Description

The course alternates between input sessions and working sessions. The input sessions take the form of interactive workshops on topics relevant to managing writing, the writing process, and academic communication. The working sessions give participants the opportunity to immediately put the theory into productive practice. Thus, by the end of the course they will have already started establishing good writing habits that can serve them well not only throughout the PhD, but in any future writing situation. Input sessions include:

• Taking control over distractions that keep one from writing; Keeping focused and staying working
• Setting realistic writing goals, and increasing productivity; Setting up and maintaining successful writers’ groups
• Writer-centred text vs reader-centred text; Giving/receiving feedback on scientific output (abstracts)
• Understanding individual writing processes; Using understanding to take control and optimise
• Keeping a writers’ log and using it to increase productivity
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This course complements existing academic writing courses by emphasizing learning the process of academic writing (while not ignoring the product). It also focuses on the writer, not only on the process or product of writing. The teaching philosophy is guided discovery, which starts from the points of the expertise that the participants bring with them to the course, and then takes them further. The non- hierarchical method shows the participants that they are taken seriously as research writers, and thus leads them to create their own sense of initiative and responsibility.