This course is primarily intended for researchers in the natural sciences and medicine – from Bachelor’s through post-doc levels – who are preparing to write a research article/thesis and give presentations. We will begin by analyzing prevailing forms and conventions of writing within and across relevant academic disciplines, as a means towards increasing awareness of their influence on decisions that need to be made during the scientific-writing process. Participants will discuss and vote on what kinds of writing will be done for the course and, later, review and comment on each other’s work, as will the teacher. Emphasis will be put on improving the coherence and flow, lexical and grammatical sophistication, readability, and clarity of your writing, focusing particularly on how hedging – modifying the strength of statements – can affect the overall precision and credibility of scientific claims. Individual consultation sessions will be scheduled later in the semester to discuss each participant’s strengths, weaknesses, and goals. In the second half of the course, each participant will be required to give a presentation (15-30 min) on a topic relevant to their research or studies, followed by question and analysis periods. In preparation for this, we will discuss what makes a presentation ‘good’ or ‘bad’ by analyzing some real online examples.
- Course owner: Chris Hank