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Sanjida O'Connell

Sanjida uses story-telling skills and her background as a scientist to help academic staff and postgraduates plan and structure their writing and communicate clearly and effectively.

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Additional expertise:
  • blogging
  • writing for the media

Courses offered by Sanjida O’Connell include:

  • How to master academic English, for science or humanities postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers
  • How to structure and write an essay or dissertation
  • How to write for a non-academic audience
  • How to professionalise your writing

Dr Sanjida O’Connell is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. She studied zoology at the University of Bristol before completing a PhD at University College London. She’s written scientific papers, numerous feature articles for national newspapers and magazines, scripts for TV documentaries, contributed to encyclopaedias and had columns in The Times, The Independent and BBC Wildlife magazine. Sanjida’s had twelve books published, including four works of non-fiction, four works of literary fiction and four thrillers. She was shortlisted for Asian Woman of the Year in 2004. Sanjida was a wildlife presenter for the BBC and now writes and teaches creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and the charity, First Story.

As a Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow, for four years at the University of Bristol she mentored students with their academic writing. She currently works as an Advisory Fellow, mentoring RLF Writing Fellows across the south-west.

Sanjida focuses on developing workshops tailored to specific academic client groups. She’s particularly interested in helping academics and post-doctoral students from scientific disciplines to structure and plan their work, write clearly and concisely and adopt a narrative framework to communicate their research to their peers as well as to a non-academic audience.

Discipline areas: Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Engineering & Related
Topics: Essays, dissertations, theses, literature reviews, reflective commentaries, scientific research reports, online communication, research or grant proposals, books, communicating with non-specialists
Participants: Undergraduates, postgraduates (research), postgraduates (taught), staff (academic)
Activities: Workshops, retreats
Consultant's background: Non-fiction, journalist, novelist, radio or TV writer
Location: West and South West England
Availability for travel: Regional
Testimonials for Sanjida O’Connell

Thank you for a fabulous morning of fun learning yesterday.

-- Professor of Science and Engineering

I’ve gained a new perspective on the writing process.

-- Science and Engineering doctoral student

Really good structure, excellent advice on how to go about writing for a non-specialist audience and what to consider when starting.

-- Professor of Science and Engineering

Excellent session, really useful and covered a lot in a short time.

-- Professor of Science and Engineering

Sanjida is very good at contextualising and explaining why thinking from different perspectives is so important and effective.

-- Professor of Science and Engineering
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