Aims
This course is for PhD students only and lays the foundation for the courses "Writing for Publication in the Natural Sciences" and "Writing for Publication in the Social Sciences and Humanities".
Nothing counts more in the academic world than being published. The reviewing process, however, and science as a whole are basically conservative: Some of the best written work is often rejected because it departs substantially from a comprehensive set of universally accepted writing conventions, or does not conform to a style that publishers consider a prerequisite for publishing (or both). While in many Anglophone countries university students receive a thorough mandatory training in academic writing skills, in non-English-speaking countries such training is frequently lacking or felt to be inadequate. Coupled with the fact that they do not usually write in their mother tongue, this puts authors from non-English-speaking countries at a serious disadvantage in global academic competition.
This intensive course teaches you how to turn your papers into publishable articles. It is aimed at researchers and academics who publish in English, or want to publish in English, but feel insecure about their command of the subtleties of convention and style (and may have already submitted a paper or two that were rejected solely on conventional or stylistic grounds).
Content
The course deals with a broad range of writing conventions, from the presentation of abbreviations, names, and numbers to the use of capitalization and italicization, to the quotation of sources and their documentation; and it addresses selected stylistic issues, such as paragraph structure, pronoun reference, sexist language, and personal vs. impersonal style.
Methods / Tools
Systematic introduction to numerous rules of academic writing with intensive discussion.
Workload
1 ECTS / 18 lessons plus preparation and follow-up.
Target Group
All Doctoral Candidates
About the Trainer
Dr. Paul Skandera is a regular visiting lecturer at the University of Basel, the University of St. Gallen, the Schule für Angewandte Linguistik in Zurich, the Management Center Innsbruck, and the Steinbeis Center of Management and Technology in Berlin. He formerly was Professor of Business English at the Management Center Innsbruck and taught at the Universities of Freiburg i. Br., Neuchatel, Zurich, and Luxembourg, at the SAP Business School Vienna. He has published widely in the fields of English language teaching and linguistics. Apart from his academic activities, he runs an English language service with customers in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.