UK Universities & Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)
High quality writing lies at the heart of your learning, teaching, and research objectives. Whether it’s succeeding in the TEF (Teaching Excellence Framework) or excelling in the REF (Research Excellence Framework), success depends on exceptional writing, critical thinking, and analytical rigour from your undergraduates, research students, and academic staff.
And yet, the essential writing and language skills required – crafting compelling arguments, mastering the literature review, and analysing language-based data – often remain under-resourced as universities navigate complex demands. This is not something to ignore: it is in precisely these areas where targeted support can make a real difference.
That’s where I come in. I offer a range of expert workshops designed to equip your students and researchers with the skills they need to write clearly, think critically, and analyse language-based data effectively.
Choose from a range of courses, flexibly delivered on-line or in-person and available to suit a range of needs, from 1-hour conference key notes to in-depth 2-day short-courses.
How to Really Write Your Literature Review
Want that REF-ready research culture? Scaffold research excellence with this expert-led workshop for your researchers. Participants learn how to break out of the describe-one-study-at-a-time trap and move to the next level, analysing a body of research findings to make the case for their research question. Ideal for PhD inductions and research development events.
Seeing the Invisible: Language Data in Social Research
Writing Well at University: What You Really Need to Know
The transition to higher education is tough. Support your students to make the leap from description to analysis with these specialist workshops at Levels 4, 5, & 6. Workshops can be taken separately or in progression. Ideal for undergraduate inductions, review sessions, and dissertation readiness.
Fed up with thematic coding? Want to do more with your language data but don’t have the training? This is the workshop for you and your team. Hear more of what your participants are telling you with new approaches to language data. Ideal for research teams and research development events.
Educators & The Education Sector
As educators, there are probabaly two things weighing on your mind right now - writing and AI. Two of my stand out courses may be just what you need.
Teaching Grammar for Writing
“Learning to write is one of the hardest challenges pupils face at school” -- The Writing Framework, DfE, July 2025
Writing well is a significant life skill, the key to success.
Like many things that matter, it is hard. And it requires secure mastery of grammar. There is no getting round that.
But so often in our teaching we can get bogged down with terminology, lost in lists of devices, and preoccupied with learning rules by rote.
We see the effects of this in student work. They are good at labelling structures but struggle to use them with purpose and clarity in their own writing. They can spot features in what they read but have difficulty articulating why they matter in their GCSE English Language Papers.
You already know the answer: we need to teach grammar as a tool, our tool, for expression, not as a set of things to remember. But that can be difficult if we haven’t learned it that way ourselves.
That’s where I come in. My expert-led CPD Teaching Grammar for Writing combines 30 years of deep subject knowledge with hands-on practical application. Modelling a discovery-based approach, I demonstrate how to bring grammar to life as a resource for meaning in our classrooms.
Choose From: Half Day | Full Day | Twightlight CPD Series - 4 x 2 hours
Not Sure Yet?
Email Me or Book a Video Call to chat about a FREE 1-hour Taster Session (UK schools only).
Writing, Thinking, and When NOT to Use AI: Insights for Policy & Practice
Now that generative AI is in the mix, you may also be interested in my specialist thinkshop Writing, Thinking, and When NOT to Use AI: Insights for Policy & Practice, designed to support senior leaders and teachers seeking to balance the acceptable use of AI with all that is rightfully human in education.
Wondering if AI is a time saving friend or an intelligence threatening foe? Attracted by the efficiency and scalability arguments but worried about the erosion of our critical thinking capacity? Work your way towards better policy and practice with this thinkshop.
Public & Corporate Sectors
Whatever your line of work, you and your staff write your way through the day. And what you write matters. Performance evaluations, proposals, change management plans, feasibility studies – reports like these inform significant decisions about how your business or service works. They need to be high quality and data driven. But often they aren’t, wasting time and money and achieving nothing.
What to do? Invest in training for your staff? Or skip that and just get an AI to generate the reports?
We are in uncharted territory here and there are no easy answers. Two of my signature courses can help you navigate this complex situation.
From Data to Decisions: Analytical Report Writing
I provide comprehensive step-by-step training, from analysing information, identifying significant patterns, and organising evidence for the final write-up. Paying careful attention to the responsible use of generative AI, the course includes a focused discussion on its benefits and drawbacks and equips participants with a framework for making effective decisions about its use when writing reports with significant downstream impacts. The workshop can be delivered flexibly depending on your preferences, from a morning’s training to a 2-day short course. .
Writing, Thinking, and When NOT to Use AI: Insights for Policy and Practice
Looking for a broader discussion of generative AI as you steer your way to a sensible position on its use in your organisation? Attracted by the cost-saving, efficiency, and scalability arguments, but worried about the erosion of critical thinking, threats to staff development, and accountability issues? My thinkshop on Writing, Thinking, and When NOT to Use AI: Insights for Policy and Practicemay be just what you need. Available as a 1-hour keynote or a 2-hour workshop. Can be delivered on-line or face-to-face.
Consulting and Project Support Services
Every workplace is different, and training needs can vary from one organisation to another. Sometimes, you need more than a workshop. For my fully bespoke training solutions, from needs analysis and diagnosis to specialist course design and delivery, see my Consulting and Project Support Services.
Creative Writers
Whether you’re a seasoned professional or just starting out, there’s something you use every day: language. But what if you could unlock even more of its creative power?
My workshop, Strangely Familiar: Language for Creative Writers, offers a fresh approach that goes beyond the familiar territory of plot, character, and setting. With me, you’re invited to explore something new: linguistics for creative writers.
Using a discovery-based and collaborative approach that is fun, accessible, and free from heavy jargon, I guide you in uncovering subtle patterns in language you may never have noticed before and work with you to explore why they matter to your craft.
These on-line workshops are themed and blend pre-selected topics -- dialect, writing different minds, stretching English to evoke other times, worlds, and voices -- with participant-driven suggestions for an experience that is interactive and responsive.
The focus is prose fiction, but poets, playwrights, screenwriters, and creative writers of all kinds are welcome. Join me for this deliberate experiment with style and leave with an enhanced toolkit, renewed inspiration and heightened confidence.
Research Writers
You’re an academic, a passionate and committed qualitative researcher. Generating new insights and making a real impact are what drive you.
That means publishing.
Whether you’re writing an article for that high-impact journal, a chapter in an influential edited volume, or that ground-breaking single authored monograph, your writing has to express complex ideas clearly to a wide readership, reflect your analytical rigour, and establish you as a trusted and respected voice in your field.
It's a big ask, especially in such a competitive field, so you want to give yourself every advantage. That’s where my workshops come in. Designed to enhance your expertise and give you the practical tools you need to get ahead, they tackle key skills in essential areas that are seldom covered elsewhere – mastery of the literature review and rigorous analysis of language-based data.
How to Really Write Your Literature Review
Working on your literature review? Feeling stuck? Checklists and self-study videos not helping? Join me and turn that pile of notes into a carefully crafted case for your research question.
Seeing the Invisible: Language Data in Social Research
As a qualitative researcher, you want to represent the experiences of your participants with depth, accuracy, and sensitivity. But themes and quotes only go so far. Join this workshop and equip yourself with robust analytical tools designed to uncover deeper insights in your language data.