Public Writing for Academics Workshop

4-6pm, December 7, 9, and 10, 2020

The knowledge we curate as academics, particularly in the humanities, holds valuable insight and rarified perspective in the public sector as well as in academia. In this three-part workshop, we will work to translate our singular vocabularies of expertise for general audiences.

Facilitator: Dr. Sydney Boyd
Email: sboyd@statehumanities.org

Description:

As academics, we have expertise in highly specialized areas, and consequently when we write, we are trained to speak to a relatively narrow audience of similarly specialized scholars. But the knowledge we curate as academics, particularly in the humanities, holds valuable insight and rarified perspective in the public sector as well. In this three-part workshop, we will work to translate our singular vocabularies of expertise for general audiences by exploring how to write compelling op-eds, letters to editors, reviews or other genres of public writing that bridge our vast scholarly archives and training with current events and relevant issues, such as public policy, environmental health, systemic racism, equity across the arts, and various issues surrounding justice and exploitation. Thinking intentionally about what audience we want to capture and what our purpose is, this workshop will focus on how to navigate tone, diction, and form on different print and digital platforms to render sophisticated academic introspections as legible and relatable to a general public.

Schedule:

This workshop will meet three times for approximately two hours on Monday, December 7; Wednesday, December 9; and Thursday, December 10. Participants will review examples, discuss rhetorical and stylistic techniques to transition from academic to public writing, and craft a piece of public writing prose specific to their scholarship area.

Registration:

You can register for the workshop at https://riceuniversity.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEvfu6grToiHdGykESpGV31DafnwLMXfGbK