Less is more: writing with brevity and concision (Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences)

PrerequisitesNew

This workshop is aimed at improving students’ academic writing skills by adhering to the style that is both lucid and laconic. Concision is the cornerstone of clarity, which, in turn, leads to better coherence, helping to highlight the academic contents of a dissertation or an essay.

There will be active participation of the audience and various activities, such as:

• attempts at cutting one’s own and other students’ copy and analysing the results;
• trying to edit clichéd ads (‘the toilet is closed for the purposes of cleaning’) and newspaper/magazine articles;
• exercises in laconic speech patterns and metric poetry; examples of powerful one-liners, etc.

This training is provided free of charge to postgraduate researchers, however, the cost of providing the course is £30 per participant.

PhD students in Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences.

Participants are asked to bring a sample of one their own essays, stories or academic articles (3 pages max).

Please note that late comers will not be admitted after 30 minutes

• Develop stylistic prowess and perfection
• Explore different ways of achieving lucidity (clarity) and concision using works by well-known writers: Orwell, Chekhov, Hemingway, Bunin, Paustovsky, Ronald Wright (‘A Scientific Romance’), Carlo Rovelli, Robert Barrass (‘Scientists Must Write’), etc.
• Develop the ability to analyse and edit own writing
• Master the skills of successful multiple revision, ‘the only writing that matters’.
• Learn how to avoid clichés and stylistic ‘weeds’ – superfluous adjectives and adverbs (‘lazy products of a weak mind’) and empty words like 'centre’, 'solutions’, ‘issues’ etc. that only mist up the meaning.

In-person workshop, with active participation of the audience and various activities

About the Trainer

Vitali is an award-winning author, journalist, and broadcaster with a global career that spans investigative journalism, creative writing, and public speaking. Born in Ukraine, he became the USSR’s first investigative journalist before defecting in 1990. Vitali has since published 16 books, and his work has been translated into multiple languages.

He has contributed to major publications such as The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph, and has received multiple awards for his columns. Vitali also has extensive teaching experience in creative writing and journalism, having led seminars at universities in the UK, Europe, and Australia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund and the Royal Geographical Society, with a passion for mentoring and supporting emerging writers.

2 hours