Course title | |||||
Doctoral Student Technical Writing [Doctoral Student Technical Writing] | |||||
Course category | courses for the doctral program | Requirement | Credit | 1 | |
Department | Year | ~ | Semester | Spring | |
Course type | Spring | Course code | 148205 | ||
Instructor(s) | |||||
ANTHONY Laurence(早) [ANTHONY Laurence] | |||||
Facility affiliation | Graduate School of Bio-Applications and Systems Engineering | Office | Email address |
Course description |
In this course, students will develop the scientific and technicalwriting skills they need to construct research papers in their specialistfield. The course will be divided into two parts. In the first part of thecourse, students will study about the characteristic features of high-qualityinternational research journal papers in terms of intended audience, purpose,organization, flow, style, and presentation. Students will also learn toidentify useful features and patterns of writing in their specialist fieldusing powerful text analysis and visualization tools. In the second part of thecourse, students will plan and complete a short research paper describing theircurrent work following the “Instructions for Authors” guideline of a targetjournal. As part of the writing process, students will learn how to paraphrase,cite, and reference previous work, write simple and extended definitions,explain methods and processes, introduce, explain, and hedge interpretations ofdata in figures and tables, and summarize their research in the form of atitle, abstract, or list of keywords. |
Expected Learning |
1. understand the characteristic features of research papers in terms of audience, purpose, organization, flow, style, and presentation 2. understand the importance of references, citations, and avoidance of plagiarism 3. learn how to read and interpret research journal “call for papers” and “instructions for authors” 4. write the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections of a research paper in a specialist field 5. use text analysis tools to identify characteristic features and patterns of writing in a specialist field 6. paraphrase, cite, and reference previous work 7. write simple and extended definitions 8. explain methods and processes 9. introduce, explain, and hedge interpretations of results including those in figures and tables |
Course schedule |
As part of the class, you will be writing a short report (approx. 1500 words) that summarizes *a small part* of your current (or past) research. This will be written using the following sections: title, abstract, introduction, methods, results/discussion, conclusion, references. To help write this report, please prepare the *content* for this report before you come. (You do NOT need to write the report before coming!). In short, please bring a list of key background points, your references, a list of the experimental conditions and method steps you used for an experiment, and the results of that experiment in the form of two or three figures and/or tables. Day 1 (Aug 4, 2017 - Friday) Introduction and Basic Principles of Technical Writing: The meaning of research; The structure of a research paper; Audience, Purpose, Organization, Flow, Style, Presentation [Self-learning activities: finding a top journal, downloading model papers, identifying their characteristics features] Introduction to analyzing research paper writing using text analysis tools: Data-driven learning; Writing biographies; Building a corpus of target research papers [Self-learning activities: building a corpus of target papers; analyzing the corpus to identify common patterns of language] Day 2 (Aug 5, 2017 - Saturday) Preparing to write a research paper: Understanding the “Instructions for Authors” guide; References, citations, and the avoidance of plagiarism [Self-learning activities: paraphrasing, citing, and referencing previous works; planning the final paper] Writing the title, keywords, and abstract of a research paper: Phrase titles, hanging titles, and sentence titles; The importance of Keywords; Summarizing research in the form of an abstract [Self-learning activities: writing the title, keywords, and abstract of the final paper] Writing the introduction to a research paper: Definitions; Creating a niche; Introducing the current work [Self-learning activities: planning and writing the introduction to the final paper] Day 3 (Aug 6, 2017 - Sunday) Writing the methods, results, and discussion sections of a research paper: Explaining methods and processes; Introducing, explaining, and interpreting findings [Self-learning activities: writing up the methods, results, and discussion of the final paper] Finalizing and submitting a research paper: Effective uses of an editing service; Writing cover letters; Submission checklists; Final report submission details [Self-learning activities: submitting the final paper to a conference, journal, or supervisor] |
Prerequisites |
Required Text(s) and Materials |
Course materials will be announced in the first lesson. |
References |
Bringing an advanced English/Japanese dictionary to class is recommended. |
Assessment/Grading |
Student evaluations will be based on in-class performance, preparatory writing exercises, and drafts and final versions of research paper writing Students are expected to attend each class, and actively participate in group and class discussions. Students will also be required to complete all homework exercises, and submit an extended report at the end of the semester. For details, see the attached file. |
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Last update |
3/21/2017 1:27:49 PM |