The first episode of the Graduate Student’s Guide covers the academic workshop.
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Download the transcript here: Transcript — The Graduate Student’s Guide to Workshops.
Download the visuals here: Visuals – A Graduate Student’s Guide to Academic Workshops.
Full transcript below:
The Graduate Student’s Guide to Workshops
*The time stamps are based on the audio-only file which you can access here.
Siobhán: Hi, everyone. Welcome to the first episode of possibly many of the Graduate Student’s Guide, which we hope will be a helpful resource for graduate students navigating the sometimes-complex landscape of graduate school and academia. Today, we’re going to be discussing academic workshops.
Devon: My name is Devon and I’m a master’s student at the Center for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies at Ohio State. My research focuses on the Balkans, and I’m particularly interested in shifting identities, language, and nationalism.
Siobhán: And my name is Siobhán, and I’m a PhD student in the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures at The Ohio State University. I primarily work with film, and I’m interested in the intersections of disability, ideology, and trauma theory. So, Devon, why don’t you tell our audience how we know each other?
Devon: The Slavic Center and the Slavic Department at OSU overlap with one another in terms of coursework and cultural events on campus, so Siobhán and I have had classes together and attended some of the same conferences this year. Our goal is to demystify the academic workshop for graduate students, although this podcast episode should be useful for anyone who is thinking about attending or organizing a workshop. So, our listeners can expect to learn the answers to the following questions: What is an academic workshop, and how is it structured? What kind of work can be submitted to a workshop? What is the difference between a workshop and a conference? And what are possible outcomes of participating in a workshop?
Developing the Module [1:51]
Siobhán: And a little note on how we put this together. Devon and I were hired to create this guide, and we were thinking about what kind of information we needed to include as we brainstormed our own questions that we had about academic workshops. And, as well, we solicited some questions from fellow graduate students. We took these questions, had them in the back of our minds, and then attended an academic workshop. And I would say more or less did an anthropological study of the academic workshop: Took lots of notes on the organization, the structure of the workshop, and observed how participants interacted with each other. And, at the end of the day, we had a lot of notes. And I can’t speak for you, Devon, but I have at least ten pages of observational notes from this experience. And we could have organized these notes, typed them up, and made a handbook of sorts, but I reflected on my own experience as a graduate student, and we need to read so much for our classes, for our research. So, we thought it would be a great idea to record a podcast episode instead. That way graduate students or any other interested party could just listen to this same information, maybe all the while tackling some of the many household chores that also need to be accomplished. And so, to our listeners, we hope that you enjoy this episode of the Graduate Student’s Guide. And our goal is that you’ll come away with a better understanding of what an academic workshop is and how you can benefit from participating in one. So, without further ado, tell us, Devon, what is an academic workshop?
Section 1: What is an academic workshop? [3:15]
Devon: So, simply put, an academic workshop is an opportunity to workshop a pre-circulated, unpublished piece with a small group of participants, which is typically ten to twelve people. It is a chance for scholars to share their unfinished work and receive valuable feedback from other academics. So, Siobhán, can you tell us what this usually looks like?
Workshop Timeline [3:39]
Siobhán: Yeah, I definitely can at this point. As we mentioned, we both attended a workshop. This was called the Other Europes Workshop, and it was organized by a professor in the history department here at Ohio State, Dr. Theodora Dragostinova. And I’ll describe how she organized the workshop because this will give you an idea of an example format for a kind of standard academic workshop. So, this was a one-day workshop, and it was by invitation. Although often for graduate students, we would apply to workshops, and we wouldn’t be invited. And if participants accepted this invitation to participate in the workshop, then they submitted their project’s title, a brief blurb, and bio. So, this was the first stage.
For the second stage, which was about six weeks later, they sent an extended abstract of around 750 words. And in these abstracts, they addressed their methodologies, sources, and what their expected outcomes would be of this piece of work that would be workshopped. For example, they would say, is this a book chapter, an article, or a book proposal? And because this workshop was comprised of mid-career faculty, there weren’t any dissertation chapters or conference papers which you might find at a graduate academic workshop.
And for the third stage, the participants sent their drafts to be distributed to the other participants. And these were fifteen-to-twenty-page papers with cover sheets. And these cover sheets had some more information about the papers, often including the extended abstract, and then some ideas about what kind of feedback the author was looking for. So, at this point, this is all before the workshop itself, before the day of the workshop. And this is happening over email and the weeks leading up to the workshop. And when all of the materials were received by the organizer, then each paper was assigned a discussant. And so, participants would show up to the workshop having read all of the papers and having prepared discussant comments for the paper they were assigned. That’s a lot of information.
So, now let’s talk about the day of the workshop itself. There were some brief introductions, a kind of who’s who, people introduce themselves. And then the participants turned to the individual papers. There were fifty minutes per paper, five zero, and this included a five-minute introduction by the author, where they would briefly talk about their paper but mostly talk about what they were looking for feedback on because everyone in the room had read the papers. Five-minute introduction by the author and then followed by about ten minutes of discussant comments. After which the floor was open for discussion and all of the participants could give their feedback to the author of the paper. And there were three papers before lunch, three papers after. And there was a dinner later, a breakfast the next morning. And that’s where a lot of the debriefing happened. And we’ll go into more detail about each section as we move through our podcast today. So, at this point, I’m going to hand it over to Devon to talk about what kinds of work can be submitted to a workshop.
What types of writing can be submitted to a workshop? [6:35]
Devon: Scholars can submit a wide variety of pieces to workshops. So, this could include journal articles, grant proposals, chapters, either for books, dissertations, or theses, or a book proposal itself. And we also wanted to explain how much information about the publication that you should give. For example, some participants actually gave an outline of their book and the contents of other chapters, challenges or unique issues surrounding available sources, the intended audience of their piece or the intended place of publication. In the information given about the piece, this can include first, the abstract in the description of the work, distributed before the full drafts, the cover letter on the publication, and the future publication itself. Although if this is a graduate student, it may not be a publication. For example, you may be talking about your conference paper or a thesis chapter.
What state does your writing need to be in to submit it to a workshop? [7:40]
So, what state does the work need to be in to submit it to a workshop? This really depends on several different factors. First it could be the stage in the individual academic’s career. For a graduate student, a rough draft for us may look very different from a rough draft of a mid-career scholar who’s very experienced at writing papers and book proposals and journal articles. And it depends on the stage in the individual scholar’s research. Maybe this will be the scholar’s individual book proposal for the entire book where research has been done, but maybe it hasn’t been fleshed out fully yet, so this very much depends on the stage of both the piece of writing and the academic’s career. We asked the participants what a rough draft means to them and basically what I’ve told you is the answer. They said after working for longer and having a longer academic career, they may be able to produce a more coherent or put together chapter ahead of an event like a workshop. And for us, a rough draft might look what you may call, more rough. So, it very much depends. But the point is that it’s very individual.
Section 2: What roles might one assume in an academic workshop? [9:11]
- The Organizer
Next, we’re gonna talk about some different roles that one might assume during a workshop. The organizer and the moderator is the one who comes up first [with] the general idea of the workshop. This person decides who to invite and is responsible for the logistics. So, this will depend on the organizer’s goal. Maybe their goal is to bring together scholars from their field who work in the same general geographic area or who use, for example, innovative methodological approaches. The organizer thinks carefully about who they would like to receive feedback from and whose work they are interested in as well. The organizer-moderator doesn’t necessarily direct the conversations that take place, but they typically keep the time and ensure that all the participants have had the chance to give their feedback.
- The “Person in the Hot Seat” [10:02]
So next, we will move on to what we have called the person in the hot seat. This is whose paper is being discussed. This is the person who is receiving feedback first. They listen to discussant comments and then are given the chance to either respond to the feedback or listen to other participants’ comments before they do so. One aspect of the workshop that I really enjoyed is the open dialogue in the discussion about each paper. And workshop attendees usually tell the other participants what they’re looking for feedback on. This is to get the most out of the conversation during the workshop itself. So, they will either ask for this feedback in their written pieces that they distribute ahead of time in the workshop asking for, for example will this piece work as a book proposal? Where should I publish it? Could this be an article? Or pose questions about their methodology or sources. So, I will hand it over to Siobhán now to discuss the role of the discussant.
- The Discussant [11:11]
Siobhán: Yeah, so we are discussing the different roles in the workshop. Devon gave the first two, and then I’m going to talk about the next two roles. The first two were the organizer, who also functions as a moderator, then the participant themselves, the person in the hot seat, and now I’m going to be talking about the role of the discussant. And as we mentioned before, each paper ahead of time was assigned one discussant. And so, this discussant is going to take a closer look at this paper. Although everyone is invited to give feedback, this discussant sets up the conversation for the paper, and you can approach this role in many different ways, and we could see, based on the personality of these academics, that they definitely did so. You could start by giving some general observations, you could discuss what stood out to you, or you could immediately start offering feedback, and oftentimes the discussants would respond directly to the questions that the author had included in their cover sheet about specific questions that they were looking for feedback on.
Examples of Discussant Feedback [12:17]
To give you some examples of what discussants shared, one discussant noted that they wanted the author to elaborate more on a few points they were curious about. Discussants also shared some works by other authors that the chapters made them think of. And a lot of the discussants, I noticed, connected the current chapter or grant proposal or book proposal, whatever they had looked at, and they connected it to the author’s previous work, which I thought was really great. And even I think for the author helped them to understand the bridge between their old work and then their new work. And discussants, they could also suggest additional sources for analysis. If the author was struggling with their primary sources this was often the case. Discussant comments could take several forms. Sometimes the discussants gave a slightly longer monologue, giving all of their feedback at once, or sometimes they more immediately engaged with the author and asked the author if they wanted to respond before they continued with their feedback, which could sometimes be productive because the authors were able to enter into a dialogue with the discussant. But oftentimes the discussant would speak and then they could ask the author whether or not they wanted to collect more feedback. And that feedback would come from the rest of the participants. Now let’s talk about the, the role of the participants. And I’m going to hand this over to Devon.
- The Participants [13:40]
Devon: The participants, unlike conference presentations, do not give a full summary of their work or a presentation because the workshop participants have already read the papers, which is why if you ever participate in a workshop, you must read the papers or else you won’t know what’s happening and won’t be able to benefit from it. So, the participants speak for about five minutes and, as Siobhán said, address the type of feedback they would like to receive. The kind of feedback that participants usually receive from both the discussant and the other workshop participants can be, for example, fine-tuning specific terminology, which we know in academic writing is very important. Because a lot of terms that are used in various fields in the humanities can be loaded and require a specific type of intentionality in using. Next, we also saw feedback about structure, which is extremely helpful. From other participants, the feedback on conceptual frameworks for different pieces, and since a lot of these papers were in the field of history, working with sources, what to do when there is either sometimes a wealth of sources, title suggestions, presenting a narrative, and how to approach data. Participants can pose questions to authors. For example, methodological questions or questions about the structure of the works in progress. And the intended audience of the piece. They could also propose ideas for future projects. Which is a wonderful source of inspiration from peers and colleagues. Finally, for participants, we just wanted to emphasize that professionalism is very important. So, as we’ve discussed before, reading, reading the papers, submitting the abstracts, and all of these things does require time, and a lot of academics are very busy. So, it’s very important to communicate with the other workshop participants and to not ghost if you are unable to participate. So, this is important to maintain positive ties with your colleagues in the field and for your workshop to be successful.
Section 3: How can attendees who are not participating benefit from the experience? [16:07]
The Benefits of Observing a Workshop
Finally, I want to talk about how can attendees who are not participants themselves actually benefit from a workshop? This was our experience. So, I will share something and then if Siobhán wants to jump in…
Siobhán: Sure.
Devon: …she definitely can. We benefited first from learning all this information that we’re sharing with you as a first-year master’s student now becoming second year master’s student I didn’t know what an academic workshop was, how it was the same or different compared to a conference, or what professors actually do in their professional development besides conducting their research and teaching. As somebody who’s exploring my career options, I really wanted to know what it was like to produce academic work, what goes into the process of preparing a piece for publication, and how feedback is given between professors and how they work together. So, I thought this was a very illuminating experience. And Siobhán, do you have any thoughts?
Siobhán: I really agree with what you said, Devon. Especially for me, I’m someone who’s interested in a career in academia and it was interesting to kind of see behind the scenes because we were attending a workshop for mid-career academics and to see how they give each other feedback. The workshop was outside my discipline, it was history, which is your discipline, but I could still really benefit a lot from attending. And I could see how it would be beneficial to attend workshops that are in your discipline because oftentimes listening to other academics discuss their work, it can prompt a lot of ideas for your own work. And it was all just very intellectually stimulating; the way that everyone interacted with each other and engaged with each other’s work, it was, it was really hopeful. It was inspiring and made me want to start engaging with other people’s work more to be able to give them feedback and to try to figure out my area of expertise and how I could, how it could be of use to other people. It was a very symbiotic experience, I think, for all of them.
Devon: Yes. Definitely.
Siobhán: You could tell that they genuinely enjoyed helping the other person. There was no kind of competition.
Devon: There was so much respect. And there was no lack of pointed, helpful, constructive feedback, but it was delivered in an extremely professional and respectful way, and the authors very much welcomed any type of criticisms, but it didn’t feel like criticism, more like suggestions and exploring other possibilities and genuinely making each other better. So, I found that to be a very positive model for how I would give feedback to other colleagues in the future.
Siobhán: I agree. It was even a great model for how to have an academic discussion because some of the participants would disagree, but they disagreed so maturely and so calmly and there was no attacking. And if they did disagree with some feedback that was given, they would immediately clarify why they disagreed rather than just say, I disagree, this is what I’m going to suggest instead. I think ultimately just for the, for the author of the paper, maybe seeing two sides of an argument could be helpful for them and they could choose which one they, they wanted to go with.
Devon: Because even if they don’t agree, it can strengthen their position and give possible counter arguments or find spots for clarification. It was an excellent model for a respectful but completely passionate academic discussion. There were definitely times where I wouldn’t describe it as heated because it was so respectful, but it seemed like the participants cared so much about their work and making each other’s work better.
Section 4: What is the expected time commitment for workshop observers and participants? [20:10]
Time Commitment for Workshop Participation
Siobhán: Devon, I think can talk a little bit about the, the expected time commitment of a workshop.
Devon: In terms of the time commitment, this really depends on the individual. So, for us with preparation, we needed to dedicate time to read each paper and think of what the takeaways might look like for us and any comments that we had. So, in my stage of academic development, I couldn’t give feedback that would be extremely useful for the participants, but there were some spots maybe that I could help for clarification. For me, I was looking at this to see what is cutting edge research in the field looking like right now. What can I learn from these papers? And how can I prepare to hear the higher-level feedback from more experienced academics? So, you need to read and not skim and be prepared to engage with the ideas of the paper, whether or not you feel you can give feedback. So, if I was in a workshop with other graduate students, for example, I may be able to give more constructive feedback for peers. And if you are the discussant for a paper, you need the time commitment to write more detailed feedback. When we asked the participants about time commitment, this was more or less the answer they gave. It really depends on how long it will take you to prepare the piece, what stage you’re at in your research, what type of piece it is. So, you can expect to spend at least several hours reading papers.
Siobhán: Well, if you recall, this workshop, the final works were fifteen to twenty pages. Yes. And I would imagine that for most workshops that would be a similar length of a paper. How long does it take you to read an academic article? How much time do you budget for that? And you can think this is how much time I might budget for reading this piece that I need to, to give feedback on.
Devon: Yeah, it’s, again, very, very individual, but maybe estimate based on your typical reading times, depending on what type of piece it is.
Siobhán: I think some of the participants definitely read the papers on the plane on the way, but it also could be useful to read all the papers, especially if this is in your field, to read them with enough time before the conference so that you can constantly be ruminating on them and thinking about the connections between them. But we all have very busy schedules. Luckily, this workshop was after the semester was over. It was during the middle of the week. The participants dedicated their time to being present at this workshop with no other obligations.
Should I attend a conference or a workshop? [22:56]
Devon: Now that we have discussed what workshops look like, I think it might be helpful to compare them to a frame of reference a lot of graduate students may have, which is a conference format. So Siobhán, could you tell us how would one decide whether to participate in an academic conference or a workshop?
Siobhán: That’s a really good question and I think you need to think about expected outcomes. And we’re gonna talk about several different types of expected outcomes from participating, especially in a workshop. And to make the decision between participating in a workshop or participating in a conference, I think it depends on the type of feedback that you want to receive. And this could also mean thinking about how advanced your project is. So what stage are you in? A conference can be a great place to present early ideas. You also present for longer at a conference. You present usually around fifteen to twenty minutes. And honestly, the feedback section at conferences is usually quite short. There are some questions for clarification, but I think conferences are really, really about networking and about being able to go and hear what other people are presenting on, what work is being done in the field. Your conference paper could potentially reach a wider audience than a workshop. I think the goals are entirely different. A workshop, you’re getting really, really detailed feedback about your writing as well as your ideas. These pieces that are being submitted to workshops are certainly longer than conference papers. They were fifteen to twenty pages. Your conference papers may be about eight to ten pages and because you’re delivering your conference paper orally, usually your, your ideas are synthesized in a different way than when you prepare them to be published in an article or a chapter. So, the feedback that you’re going to receive is, is going to be—because your participants will have had a chance to read your papers—it’ll be really, detailed and they’ll have had a chance to really unpack your argument. So, this is really about what kind of feedback you, you want to receive. Workshops are really, really focused. You’re with a small group of people. You’re talking about these papers. And that’s where all your attention is going. You’re going to this workshop to have your paper workshopped and to help others. And they’re much shorter in duration, one to two days maximum. Honestly, because you would be intellectually destroyed, I think, if you had to go any longer. Whereas at a conference you’re going to all these other panels, you’re meeting all these other people. It’s really an entirely different experience. And I think both are valuable. So, as I had said, when you’re thinking about whether or not to participate in a workshop or a conference, you have to think about the expected outcome. Devon, what are some more outcomes from participating in an academic workshop?
Section 5: Outcomes [25:47]
How can participants benefit from attending workshops?
Devon: We were asked by one of our peers, is there any type of certificate or qualification that someone may gain from taking part in a workshop? Not specifically, but workshop participation can be a very helpful CV entry, especially if you organize a workshop for other scholars or as a graduate student organizing one for your peers doing research in a similar area. That would be excellent as well. If you are invited to one, definitely emphasize that you are an invited participant in your resume or CV. Next is the opportunity for networking. So, usually following a workshop, or at least in our experience, we haven’t been to another one, there may be next steps. For example, depending on the stage of your career, people at the workshop can help advise you where to possibly publish, or you could create edited volumes that may start as workshops or journal clusters, but usually if this is the goal, it’s communicated ahead of time. But in conversation with other scholars after the workshop you may come up with ideas for future projects that could involve a journal cluster or other things. You can stay in contact with people from the workshop virtually or in person through things like writing groups or writing accountability groups to assist one another in achieving your writing goals.
Writing Groups [27:16]
Devon: So it’s not only graduate students that do this, professionals do. We were definitely inspired by the idea of writing groups.
Siobhán: Absolutely.
Devon: Yes, you have anything to add about writing groups, Siobhán?
Siobhán: Trying to get one off the ground. Witnessing this workshop experience, the way that feedback was given, I really hope that I will be able to create and maintain a writing group because the participants, I’m not entirely sure how well they knew each other before. I think to some degree, but this workshop really drew them closer together and they, they really were eager to continue working together and they wanted, they wanted to try to make some kind of writing group or go on some kind of writing retreat. They’ve, they found each other’s work and presence inspiring.
Devon: This is one of the best outcomes for participating in a workshop is extremely positive professional collaborations with people whose work you admire and are inspired by.
Siobhán: Yes.
Devon: The knowledge sharing is so important. Like I said, how and where to publish. Apparently, that is more complicated and challenging than I knew as a graduate student. So having knowledge sharing about publication in practical terms is extremely helpful. And the recommendation of additional sources relevant to participant’s research or to the field in general is also very important. For example, the participants in this workshop submitted works of inspiration along with their extended abstracts which were pieces in the field—they could be monographs or articles or other things—that they drew intellectual inspiration from and wanted to share with the group and the group participants did take this very seriously when they were coming up with their works to share. So, having other people that you are regularly in contact with who are also reading and sharing what they’re reading can be such a help intellectually and methodologically too, especially when they recommend sources where the authors are taking innovative approaches to archival work or historiography in this field, it’s incredibly helpful.
Apply for workshops or host your own! [29:36]
And the last thing is developing academic skills or trade skills like practice organizing for a workshop. For example, graduate students that attend workshops may be able to learn how to do this and organize one for other graduate students, which will definitely help them succeed later in their academic careers when such an opportunity comes up. There are so many possible outcomes that can be extremely helpful in terms of intellectual and professional development.
Section 6: What did we learn from the workshop? [30:08]
Our Most Important Takeaways
Siobhán: Okay, so as we’re heading towards the end of our episode today, let’s, let’s think about our main takeaways from this experience. Devon, what do you have to say?
Devon: So, I learned a lot, but my most important takeaways were: How to give and receive academic feedback on works in progress that’s clear, respectful, constructive, and useful. How history publications happen in earlier stages. How are they developed. Challenges related to archives or sources and how to approach them. What narrative feedback can be like in the field of history or using innovative approaches and how to form these positive professional relationships with other academics in the field and what can come of that. So, what did you take away from this experience, Siobhán?
Devon: Well, you really, you really said it all. Given the really overwhelming positive atmosphere that was created and the positive responses from all of the participants, I can just see how beneficial it is to have additional eyes on my work. And from the type of feedback that was given, there were a lot of new ideas that were being generated that the authors of the papers hadn’t even really considered. I think when you share your work with others, that is always a possible positive outcome from that experience. And attending a workshop is a really good way to practice giving feedback because that is something that you’ll need to do all the time in academia. I’ll need to give feedback to my students. You could be asked to peer review an article, to peer review a book. We have to write book reviews. We’re constantly giving feedback and this needs to be a skill that we are as good at as writing and generating our own scholarship. I guess we can both agree that we both had extremely positive takeaways. Really, I can’t think of any, I can’t think of any downside to participating in a workshop besides, it’s pretty tiring, but what, what isn’t tiring in our field? So, we hope for our listeners that academic workshops became a little bit more clear for you today. Today we went over the structure of an academic workshop, what happens before and after. We learned the before involves a lot of emailing and writing, communicating with the workshop organizer, sending your work on time, and then next comes a lot of reading and commenting. And you need to read all of the papers, and you need to be prepared for your role as a discussant—if the workshop is structured that way where you have a discussant—or you just need to be prepared to give really good feedback to the rest of the participants because you know that they’re going to be doing the same for your work. And during the workshop itself, it really is all about feedback. And we talked about the different ways that you can give feedback, the type of feedback you might receive on a piece that you submit, and we also talked about the difference between a conference and a workshop. So, I hope by now that you’re all experts and you can distinguish between a conference and a workshop having listened to this podcast episode. and finally, we touched upon possible outcomes. In addition to getting excellent feedback, workshops are really a great time for networking. We are going to provide our email in the description box of this video. And we’d like to hear from you. We’d like to hear what you want to learn more about, what you’d like the next Graduate Student’s Guide to cover. Send us your questions. Do you have any additional questions about workshops? Is there anything that we didn’t cover? Or do you have questions about this next pressing academic topic?
Devon: And we hope you apply for workshops or maybe organize your own in the future now that you know. So, we want to say thank you again to our listeners, the CSEEES Center and Theodora Dragostinova, because without them, we wouldn’t have engaged in this project in the first place.
Siobhán: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Bye!