PERIODO: MAY - JUNE 2017


Writing Scientific Papers in English is a blended course for PhD students who are beginning to publish their work in English. It is particularly suited to engineering disciplines. The course aims to help participants discover the conventions of research articles in English and to provide them with useful tools that will enable them to write academic papers independently in the future.
Writing Scientific Papers in English is a soft skills course. Participants who attend at least 70% of classroom lessons and complete the assigned course work will be awarded 15 points.
Course Content
The course focuses on conventional textual structures which are commonly used in research articles in English. Five standard sections are covered: Introduction; Methodology; Results; Discussion/Conclusion; Abstract. Useful grammar and vocabulary is included and participants are helped to build up the language resources necessary to write papers in their own field of research. The course includes weekly individual and group writing activities, both in class and online.
Course structure
An introductory induction lesson is followed by 5 weeks of twice-weekly classroom lessons (15 hours). Each week of classroom lessons is preceded by an online component to be completed before attending the lessons. It consists of video input followed by a quiz and an online task. At the end of each week, participants are required to participate in a collaborative online writing task.
NB: Course participants are required to attend a minimum of 70% of the lessons. However, absence from the first two lessons (Induction lesson and Lesson 1), will automatically lead to exclusion from the course.
Once the enrolment period is closed, no further students will be admitted.
Access to the course:
Around two weeks before the beginning of each course, a link will appear under the LINGUE tab on your personal page of the Portale della Didattica if you have presented one of the following certificates: IELTS 6, TOEFL IBT 80 or Cambridge FIRST B or above to the Office of Student Services or to SCUDO.
If you do not have any of the above certificates, you need to take the CLA IG level test and pass it with a minimum score of 65. This test can be taken at the CLA prior to the beginning of the enrolment period for the course. See CLA opening times: https://didattica.polito.it/cla/en/how_to_reach_us
Course book
GLASMAN-DEAL, Hilary (2010). Science Research Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English. Imperial College Press.
NB: participants are required to bring the coursebook to all lessons.
Course calendar and timetable
This blended course is delivered twice a year (February/March and May/June). Two different timetables are normally offered, to be chosen on enrolment. A maximum of 30 places are available for each timetable.
N.B. For any further information on the course please contact scudo@polito.it