Effective Scientific Communication

Course description: Scientific data do not speak for themselves but require an argument to be accepted as facts. For facts to be trusted and results being accepted, we must communicate them effectively. Therefore, scientists are, to some extent, only as clever as others think they are. The communication of scientific results is therefore at least as important as their generation but most university degrees and PhD programmes provide no or very limited training in science communication. In this course, we learn a strategy to effectively communicate research in paper abstracts, in grant applications, through websites as well as in oral and poster presentations. Our analysis reveals strategies to structure and formulate texts. These findings contribute to a more successful communication of the participant’s work and identify strategies for effective forms of writing.

Topics:

  • The role of scientific communication (SC)
  • The fivefold structure of SC
  • Structuring texts
  • Convincing editors and reviewers
  • Wording, hedging
  • Examples of clarity and brevity
  • Practical examples and further resources
  • Practical examples and further resource

In this course, you will learn to get your message across in scientific publications, conference posters, for grant proposals, on your web-page and through oral presentations. The technique taught in this course is simple and effective at the same time, exploiting a pattern that is commonly employed by successful communicators. The course will help graduate and PhD students and researchers to present their work to an international audi-ence efficiently and professionally. Using a range of examples, you will learn to analyse scientific publications for their composition, the structure of an argument, and the use of English. We will also pay attention to the specific challenges of participants that are non-native speakers of the English language.
To produce a concrete outcome for the workshop, you should prepare an abstract/summary. It does not matter whether this is the abstract to a publication, project, poster or the description of a project. The text should be strictly limited to a maximum of 200 words (less than 1/2 page). The course will give you the opportunity to im-prove the text throughout the course. Depending on the desired overall length of the seminar, we will share, discuss and revise the text during the seminar.

Target audience: PhD students and PostDocs in engineering, natural sciences and medicine

Date:
Please inform yourself about current dates in the service portal under UR internal dates.

Location: SR Theologie, Schwaansche Str. 5

Initiator: Graduiertenakademie

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Olaf Wolkenhauer, Universität Rostock

Registration:Online Registration

Format: Seminar

Note: Before the course participation, an abstract should be prepared!