Shanley Allen (University of Kaiserslautern)

Communicating your research effectively is more important than ever in today’s academic world. Students are expected to write up their work not only in class papers and theses, but increasingly in conference abstracts and high impact journal articles as well. This course will use presentation, discussion, and hands-on exercises to help students gain and improve skills in writing for scientific purposes. Session 1 will focus on developing and adhering to a clear story line such that the reader can easily understand the main points of the text. Session 2 emphasizes writing with the expectations of the reader in mind, including how to achieve good logical flow. For Sessions 3 and 4, students will have the opportunity to choose from among the following topics according to the interests of the group: writing concisely and precisely, writing conference and journal abstracts, planning content through brainstorming and outlining, dealing with barriers to writing well, and the publishing process. During Session 5, students will practice peer critique of each other’s writing according to the principles learned during the week. There is no prerequisite for this course.