Scientific Writing

Prerequisites

This 2 half-day course focuses on the structure of good scientific writing using writing exercises as an integral part of the workshop. The course will look at the practical process of writing, the nature of scientific publishing, and the importance of editing. The day will include editing sessions in which you apply the ideas you have learnt to your own writing.

For this, you will need to write a 300-word abstract about your work in advance and have it available to work on during the workshop (see 'Prerequisites' below for details).

All graduate students and postdoctoral researchers / research staff from the Schools of Physical Sciences, Technology and Life Sciences.
Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.

For this course to be effective, you must complete the following exercise ahead of the workshop.

• Using a piece of research with which you are familiar (it can be your own, but doesn't have to be), write a one-paragraph abstract of no more than 300 words, describing the work for a broad range of scientists.
• The paragraph should start with a basic introduction of two or three sentences, and include a statement of the general problem being addressed.
• You should follow this with a one-sentence statement of the main conclusions, starting 'Here we show', and then finish with two to three sentences putting the main findings in a general context.
• Provide a title for a scientific paper about the work you describe.

This course will be facilitated online, via Zoom. Please ensure you have access.

Number of sessions: 2

• Develop skills for producing high-quality scientific papers aimed at the world's top journals
• Understand the structure of good communication at the level of sentences, paragraphs, abstracts and entire papers
• Apply these ideas to your own work

Mark Buchanan is a physicist and science writer. A former editor for Nature and also New Scientist, he is the author of four books and numerous articles exploring the ideas of modern physics. He writes columns for both Nature Physics and Bloomberg View.

Justin Mullins is a consultant editor at New Scientist where he has covered everything from Chernobyl to the construction of the International Space Station. He was previously New Scientist’s San Francisco bureau chief and later its Boston Editor. He is also the author of the Physics arXiv Blog.

Two half-day sessions.

All participants are expected to attend both online sessions