Writing Workflow: Forming Your Next Article in the Natural and Life Sciences

Aims

This course has four aims.

• You are encouraged and motivated to write your next research article.
• You choose and use helpful, specialized AI tools.
• You outline or plan research articles according to structural standards.
• You evaluate article drafts with confidence and you find ways to improve text quality.

Content

This course guides you through the process of writing your first or next research article. We start with determining the scope of the article (e.g. story, message, title) and planning writing sessions. Second, we improve figures and develop the sections of the article: introduction, material and methods, results, discussion. Third, we revise drafts and enhance text quality. Finally, we address the article’s strengths and indicate opportunities for further improvements. For all stages of the writing process, we discuss the thoughtful selection and effective use of AI tools.

Participants are expected to have research results for presentation in articles.
In addition, participants are expected to work on their article manuscripts between sessions.

Methods

• lectures
• exploration of suggested websites and software tools
• writing exercises (participants work on their article projects: they develop outlines and write drafts)
• feedback

Target Group

All doctoral Candidates of the Faculty of Science

Requirements

The participants should be at a sufficiently advanced stage in their research to be able to present their results in an article.

About the Trainer

Dr. Philipp Mayer obtained a PhD in the field of biodiversity research and received training in writing didactics. He works as a freelance trainer for scientific writing and publishing. Dr. Mayer has held many writing courses for various universities in Switzerland and Germany and he is the author of two books about scientific writing.

Workload

Course attendance: 3 x 4h
Coaching session (preparation and participation): 1h
Individual preparations and follow up work: 17h

28.10.2026, from 09:00-13:00
11.11.2026, from 09:00-13:00
25.11.2026, from 09:00-13:00
09.12.2026, online 1:1 coaching session, 20 min, time scheduled individually

Feature

This course is reserved for doctoral candidates of the Faculy of Science.

Once registration is open, applications will be collected for 24 hours and course places allocated by lot. All registrations received after the initial 24h period will be put on a waiting list and assigned on a first come, first served basis.

Course places/places on the waiting list will be confirmed by e-mail. Course registrations can only be canceled before the registration period ends (send an e-mail to grace@unibas.ch). Full course attendance is mandatory. Participants who fail to attend a course without prior notification or withdraw after the registration deadline are subject to a fee of CHF 30. In addition, participants who cancel their course registration at a later point in time, are absent without an excuse or do not attend the entire course will, for reasons of fairness, not be considered for course registration in the following semester and will be removed from other courses offered in the same semester. Please find the detailed regulations on the Transferable Skills Homepage.