• Training Room

    Power Hour of Writing
    Provider   Researcher Development Programme

    The Power Hour of Writing is a chance to write distraction-free, build community, & celebrate progress together. Let's get productive!

The next session will begin on 30/01/2026 at 09:30 AM
  
Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds

Duration 1 hour

Course Type Webinar

Booking Status Now Booking

Is this course right for me?

Target Audience: Postgraduate Research Students

This is an online event.

Following a highly successful kick-off event in December 2025, the Power Hour of Writing (PHOW) is here to stay! PHOW will take place online monthly, with occasional in-person events. This is a chance for researchers to write distraction-free, build community, and celebrate progress together.

"This was great for a full productive hour of writing!" - anonymous, Dec 2025.

"It put me in such a productive mindset which lasted the rest of the day!" - anonymous, Dec 2025.

The Power Hour of Writing was created by Dr Stephanie Zihms, currently at Glasgow Caledonian University, and is designed to help researchers carve out protected time for writing, foster a sense of community, and celebrate progress together. This hour is yours to write without distractions, whether you’re drafting a grant proposal, editing a report/article, or finishing your thesis. 

For more information about the Power Hour of Writing, see their website. 

This is a joint initiative between the Researcher Development Teams for postgraduate researchers and research staff to foster a supportive and inclusive environment.

The evidence it works 

Dr Stephanie Zihms (Glasgow Caledonian University) and Dr Clare Reid Mackie (University of the West of Scotland) found that researchers attending the Power Hour of Writing reported greater writing-related confidence, an improved sense of belonging within academic communities, and felt the initiative enabled them to legitimise time writing (Zihms and Mackie, 2023).  

Event details 

Day: The last Friday of each month

Time: 9.30 – 10.50

Location: Online

Agenda: 10 min goal setting, 1 hour writing, 10 min share progress

References 

Zihms, S.G. and Mackie, C.R., 2023. The Power Hour of Writing: An empirical evaluation of our online writing community. Journal of Academic Writing, 13(1), pp.22-34

This event will run monthly.

Accessibility

For online activity:

  • The session will take place on Teams.
  • There will be audience participation
  • You can keep your camera off 
  • You can drop into the session 
  • There will not be a break 
  • The session is relaxed – this means you can stretch, move around, stim etc.
  • Please contact researcher.development@strath.ac.uk to discuss any further access requirements


Delivered By: Researcher Development Programme

Prerequisites

N/A

Additional Information

In-person courses are typically held in the Doctoral School Training Room - TC721, level 7 of the TIC Building.

Online courses are held on Zoom - details of the Zoom meeting will be sent the morning of the course.

Please note, there is a no-show policy, and facilitators will deny entry to those arriving 15 minutes or more after the course starts: https://strath.sharepoint.com/sites/PGRDevelopment/SitePages/No-Show-Policy.aspx

All postgraduate research students are eligible to access the Researcher Development Programme workshops. These workshops can contribute towards the PG Certificate in Researcher Professional Development (PG Cert RPD).