PhD course - PhD Symposium fall 2019
PhD symposium Fall 2019: Into the academic Werkstatt: the craft of writing and preparing for publication.
Organizer
Sisse Finken, Associate professor, Head of PhD School, the ITU
Lecturer(s)
Mirjam Godskesen, PhD, Consultant, Researcher, Coach, Part-time lecturer at AAU
Steffen Dalsgaard, Associate Professor and Head of GBI, Acting head of BIT, ITU
Yvonne Dittrich, Professor, CS, Research group coordinator 'Software Engineering', ITU
Date(s) and time of the course
9:00 November 28th – 16:45 November 29th 2019.
We meet at 8:45 in front of the ITU (by the main entrance). The bus leaves at 9AM sharp.
Location
Skjoldenæsholm Hotel og Konferencecenter
Deadline of notification
The PhD school supports sustainable thinking, so: please notify PhD Support within the final deadline of notification/cancelation on Thursday September 26th at 2 PM (14:00) by filling in the registration form. With such notification, the number of reservations equals participation, whereby we, hopefully, partake in minimizing waste of resources.
Course description
The symposium is interdisciplinary in focus and cater to PhD students in all stages of their studies, from newly enrolled to graduates. The symposium concentrates on writing and preparing academic work for publication whether it concerns scientific articles or PhD dissertations, herein monographs or kappas of article-based PhD dissertations.
The aim with the symposium is to train PhD students’ skills in the academic craftwork of writing and, in this, to train their skills de-coding the (often) unarticulated, yet established, codes in publications, which underpin the process of writing.
The symposium is hands-on based and includes lectures, exercises, individual writing sessions, peer-feedback, and plenum discussions. The program is composed with the purpose for PhD students to actively engage with their own and peer’s work in relation to the theoretical parts of the symposium.
PhD students are asked to bring a text in progress (max. 5 normal pages) and to locate three examples of published work (e.g. articles and/or introductions to PhD dissertations). For further details see below ‘Preparation for the symposium’.
Evaluation: Upon completion, attending PhD students are invited to evaluate the symposium.
Learning outcome:
Having completed the full symposium successfully, PhD students will:
- Be knowledgeable of the academic craftwork of writing
- Be able to analyze embedded codes in publications
- Be able to account for and use different techniques that can aid the process of writing
- Be able to recognize and work with her/his own voice in written work
Programme
Day 1
With the purpose of advancing the process disseminating written academic work, the symposium serves to further writing skills by way of bringing awareness to the very craftwork of academics. With this, we start the day in the bus, filling out Writing BASE tool (see below ‘Preparations for the symposium’). Upon arrival, and after a short introduction to the symposium by Sisse Finken, Mirjam Godskesen takes the primarily lead for the day with lectures relating to different aspects of writing. These lectures are followed by exercises to get you started writing and/or working with your own material (work in progress brought along to the symposium). In the afternoon, two ITU researchers with extended publication records, having different disciplinary backgrounds, Steffen Dalsgaard, BIT, and Yvonne Dittrich, CS, will talk, with emphasis on the craftwork, about their experiences with and the processes of writing successfully. We end the day with preparations for the peer-review session that takes place Friday morning.
Day 2
The day starts with peer-feedback in smaller groups (see below ‘Preparation for the symposium’). Mirjam Godskesen leads the day with shorter talks and posts (writing goals, writers block, find your own voice) that prepare the ground for hands-on writing sessions and/or discussions in plenum. After lunch, during the session ‘rhetorical reading’, you will work with the three examples of published work (e.g. articles and/or introductions to PhD dissertations), which you have located and brought along to the symposium (see below ‘Preparation for the symposium). We end the symposium going over the Writing BASE tool in the bus on our way back to the ITU.
Day 1 – Thursday Nov. 28
09:00-09:45 Leaving the ITU by bus to Skjoldenæsholm. Writing BASE tool test during bus drive.
10:00-10:30 Arrival and coffee. Introduction to the symposium (Sisse Finken)
10:30-12:20 Introduction to writing challenges, the first and most important tools, writing exercises and writing on your own text, see preparation below (Mirjam Godskesen)
12:20-13:30 Check-in and lunch
13:30-14:45 The power of storytelling. We use story cards and work on the story in your own text (Mirjam Godskesen)
14:45-15:30 Coffee break and time for a walk
15:30-16:30 The craft of writing: Steffen Dalsgaard, BIT, and Yvonne Dittrich, CS, share their experiences with writing. Followed by Q&A.
16:30-17:00 Preparation for the peer-feedback session Friday morning (Mirjam Godskesen)
Time to check email, relax, socializing or take another walk
18:00-19:00 Dinner
Socializing (events organized by ITU PhD students? If you want to be in organizing, please contact Sisse Finken)
Day 2 – Friday Nov. 29
08:00-09:00 Breakfast + packing + check-out
09:00-09:30 Reading texts for peer-feedback (see below ‘Preparation for the symposium)
09:30-10:15 Peer-feedback in groups (Mirjam Godskesen, Sisse Finken)
10:15-10:30 Coffee break
10:30-11:30 Writers block? – a short post. Writing goals + write on own text (Mirjam Godskesen)
11:30-12:00 Short post on ‘your own voice’ in writing + plenum discussion about finding your voice (you can use the texts from the peer-feedback session as examples to talk about ‘voice’) (Mirjam Godskesen)
12:00-13:00 Lunch
13:00-14:30 Rhetorical reading – preparing for publishing (see below ‘Preparation for the symposium) (Mirjam Godskesen).
14:30-14:45 Coffee
14:45-15:45 Bus travel to the ITU (during the bus drive we follow up on the Writing BASE tool test.
Prerequisites
To attend, you must be a PhD student enrolled at the IT University
Exam
2 pages reflection note on the topic of the symposium ‘The craft of writing and preparing for publication’ with emphasis on aspects you find relevant for your work and how they are relevant. The reflection note is approved by Sisse Finken and must be submitted to her no later than December 10th 2019.
Credits
2 ECTS for full attendance
Amount of hours the student is expected to use on the course
Participation: hours 28 (1 + ½ day at Skjoldenæsholm + written exam)
Preparation: hours 28 (readings + preparation (see the exercise ‘Preparation for the symposium´))
Reading list
Gardiner, M. & Kearns, H. (2012): The ABCDE of Writing: Coaching high-quality high-quantity writing, International Coaching Psychology Review G Vol. 7 No. 2: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236627021_The_ABCDE_of_Writing_Coaching_high-quality_high-quantity_writing
Sørensen, C. (revised version of 2002): This is Not an Article - just some food for thought on how to write one. Working Paper. Department of Information Systems, The London School of Economics and Political Science. No. 121: https://ase.in.tum.de/lehrstuhl_1/files/teaching/ws0607/GSE/notart.pdf
Online sources:
Angel Borja (2014): How to Prepare a Manuscript for International Journals - Part 1. Six things to do before writing your manuscript: https://www.elsevier.com/connect/six-things-to-do-before-writing-your-manuscript Elsevier
Angel Borja (2014): How to prepare a manuscript for international journals - Part 2. 11 steps to structuring a science paper editors will take seriously:
https://www.elsevier.com/connect/11-steps-to-structuring-a-science-paper-editors-will-take-seriously Elsevier
Rachael Cayley (2018): Writer’s block is not a struggle with your writing but with your thinking. Write your way out of it: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/03/23/writers-block-is-not-a-struggle-with-your-writing-but-with-your-thinking-write-your-way-out-of-it/ The London School of Economics and Political Science
Cally Guerin, Claire Aitchinson, Susan Carter, Blog on Doctoral Writing SIG, https://doctoralwriting.wordpress.com/about/
Preparation for the symposium:
- For the bus rides:
Writing BASE tool: http://writersdiet.com/base.php
- Prepare your writing task
At the symposium, time is allocated for writing on your own text. Thusly, it is crucial that you have prepared a writing task to work on. It can be any kind of text: an academic article, your thesis, a report, a book chapter, the wrap up of the thesis, the study plan, or even a more popular text. Your text can be in any phase of the writing process from idea generation to final editing.
- Prepare for ‘Rhetorical reading – preparing for publishing’
An important aspect of academic writing is to ‘decode’ the different genres in academia: the journal article, the monography and the kappa. Each genre has a certain form, structure, and specific language. Find three examples of texts, in the genre you are currently writing (e.g. journal article, conference paper, kappa, etc.), and skim them while you identify characteristics of the structure and language. If you are writing an article, it is a good idea to choose articles from the journal where you aim at publishing. The characteristics located, are to be shared in group work at the course.
- Read the literature listed and get acquainted with the online resources provided.