Scientific Writing Clinic

You have to publish papers in journals, it’s an essential part of academic research. To help you there´s the yDiv Scientific Writing Clinic.

This Writing Clinic will give you the experience and feedback that´s key to helping you improve your scientific English writing and develop a healthy routine. The Writing Clinic offers you help in obtaining the necessary skills and methods for increasing your confidence and making the writing process quicker and more efficient. 

The idea is that you will be offered comprehensive feedback on your writing by Dr Andrew Davis, a trained science editor with a research background similar to yours (who is also a native speaker of English).

The process is as follows:

1.      First, you send your texts to Dr Davis. (These texts will be mostly passages from articles you are drafting for your dissertation.) Please also inform the yDiv coordination that you will approach Dr Davis.

2.      Then Dr Davis will examine and review these texts for language proficiency, structure, comprehensiveness and style. After about a week, he will send the text back with notes and comments.

3.      Then he will schedule a meeting with you either on skype or, in some cases, in person in Leipzig. During this meeting, Dr Davis will provide further textual feedback. He will also advise you on techniques to improve your writing or on such things as avoiding writers’ block.

The Writing Clinic is not a workshop on scientific writing and is not a substitute for attending such a workshop. Workshops focus on the effective transfer of knowledge in scientific publications.

However, the Writing Clinic is a tool for expanding upon and deepening what was learned in workshops and for giving you individual help in improving your scientific writing.