linda mcphee consulting
London
Last modified: 04/10/2019 International courses and workshops for researchers
writing for refereed journal publication Great writing is not primarily about
grammar or even about word choice. It’s about structure, and more specifically
about putting information where readers have been trained to see it. However,
this is not what most people are taught. Writers are often handed a lot of
“rules” that do little or nothing to improve their writing. You probably know
them: Avoid passives. Vary your language. Shorten sentences. Paragraphs must
have an explicit topic sentence, 3 supporting sentences and a concluding
sentence. Jargon sounds academic. Data equals thinking. Write the way you talk.
Fix your grammar and you’re fine. Word choice is everything. Sentences should be
under 29 words long. Never start a sentence with but, however or because. Never
split infinitives. And so on… These are both disempowering and (in the main)
untrue, yet many teachers continue to dish them out. This course is different –
really different. In the 10-week course, five class sessions are concerned with
structures that will help participants produce a first draft. The next five
sessions cover, in detail, a dynamic system for altering that first draft,
making it understandable to others without following any of the above ‘rules’.
The intensive 5-day course begins with a first draft, and consists of morning
group sessions based on that draft, followed by afternoons revising (first for
structure and content, but in the last three days also for readability). A
selection of topics will be omitted from the 5-day course. The course continues
with email support as needed until the article is submitted to a refereed
journal (and through the entire revision and acceptance process)