When & Where

30.09. & 01.10.2024, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

This is a face-to-face workshop at Campus Kaiserslautern (building 58, room 210).

Target group

PhD students and postdocs at RPTU

Workshop objectives

Communicating your research effectively is more important than ever in today’s academic world. Young researchers are expected to write up their work not only in their thesis but in conference abstracts and high impact journal articles. This two-day course will help young researchers gain and improve their skills in writing for scientific purposes. The two first units will focus on developing and adhering a clear story line and on writing with the expectations of the reader in mind. Then we will turn to writing engaging abstracts and to establishing effective writing habits. In addition, one session will be devoted to providing feedback on each others’ writing according to the principles learned in the workshop. The three remaining units will be chosen on the basis of a survey among the participants (see below for more information).

Participants will have the opportunity to submit a text sample before the start of the course (ideally an abstract or (part) of an introduction section. 

Units

5 basic units:

1. Developing a Story Line

Learn how to write about research findings in the style favored by English-language journals, how to create a story line that focuses the reader’s attention on the major points of the article, and how to implement the story line in each section of the article.

2. Logical Flow and Reader Expectations

Learn strategies to make the article flow logically in sections, paragraphs and sentences; learn how to anticipate and meet the reader’s expectations for the structure of your article.

3. Effective Writing Habits

Learn how to get started in writing a journal article, how to establish and keep a writing schedule, how to overcome blocks to writing, when to ask others for comments, and when to stop writing.

4. Writing Abstracts and Titles

Learn how to write an abstract for different scientific purposes (e.g., conference application, journal article), how to structure your main research findings in one or more well-developed paragraphs, how to fit your text with the given length restrictions, and how to make an abstract appealing and persuasive to both readers and reviewers.

5. Peer Feedback

Practice constructively providing feedback on drafts of your own and others’ papers by applying the principles and tips learned in this writing course.

Units to be determined based on the interest of the participants (3 out of 8):

6. Concise and Precise Writing

Learn how to follow the English journal writing style at the sentence level by wording sentences concisely, and by formulating ideas precisely.

7. Grammar and Punctuation

Learn how to use key aspects of grammar (active/passive, tense, articles) and punctuation (comma, colon, semi-colon, dash, hyphen) correctly to convey points clearly.

8. Methods Section

Learn how to structure the methods section, what to include in each of the sub-sections (participants, materials, etc.), and how to convey the information clearly.

9. Results Section

Learn how to determine what to include in the results section, how to structure the results section, and how to convey the information clearly.

10. Planning using Brainstorming, Concept Maps, and Outlines

Learn how to collect and organize ideas for your article by brainstorming, creating a concept map or issue tree, and writing a structured outline.

11. Understanding the Publishing Process

Learn how to select a scientific journal that matches your publishing goals, how to prepare your article for submission, how the peer-review process works, how to understand and respond to reviews, and how to deal with rejection and resubmission.

12. Writing for Non-Academic Audiences

Learn how to convey your research findings in a clear and engaging way to lay audiences (practitioners, policy makers, general public).

13. Plagiarism

Learn what plagiarism is, how and why to avoid it, and strategies to avoid it including quotations, summarizing, and paraphrasing.

You can specify your preferences via the registration form. 

Trainer

Prof. Dr. Shanley Allen, Psycholinguistics and Language Development Group, Department of Social Sciences at the RPTU

Course language

English

Registration

Binding registration via this online registration form until 18.09.2024. You will be informed about your admission to the course only after the registration deadline! 

Doctoral students, postdocs and junior professors of the RPTU can register for free. After the deadline you will receive information about the admission to the workshop

The workshop is open to all young scientists of RPTU. 

Please note our information on the conditions of participation and on registration.

If you have any questions, please contact the Nachwuchsring office via  nwr-info[at]rptu.de