כתיבה מדעית לתלמידי מדעי החיים (0217.2331) Scientific/Academic Writing for PhD Students in the Life Sciences

Tel Aviv University Division of Foreign Languages Scientific/Academic Writing for PhD Students in the Life Sciences Instructor: Harriet Rubin Office: Webb Room 210 Office Hour: by appointment email: harrietrubin18@gmail.com This course is designed to help students acquire strategies to improve their academic and scientific writing in English required for their PhD studies in the various genres as required by journals, grant/academic committees and scientific conferences. Students will go through the process of writing and revising their papers, which may be based on their current research. They will also prepare an oral presentation. Course Objectives– During the weekly sessions we will: • Discuss the principles of academic/scientific writing and writing conventions (including citation methods and generators) • Establish and practice elements of style (e.g., conciseness, sentence variation) • Demonstrate principles of English grammar (e.g., appropriate verb • tenses) and vocabulary commonly used in academic papers • Explore the social context of scientific/academic discourse (e.g., hedging, modesty) • Discuss extra-textual elements in scientific texts (e.g., presentation of figures, tables) • Practice peer evaluation of writing • Develop revision strategies • Develop oral presentation skills • Explore various writing web sources Course Topics and Requirement Students will be asked to prepare written and oral assignments related to their actual work • Introduction Section of research • Methods and Materials • Results and Discussion • Abstract – for a journal or conference • Professional writing – e.g., applying for post-doc position, academic bios, progress reports • "Elevator Pitch" • Oral Presentation The major writing tasks will be done in 3 stages: 1. The student prepares a DRAFT of a writing task and submits it to the teacher. 2. The paper is REVISED taking into consideration the feedback on the draft or discussed at a personal conference. 3. The student RESUBMITS the ORIGINAL DRAFT and the REVISED paper for further discussion and negotiation. The major emphasis is on an open dialogue between student and teacher. Weekly Sessions • The class will meet on Thursdays 12:15 – 13:45. • Those who are absent more than 3 times may be dropped from the course. • Students will receive individual feedback on their tasks on a regular basis. • During the first few weeks of the semester, students will have a brief meeting with the instructor to get input on the writing sample they submitted during the first week of the course as well as discuss the topics of their writing tasks. These meetings will be scheduled separately. Materials • Teacher will maintain a website in Moodle http://moodle.tau.ac.il and provide additional instructional materials and excerpts from professional books and sources. • Students will be responsible to bring to class 3 model articles from top level journals in their field preferably written by a native writer of English. These can be stored on a disk-on-key, Dropbox or other media. • University level dictionary and thesaurus are recommended online/offline. Evaluation of Student Work • Teacher Assessment of student work in progress – Emphasis is on the process of improvement. • Peer evaluation – feedback from students in class discussions GOOD LUCK FOR AN ENJOYABLE AND SUCCESSFUL SEMESTER!

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