Academic Writing

Giving shape to your ideas
Writing can be a painful process, especially if nothing less than your academic career depends on the text to be written. All academic writing is about more than just your research findings. Besides the content, every author has at least two other aspects to deal with. First, language. Of course you want to write in a clear, concise and elegant manner. However, the sentences you produce sound awkward and clumsy. Your mind is filled with great ideas, but whenever you write something down, it is a world away from the perfectly crafted language in the articles of the journals you read. Second, the process. Whenever you sit down to actually write something, you get a rising feeling of panic. The amount of work to be done seems so overwhelming that you immediately switch to another task like tidying up or sorting your books by color.  
 
Workshop style
In this workshop, we will discuss what characterizes academic writing in your discipline and what constitutes good style. You will find out how to continuously improve your writing skills and how to organize your writing process. We will talk about writing, reflect on our own writing habits, share successful strategies with each other and work with our own and others’ texts. 
 
• types of writers and writing strategies
• characteristics of academic language
• the elements of good style
• giving and receiving text feedback 
 
Please bring with you a piece of your own academic writing, about 5 pages long – an excerpt is fine – and definitely a work-in-progress rather than a finished product. 
 
Trainer
The Trainer is a graduate translator (Diplom-Übersetzerin FH, University of Applied Sciences Munich, 2007). Freelance translator (since 1999) and writer’s coach (since 2008). Lecturer at the Georg Simon Ohm University of Applied Sciences, Nürnberg (since 2009). Trainer for academic writing, public speaking, and university teaching (since 2009).  

To attend, please register here.

Note: Registration of GSLS doctoral researchers has priority to non-GSLS participants. Non-GSLS participants pay a service and workshop fee of EUR 50 by bank transfer.