ECTS: 1

Number of academic hours: 25 hours (16 contact hours + 9 hours for self-study and written tasks)

Group size: 16 participants

Teaching format: interactive seminars

Language: English

Course requirements: participation in 80% of the seminars is required in order to get 1 ECTS. The participants of the course will have to write a short text and provide feedback to each other’s texts.

Course focus:

The focus of this course is on research writing and publication practices in English. It is notoriously difficult for researchers who are non-native speakers of English to get their research published in international journals. This is partly due to significant rhetorical differences of academic text construction followed by Anglo-American writing traditions in comparison to many other academic cultures, as well as specific expectations of international journal boards. Another challenge for novice researchers is to adapt their writing patterns to match the epistemological writing traditions of their discipline, so that their writing is recognized as that of the ‘insiders’ of the field. Recognizing rhetorical patterns that characterize a discipline is therefore a cucial step in mastering effective research writing. Finally, novice researchers at the PhD level frequently find it difficult to respond to peer review and to act as peer reviewers themselves. All of these issues will be addressed in the course. The course will also give an opportunity to participants to share their own writing and receive feedback both from peers and from the course instructor. 

Course schedule:

February 12, 09:00-12:15

Clash of the titans: Features of Anglo-American academic discourse in comparison to other academic cultures

February 19, 09:00-12:15

Opening the Pandora’s box: Research article as a genre and international journals as publishers

February 26, 09:00-12:15

The good, the bad and the ugly: Aspects of responding to and writing reviews

March 05, 09:00-12:15

And all that jazz: Hands on practice – analysing and giving peer feedback to written work

About the lecturer:

Dr. Jolanta Šinkūnienė is professor of English linguistics at the department of English Philology and a director of English, Romance and Classical Studies Institute at Vilnius University. She is a member of the expert committee of the humanities and social sciences at the Research Council of Lithuania and a co-chair of Research Culture Working Group at Science Europe. Her research interests focus on cross-linguistic, cross-disciplinary and cross-generic studies of academic discourse, EAP (English for Academic Purposes), research publication and reviewing processes, evaluation of research, effective scientific discourse construction, academic identity and career aspects. Jolanta is a reviewer for a number of international journals, she is also a member of international advisory board of journals Iperstoria, Discourse and Interaction, and a member of the editorial board of ESP Today.

More information: https://jolantasinkuniene.wordpress.com