Career Workshops: Writing Workshop led by Judith Swan

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SEEDS Writing Workshop November 21, 2009. SEEDS awarded funding to Dr. Paquita Zuidema to host a day-long career skills workshop on writing led by Dr. Judith Swan, Assistant Director for writing in Science and Engineering at Princeton. She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from MIT and is a known expert and teacher on effective scientific writing, co-author of The Science of Science Writing (pdf).

Writing well is a crucial element for success during the many stages of a scientific career, from thesis to publication and garnering research funding, but opportunities to acquire effective writing skills in science can be rare. In this workshop, Dr. Swan identified identified strategies for writing clearly and compellingly. These strategies use the principle of “reader oriented” prose, based on studies of where in a sentence, a paragraph or a paper, a reader expects to find the context, and where to find the emphasis. Such strategies have been shown to improve communication dramatically, with both writer and reader much more likely to agree on what is important.

Below, read participant comments on three issues:
Did the event provide solid hints useful for your grant and paper writing?
What was the most significant thing you learned today?
Was this event useful to you, and if so, how?
Was this event what you expected? Please elaborate.
How might this kind of event be improved in the future?

Did the event provide solid hints useful for your grant and paper writing? (93% said yes)

• Taught me how to use active and passive writing and where to use it in a document
• Write a new section or start to write it an hour or so before the end of the day so you are more productive the following morning by only having to revise/rewrite rather than write, revise, & rewrite
• learned how to express to the readers what I want them to know
• This workshop had helpful information for any writing style
• the recommendation to acknowledge process and focus feedback by providing a cover letter was quite a good idea -more on paper writing than on grant writing
• presented ways to be more cognizant about clearly conveying the meaning of what we are writing
• the punctuation, stress position and close reading discussions offered tips that will be useful for my future reading and paper/abstract writing
• grant readers don’t have time to struggle through sentences that are poorly composed. Good writing is more likely to get your point across
• I am going to my old manuscripts and reading them again
• Never place importance at the end. This workshop emphasizes ending properly
• Structure is important to convey ideas but not in terms of how to really manage to go to the point without small sentences. Must emphasize key elements. -
• I know how to better stress important ideas or results
• I expected more information about how to write good introductions, abstracts etc… There wasn’t much time for this part.
• exercise in “close reading” and “stress positions”
• when I want to learn how to write, I should make an analysis of structure, substances, and stress position
• event provided some good points for improving writing based on the reader’s expectations of sentence and paragraph structure, but I feel more information could have been covered for the time
• yes, punctuation
• yes, particularly for documents with word limitations that require concise, emphatic sentences, knowing how to construct sentences to make them more effective is crucial to make the most of the words available.
• hints for editing
• as a writer I never think about the writing process or the way it was presented today. So seeing it from a different point of view is excellent and a great help.
• I want to make sure the reader can understand my writing clearly -this workshop will have a concentric effect on those around me as we collaborate on grant writing projects. I am sure I will absorb this both consciously and subconscious in grant writing work to make the narrative “higher quality”, clearer and more persuasive.
• yes, just great about emphasizing what the author wants
• It was useful and made me think
• The seminar provides many specific details, not the whole structure or the real way to express clearly in scientific writing will focus more on the context, structure, and the reader -topic/stress position! Choosing the correct verb -a particular action -use of colons, not doing time-line papers and keeping subject and verb together
• it is great to know how to express your ideas more clearly and make sure your reader can follow
• I learned about action-verb, stress point, and punctuation
• Tells me how to make conscious decisions about revision, rather than traditional error
• I got some ideas about how to stress the words you mean to stress and make the sentences more coherent
• two would read back and use the criteria to edit
• I guess “yes” but not sure what “solid hints” means
• I learned too much to elaborate.

 

What was the most significant thing you learned today?

• We are expected to know how to write scientifically without ever having been taught how to.
• How to read closely and the stages of writing
• Active vs. passive voice and why/when to use them.
• How to analyze sentence structure and revise for greater clarity and understanding what the reader needs -proper or good number of words in a sentence, past tense
• Where is the stress position? And what do you put there?
• The importance of sentence order in clarity and emphasis
• The “stress” position- there are always ways to improve
• I don’t have to feel bad if I am a bad writer
• The most significant lesson from today’s workshop was instruction on how to make writing into a community effort by involving mentors, peers, and students. The process becomes one of learning what you have successfully communicated.
• The relationship between subjects & verbs can be misleading
• Variety in correct ways
• To recognize more quickly trends in sentence structure in my own writing and that of others so I can more easily summarize how to improve the writing
• Close reading and use of stress position
• Reminder about sentence structure
• To know about the readers expectations
• To identify and be aware of sentence structure and its implications
• Analysis of my writing; structure, substance, action
• Structuring of sentences and understanding the reader’s needs
• To pay attention to the order of words in the sentence, the context at the beginning, the stress at the end
• How to write clear and effective text
• I’ve learned about structures of sentences and their organization for understanding a paper
• How to identify the important part of a sentence and find patterns
• The idea of putting important, new information in the stress position of a sentence.
• Awareness of structure and how to deal with information.
• To figure we(reader) are trying to interpret what the writer wrote
• How to develop a passage clearly and concisely
• Write with the reader’s expectation in mind, and utilize these expectations.
• There are no rules in writing
• The balance between structure and content is as important as the content itself
• To really pay attention to sentence structure
• Techniques to write scientific documents
• To be much more aware of sentence structure and the benefit of rituals to conserve energy for writing -stress positions and “actions”
• How to emphasize points in a sentence
• How to structure a sentence so that it makes sense
• No rules as long as you can communicate to the reader in the context
• The structure outlines
• New and more precise information about the intricacies of scientific writing. Scientific writing and grant/proposal writing for the sciences and engineering have its own conventions and expectations. I feel much more comfortable and at ease with writing and pedagogy.
• Sentence structure and stress position
• Emphasis at the end of the sentence and stress positions
• Sentence structure and critical reading -
• Concise and effective writing
• Sentence structure and active vs. passive sentence usage
• Recognize my writing mistakes and think about what I need to emphasize in my text
• To improve writing, I must show it to people and get feedback
• About active-passive usage
• Learn about the reader
• There are skills to sharpen my writing -how to write a good sentence
• Where to look in your own work to edit. Stressing certain parts of the sentence, not separating subject and verb, and remembering to focus on the science not the data
• Writer/reader community. Strength that subject and verb use can have.
• Passive and active tense, as well as first person use in scientific writing
• “Rationale” approach to writing about my science
• All the main points were great
• The good writing comes from better understanding readers’ expectations
• I understand more “why” things are written that way. The stress point was a “new” topic for me. -use of verb to indicate action and eliminate confusion. Put info into where it is expected to be.
• Stress and closure
• How to make good scientific writing, especially for me as an international student; this event was very useful
• Think about the reader. Sentence structure and linking sentences
• Structure arrangement -stress position -awareness of structure emphasis
• Good writing
• To understand the reader and to express efficiently -fundamental concept/watch out in writing
• Understanding the function of each component of a sentence and how to organize a sentence in a professional situation.
• How to more effectively structure a sentence to get a specific idea across
• How to objectively examine my writing and improve it during the revision process -using subtle differences to alert the reader -how to make scientific writing clear to reader

 

Was this event useful to you, and if so, how?

• Yes I am currently writing a proposal. It was extremely helpful. Dr. Swan is an excellent speaker. She made info fun to lean with her charisma and ability to engage all people with many analogies and examples.
• Yes, ability to analyze/correct sentence structure (hence my ability to write and edit has been improved)
• Yes, helpful in identifying the ways of recognizing and remedying common errors
• Absolutely. It will provide a start on how to improve my writing
• Yes, it is a recap of some basic concepts. These basic concepts are good to have in a conscious level to use them better
• Yes, not only do I write scientific articles, I perform manuscript review (articles and textbooks) on a regular basis.
• Yes, great demonstrations of how to revise problem sentences -much seemed not in context-or like it could be more science writing focused but so helpful to think about sentence structure, stress position, new/old and punctuation. It is going to make a huge difference in my writing.
• Very useful. I will spend more time to revise what I wrote
• Yes, to help identify your common mistakes
• Yes, I am at the point of writing my statement of purpose these days and I felt that this workshop helped me a lot.
• Yes now I feel I have some tools to go and check & revise previous writing
• Yes, awakened a stronger interest in writing
• Yes I am conscious of basic errors
• Very useful. I was trying to write an article about my research for two months now and I was stuck in the pre-draft phase. I feel that will change after today
• Yes, I thought it was very applicable to my work
• It was a long day but yes it was useful
• Yes, for medical and scientific writing as well as for grant writing
• Yes, very useful particularly since I am a foreigner
• Maybe. It taught a lot about how to stress use and how to choose subjective in sentences
• Yes. It opened my eyes to thinking about writing in a new way. Start with the reader and learn about the context/structure, practice, rituals
• Yes, it helped improve my writing. A new mind to think about writing -yes, it will clean up my grant writing
• Yes, Dr. Swan is a very dynamic, passionate speaker who is very easy to understand. Will be much more conscious about my writing and sentence structure and emphasis
• Absolutely
• Yes, it gave me a jumping off point on developing writing and revising skills, as well as tools to recognize problem sentences and paragraphs with a clear means to star to fix problems
• It was. It gave me a mental structure to elaborate my paragraphs -yes, very concrete, easily understood ways to improve my writing
• Yes, I consider myself a reasonable good writer/editor but it helps to understand why some sentences are structurally wrong
• Yes, I understand more of the English language. I have more hopes of writing better
• Yes, explains what I am not doing right rather than just telling me its wrong
• Absolutely, I have a hard time with paragraph structure. Going through proper sentence structure will help me with that.
• Yes its always good to reinforce writing structure
• Yes absolutely it was
• Extremely. I anticipate it will improve my own writing as well as helping me advise my students on their writing. I finally learned how to use : ; , !!! -to write a solid article
• Very helpful for editing student papers pointing out way s they can improve
• Yes as an international student I always get stuck when I have to write a proposal or an abstract in English. This event really helps
• It gave me the tools I need in order to critically and helpfully evaluate writing (mine & others)
• Yes, improved both reading and writing skills

 

Was the event what you expected? Please elaborate.

• Pretty much
• Yes, it helped me realize those misleading points in writing
• Yes absolutely! Great seminar
• Yes more interesting. I thought there would be a mentoring. I would have liked less about punctuation and more about drafting conclusions, “selling work” etc…
• More than I expected
• I didn’t come in with a good idea of what to expect -
• It was interesting, not boring, useful
• No. it was better
• Yes, it wasn’t quite sure what to expect but I felt I got a lot out of it
• Yes, I went to Dr. Swan’s seminar before
• Yes, i t was awesome, useful and extremely educational
• Yes it was -better-
• Not sure I expected so many examples to really reinforce the concepts
• Yes, to improve the skill of writing
• Yes, because I read the paper -more interesting. Wish we had someone at UM who could teach our students this stuff on a regular basis -kind of. Sometimes I found the lecture to be very useful but sometimes I can’t follow.
• Sort of. I thought it would be more professional such as the choosing of words, the logic of writing etc…
  I learned a lot about how to organize sentences, however, it would be even better if organization of paragraphs could be addressed a little bit more.

• Yes, more so
• It provided information that I can use to improve my scientific writing

How might this kind of event be improved in the future?

• Breaks every hour and a half may help attendees keep attention on the speaker and not lose focus or intimate atmosphere
• Use a microphone (voice is not low but if one was used it would have been better)
• I hope we have a class for this -better technological resources (i.e. Microphone)
• There is a lot to digest with quite separable strategies. What about having a class in the morning and a speed mentoring in the afternoon to try out some of the recommendations with a facilitator present
• Her notes on the board were small and could not be seen clearly from the back of the room.
• More diverse examples from science
• Make it a little shorter
• Coffee station/breaks would have helped
• It was great! We need more on this topic -
• Instead of one day event it could be spread in a 2 or 3 day time frame or 2-3 hour seminars
• Have more intervals and shorter sessions
• Wider audience, more faculty
• Timing it a little better so that the lecturer can cover more about science writing of articles. Also this workshop could be separated into two days
• Reducing the AC! It was cold. What a waste of energy!
• Organizing coffee for short breaks. What's the point of a break without coffee
• Make it shorter. More to the point about sentence structure, abstracts, etc… or split into two days
• I would like to have a seminar focused on writing proposals
• Include an interactive portion
• More breaks for coffee.
• Advisors should sit through something similar to learn how to give more constructive feedback/guidance
• Problems with the microphone was unfortunate but it wasn’t a big deal thanks to Dr. Swan’s personality.
• Suggesting that labs attend jointly so that advisors and lab-mates are aware of helpful feedback
• Provide a half page outline in advance of the event. Reduce emphasis on “style” (it could paralyze a writer)
• Follow up events that compliment those activities talked about in the workshop (i.e. graduate writing workshop)
• I think you should include a session directed to international faculty & students because we have a different set of problems and I would like to know how common they are.
• More coffee breaks
• Keep the breaks timely in the middle of sessions. It is hard to sit in those seats longer than two hours. Provide power point slides
• More! This was the best workshop I’ve ever attended at UM (in 5 years) Its so wonderful to hold it at RSMAS too.
• Great event! Just have more of them
• Food set up, have several stations and clean the bathrooms -
• Seminar on experimental design and data analysis -2 day workshop: 1st day: same as today 2nd day: more in depth examples in the context of grant writing and manuscript. Go from individual sentences to bigger concepts.
• It could have been shorter. It was too long and I found it hard to concentrate at the end
• Provide syllabus before event to potential audience
• I liked the “star wars” example on “closure”. I found using these types of examples effective with abstract ideas
• Too long. Maybe 2 hours shorter and during the week not on a Saturday. Thank you for providing this workshop. It was very helpful
• It was fine
• A functioning microphone would have been great -
• Coffee break with cookies
• If workshop held often, target specific topics (proposals, thesis, articles)
• coffee
  More time to complete the material in the handbook
• More time to cover all of the material
• More detailed materials, including examples, elaborations and practices
• Series of lectures would be good rather than choose limited topics to demonstrate on one day
• Give break every 1.5 hours. More interaction
• If you want more interaction with non-familiar faces during lunch you need to structure it as such. Free form will not lend itself to network well.
• Keep audience feedback lower so that people aren’t shouting out at the end of nearly every sentence.