Academic Writing in the Humanities/Social Sciences (Dorothea Schlözer Mentoring-Programm)

Trainerin: Prof. Dr. Erika von Rautenfeld
Datum: 7./8. März 2013 (Donnerstag: 14:00-17:00 Uhr, Freitag 9:00-17:00 Uhr)
Ort: Seminarraum Stabsstelle Zukunftskonzept, Von-Siebold-Straße 4
Zielgruppe: alle

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"Academic Writing in the Humanities/Social Sciences"
Publish or perish. That is the motto that defines much of the working life of up-and-coming academics. This workshop has a twofold focus on identifying and ironing out the kinks in your own writing strategies and on making your academic texts in English more elegant.
For all their careful attention to research methodology, academics rarely discuss the nuts and bolts of writing. You would like to finish your dissertation – your research is promising, but you spend your days with other, seemingly pressing issues instead of finishing your thesis. Or perhaps you do not give in to distractions, but the sight of a blinking cursor on a blank screen sends shivers down your back. This workshop is an opportunity to deconstruct the writing process, allowing participants to examine their own writing habits and to share successful strategies with each other.
We will look not only at the process, but also at the product of your writing in this workshop. Regardless of how exciting your findings are, no prestigious journal will publish an article written in awkward English. We will examine the characteristics of academic style in your discipline and develop a roadmap to improve your writing.

Objectives:
After the successful completion of this seminar, participants will be able to
- describe characteristics of stylish academic writing
- use appropriate phrases for particular rhetorical functions
- identify the strengths and weaknesses of the writing strategies they apply
- implement strategies for dealing with difficult situations in the writing process
- improve their texts according to the standards of academic writing in their field

Content
- Academic style
- Mechanics: e.g., sentence structure
- Adding elegance: e.g., transitions between paragraphs
- Writing strategies
- Overcoming difficulties in the writing process
- Giving and receiving text feedback
Participants are asked to bring two texts to the first meeting: a piece of your own academic writing (about 5 pages) and a journal article from your field of research that you consider to be particularly well written.