designing and implementing this program for students of all disciplines into Gerstein library and what the students are saying about it!