Scientific Writing and Presentation

Lecturer: Tim Korver (Individual English Training, Munich)
Date: October 6-7, 2022
Venue: Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) – Member of the Leibniz Association, Kleine Maerkerstrasse 8, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany, conference room (ground floor)
Contact: cgde@iwh-halle.de
Registration: Please note, registration is no longer possible, the limit of 12 participants has been reached.

Announcement: pdf

Seminar description

Day 1|Focus on Presentation Skills for Research Talks (09:00–17:00 including lunch break and coffee break)

In this seminar, participants will learn to think more about their audience when creating research talks. Their talks will be developed to make them more interesting, clear and concise so that their audience can better understand the content and key messages. They will also learn about typical differences between German and international English presentation style.

The training is interactive with skills practised through a range of short activities, building up to the longer research talk.

Assignment: Participants need to prepare a short talk (8 minutes) on their research topic.

Key content
– Structuring your talk to be audience-friendly
– Expressions for introducing, summarizing & making transitions
– Connecting with your audience
– Emphasizing key messages
– Using your voice: intonation, pace, pausing
– Body language & eye contact
– Effective style and format for visuals
– Dealing with difficult questions

Day 2|Focus on Scientific Writing for Clarity, Conciseness and Flow (08:30–16:30 including lunch break and coffee break)

In this seminar, you will learn techniques for writing good journal-style texts that meet publication standards. We will look at a range of writing skills to practice and develop your writing techniques – techniques that help ensure clarity, conciseness and coherence.

To understand what good writing is, you also need to develop a better knowledge of how readers read. Understanding how the brain processes written language helps to ease the job of the reader.

In this seminar, we will first gain insights into a range of principles of clear writing style. Input on the principles are followed by short application exercises. Then, building onto this foundation, we will create research-based texts that combine a range of techniques for writing texts that are clear, concise and easy to read.

Assignment: Participants need to bring some text they are currently working on, or something they have recently written. Ideally, this would be a few paragraphs from the Introduction or the Discussion section.

Key content
– Removing useless words
– Avoiding long sentences to be reader-friendly
– Working with verbs to better visualize your research findings
– Implementing ‘flow’ devices for easier reading
– Writing effective paragraphs
– Writing clear arguments