On Saturday 16 March 2024, a group of students reading for a Masters or Doctoral degree participated in a full day writing retreat at Xrobb l-Għaġin Nature Park. The retreat, organised by the Department of Maltese within the Faculty of Arts, focused on different aspects of academic writing, such as paraphrasing.
This topic was discussed during the first session, moderated by Prof. Michael Spagnol. The participants then engaged in practical sessions to discuss and rewrite paragraphs in published works and others they had written themselves before the retreat in preparation for this exercise.
Whilst most students are researchers studying with the Department of Maltese, two other doctoral students joined the group – one from the Institute of Linguistics & Language Technology and the other from the Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures.
During the day, the participants not only worked individually and shared their thoughts and practices with each other, but had the opportunity to get to know each other better, eat together, and take a short walk around the park.
This retreat is part of a series of seminars called ‘Appuntamenti mar-Riċerka’ which the Department of Maltese organises for its Masters and Doctoral students. These seminars offer an informal and supportive environment for postgraduate researchers to discuss their work in progress.