The current climate of competition among academics to have high impact publications is producing increasingly selective Quartile 1 journals. Q1 editors are looking for manuscripts which are more than well-written; they are looking for papers with ‘star quality’. For many, star quality remains a rather elusive ingredient in their writing.
This full-day workshop is designed to explore the question: What aspects of writing help to give a journal manuscript star quality? The session starts by considering the widely acknowledged mechanisms for producing quality writing, such as coherence, clarity and conciseness. It then moves on to explore less obvious mechanisms that are used to communicate consistency, authority and persuasiveness. This is done by analysing the language used in articles from various high-impact journals. The session ends with suggestions for strategies to help students to develop their ability to write clear, coherent and concise papers that are also consistent, authoritative and persuasive.
The session will be of interest to doctoral students, early career researchers and academics with responsibility for supervising postgraduate researchers. The session is highly interactive and exploratory, and it is hoped that participants will feel free to share their expertise to help group conclusions to be drawn.
Dr Alison Yeung is Teaching Fellow in Doctoral Writing Skills at the University of Surrey, with responsibility for designing doctoral and post-doctoral writing training across all faculties. She has also worked in the educational publishing industry and has run her own English language support service for international academics. Alison’s current interest is in identifying the writing mechanisms used by authors of high-quality research articles across a range of disciplines.
SESSION OUTLINE
11.00 Introductions and ice-breaker
Group brainstorm – What are the main characteristics of high-impact journals?
What are editors of these journals looking for in manuscripts?
Small-group activity- What makes a manuscript readable, persuasive and star quality?
Input – What makes a manuscript readable? conciseness, clarity, coherence + techniques for achieving each.
11.30 – 11.45: COFFEE BREAK
11.45 Input – What makes a manuscript persuasive? Consistency of
-message
-style
-vocabulary
-level of assertiveness (e.g. positive vocabulary/ verb-adverb and noun-adjective collocations
Individual work - analysis of text using extracts from high- and low-impact journal
Group discussion – Is star quality simply a combination of readability +persuasiveness or is there something more?
13.00 – 14.00: LUNCH
14.00 Input – some useful strategies for teaching PGRs higher-order writing skills
Small-group work – Are there any more strategies that could be used?
Feedback to the whole group
Summary of session
Questions?
Session feedback
16.15 END OF WORKSHOP
When
October 11th, 2016 from 11:00 AM to 4:15 PM
Location
SRHE, 73 Collier St, London N1 9BE
Event Fee(s)
| Event Fee(s) | |
| Guest Price | £60.00 |
| Member Price | £0.00 |
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Resources
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