Date & time
Thursday, January 25, 2024
9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Registration is closed
Workshops & seminars
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Business writing workshop for John Molson School researchers
Translating your research for a non-academic audience led by Aaron Derfel
Speaker(s)
Aaron Derfel
Cost
This event is free.
Organization
Contact
Where
John Molson Building
1450 Guy
Room 10.302
Accessible location
Yes
John Molson Perspectives is proud to present a business writing workshop with award-winning journalist Aaron Derfel.
One of the critical elements of effective Knowledge Mobilization is the ability to write plain-language overviews of your research that practitioners can understand and apply. This workshop will cover the fundamentals of clear, concise and compelling writing to ensure the practical, relevant, and impactful knowledge created by the John Molson School of Business community reaches as many people as possible.
Over this two and a half-hour workshop, Derfel will provide John Molson School researchers with the tools to share their findings beyond academia and connect directly with the broader business community.
A journalist with the Montreal Gazette for 35 years and a faculty member in Concordia’s Department of Journalism for over 20, Derfel’s expertise encompasses financial and medical reporting and investigative and narrative journalism.
Schedule:
9-9:30: Welcome and coffee/snacks
9:30-noon: Workshop
This workshop is open to John Molson School faculty members and graduate students.
About the workshop facilitator
Aaron Derfel is the Montreal Gazette's medical reporter, specializing in investigative and narrative journalism in a more than 30-year career that has taken him across North America. He is a three-time finalist of the National Newspaper Awards, and in 2021 he won a Canadian Association of Journalists Award for his reporting on the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec.
Mr. Derfel's 2020 investigation into the horrific living conditions at the Résidence Herron nursing home earned the Grand Prize of the Prix Judith-Jasmin — Quebec's highest journalism accolade. The same exposé was nominated for a Michener Award for meritorious public service journalism — considered "Canada's own Pulitzer Prize." Quebec Coroner Géhane Kamel publicly thanked Mr. Derfel during her inquest into the deaths at the Herron, suggesting that his reporting probably saved lives.
In 2018, Mr. Derfel garnered a National Newspaper Award citation of merit in the investigations category for a four-part series exposing how budget cuts caused a spike in violence against staff and patients at the Montreal General Hospital. The series resulted in major security improvements. In 2009, Mr. Derfel was honored with the Media Award for Health Reporting by the Canadian Medical and Nurses' Associations for an in-depth feature on the over-prescription of anti-depressants.
Mr. Derfel reported extensively on the COVID-19 pandemic, writing a daily X (formerly Twitter) thread that was followed by people from around the world, including by tens of thousands of Canadians — making a "Best of Montreal" list by Cult MTL as well as being nominated for a U.S. Data Hero Award. He has also served as a consultant to Telé-Québec for a documentary on growing privatization of medicine, and taken part in panel discussions on public health policy.
A graduate of the Journalism program at Concordia, Mr. Derfel has taught at the university since 2001, focusing on access-to-information requests, court records and financial reporting, among other subjects. His non-fiction narrative of the trauma response to the 2006 Dawson College mass shooting was selected for the book, The Bigger Picture: Elements of Feature Writing.
In 2022, Mr. Derfel contributed to the book, Traitements-Chocs et Tartelettes: Bilan critique de la gestion de la COVID-19 au Québec.