Writing is an essential part of academic life, but many academics struggle to find the time to write and few of us have ever been given explicit training in how to write. As a result, it can be hard to make progress on thesis chapters, journal articles, and books. But social media is changing all that! Around the world, PhD students, early career researchers, and established academics are coming together on Twitter to create safe spaces for academic writing and offer mutual support. And they’re doing it with hashtags!
Want to get involved? Here are my Top 5 hashtags for academic writing…
- #AcWri – Short for “Academic Writing”, this has become an all-purpose hashtag for academics wanting to tweet anything and everything related to academic writing. For a more structured discussion, check out the #acwri chats hosted by @Acwri every second Thursday.
- #AcWriMo – Short for Academic Writing Month, this hashtag is the brainchild of Charlotte Frost, an art historian and digital scholar. Taking place in November each year, Academic Writing Month is designed to help academics set a writing goal (or goals!) that can be achieved within the month, develop a strategy, draw on the support of others, and get writing! You can find out more, or get involved, at the PhD2Published website.
- #Suwtues – Short for Shut Up & Write Tuesdays, this hashtag comes from the Twitter account of the same name (@SUWTues and its sister accounts @SUWTUK and @SUWTNA). Shut Up & Write Tuesdays is a twice-monthly online writing workshop, where academics from around the world write together and share their progress and their struggles. A full schedule of sessions is available on the Shut Up & Write Tuesdays website.
- #GetYourManuscriptOut – This hashtag was created by Raul Pachego-Vega, an Assistant Professor in Mexico. The hashtag is pretty self-explanatory – kind of like the academic equivalent of Nike’s Just Do It – but the story behind it can be found on Raul’s website
- #AmWriting – Want to tell the world that you’re writing and shouldn’t be disturbed? This is the hashtag for you!
Want to do more than just write together? Join Piirus for a range of opportunities for academic collaboration.
You can also read more about using Twitter, and find other recommended hashtags on this blog, for example our 12 broad academic hashtags.
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