Composing Attractive Abstracts (Social Sciences and Humanities)

Kursinhalte

To draw readers to your publications or gain access to conferences, you must compose attractive abstracts that spark interest in your research. This abstract workshop offers guidance on the content, structure and language conventions of conference and research article abstracts. It is aimed primarily at PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows who are learning to write abstracts (English level B2/C1). At the end of the workshop, participants are expected to have gained independence in writing ready-to-submit abstracts for conferences or journals.

The workshop covers
• Content: how information is organized
• Conciseness: how to meet the word limit
• Cohesion: how to guide readers from opening to conclusion
• Claims: how to sound objective and believable.
In addition to these core points, any issues identified in participants’ own writing may be addressed.

Pre-workshop preparation
1–2 hours
Participants write, upload and bring to the workshop a first draft of an abstract that will be reviewed during the course. Having a copy of a call for papers for a publication or conference to which the participant would like to submit their abstract, is also recommended, as the abstracts can then be tailored to that specific publication or event. The lecturer analyses these submissions to identify common issues that could be addressed during the workshop.

Follow-up:
In the week following the workshop, participants improve their writing based on recommendations from the workshop and peer review from a colleague. They also receive detailed feedback from the tutor on a final version of their abstract.

Adressatinnen und Adressaten

Doctoral Candidates & Postdocs in the Social Sciences and Humanities

Voraussetzungen

To gain entry to the workshop, participants must submit a work-in-progress abstract/summary on at least level B2/C1.
Participants agree to provide written peer review for one fellow participant during and after the workshop.

Informationen zu den Dozierenden

Stephan Meyer (Research Gate)
Lecturer for academic publication and presentation at the Language Center of the University of Basel

Leistungsspektrum / Workload

Preparation 120 minutes; workshop 270 minutes (including a 30-minute-break); peer review 40 minutes; revision 60 minutes.

Besonderheiten

Registrations will be processed according to a “first come, first served” principle. The course registration will be confirmed by email. The registration to a course makes the participation in the full training mandatory. Course registrations can only be cancelled before the registration period ends (send an email to grace@unibas.ch). Unexcused absence and cancellation of the workshop after the registration deadline leads to a penalty fee of CHF 30.00. 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.