Levels of Complexity: How to Pitch your Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Ziele

This workshop is intended for doctoral researchers who wish to present the most interesting, engaging, and thought-provoking versions of their research narratives to various intellectual audiences. Through peer-review and practice, we will strategize the most effective ways to represent your work – a pitch that honours your efforts and rigour, acknowledges the expertise level of your audience, and keeps it engaging for all.

Kursinhalte

Summarizing your research to diverse audiences – whether in an oral or written format – can be tedious and frustrating. What is relevant for them to know? What is important for you to showcase?

For example, you may feel stressed when explaining the importance of your project to intellectual stakeholders (e.g., grant interviews, outreach) – there’s simply not enough time to provide the scholarly background necessary to emphasize the importance and novelty of your research questions!
You might also feel unsure on what to highlight when summarizing your own academic work – in cover letters for journal submissions, self-written introductions when participating in conference panels, or even a quick conversational description at professional networking events.

Can we strike the balance of understandable (to them), and satisfying (for you)? Together, we will develop strategies that simplify (but never diminish) your expertise to match the knowledge, specific interest, and time availability of your listeners.

Form

There are two sessions – they both involve some instruction, some peer interactions, and active discussion.

The short-communication contexts we will focus on include:
• formal project descriptions for expert audiences (e.g. professional interviews, cover letters)
• semi-formal descriptions of academic interests/research for diverse audiences (e.g., networking, conference settings)
• formal/semi-formal descriptions of academic expertise for lay audiences (e.g., media outreach, public communications)

In the first session, we will look at published examples of spoken/written introductions in different contexts and aim to figure out what makes it effective (or not!). This will allow us to collaboratively develop a framework for “what works”. This will enable us to draft scripts for each context. In the second session, we will share our draft scripts with each other, which will be refined in a peer-review setting through discussions and role-playing different interactions.

Adressatinnen und Adressaten

All Doctoral candidates of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Theology

Voraussetzungen

No prior experience is required for this workshop.

Informationen zu den Dozierenden

Dr. Sahana Srinivasan (she/her) lectures in the Department of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Basel. She holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Biotechnology from Ghent University (Belgium) and was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame (USA).

Leistungsspektrum / Workload

Total of 8h (course attendance 2x 4h)

Besonderheiten

This course is reserved for doctoral candidates of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Theology.

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.