This past Thursday I attended GRF Sam’s writing workshop on cover letters and grant proposals. This mini-seminar began with me telling Sam my usual writing method- making an extremely-detailed and long outline and then tweaking this outline into my actual paper. I was grateful to hear from Sam some examples of other writing approaches that could be more helpful. He told us about the Pomodoro method, which entails setting a certain amount of time to work straight without any distractions, such as thirty minutes, then taking a little break, such as five minutes, and then continuing writing again without any distractions. Sam also suggests to give oneself setting changes and breaks during an intense writing session. He also highly recommends to have a set time every day dedicated for just writing and to never skip this session. A technique suggestion he gave us that I have never thought about doing is to write the part of the essay that I feel most comfortable with first. This tip will be extremely helpful for me in future essays because I often find myself staring at a blank screen for a long time before beginning my essay; sometimes it is difficult to start with an introduction before even writing the meat of the paper. 

We also read an example cover letter and grant proposal, which were really helpful. Although I will not be needing a grant proposal any time soon, I am currently writing cover letters for internship applications for next summer. Reading an example letter and hearing other scholars’ and Sam’s opinion on it was super helpful. I am so glad I was able to attend this workshop, helping me see writing as not something to fear but something to conquer!