This two-day on campus workshop or four-day online literacy course addresses doctoral researchers and postdocs from the fields of Natural Sciences who are interested in writing an Introduction section while rationalizing their drafting and revising skills and deepening their understanding of journal requirements with regard to text genre.

Course participants will be invited to adopt the Writing Process Approach in drafting and revising a 500-word Introduction section to be submitted ahead of the course and will receive individual trainer feedback on these writing samples during the course. The Introduction section is generally considered a challenge because, here, the author is expected to communicate the background, purpose, and relevance of research not only to specialists but also to related fields. Participants will equally be asked to select and submit a published research article authored by a leading scientist in their field. During the course, they will refer to this model research article when exploring the structural elements of style that make up text genre. Moreover, participants will take part in a writing experiment, again based on the Writing Process Approach. Finally, they will be offered the option to put newly gained skills to practice by finalizing and submitting a second writing sample for trainer feedback.  In between workshop sessions, participants will be given a written and/or reading task to be completed before the following session.

Course activities will include

• Drafting and revising a 500-word Introduction for trainer feedback
• Selecting and submitting a published research article authored by a leading scientist
• Analysing the scientific argument in model research articles
• Developing content in submitted Introduction
• Understanding text genre
  • Exploring the organization of content in self-selected journal articles
  • Exploring the use of structural elements of style
• Practicing the Writing Process Approach (writing experiment)
• Examining and providing feedback on participants’ submitted texts
• Evaluating course achievements and setting future goals
• Optional submission of second writing sample for trainer feedback

On Campus Workshop design
This workshop combines professional input from the trainer with practical written and reading exercises as well as discussions of relevant issues.

Online course design
This online course combines video conference meetings, which include forum debates or small group discussions, and guided offline individual work. Progressing in line with a detailed course agenda, the outcome of individual work flows into the subsequent video conference meeting. Participation in the video conference meetings via audio and video is required in order to validate attendance.

Requirement concerning English language skills
A prerequisite to benefit from this course is that participants should have achieved the English level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and be progressing towards level C1. The CEFR self-assessment grid may be found here

Marcy Scholz, Targeting Communications