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Writing well: coherence, structure and argumentation

Target audience

Of particular relevance to doctoral students (in all disciplines) in the latter half of their PhD.

Course pre-work

This is an interactive workshop, not a lecture. Come prepared to work on your own writing and engage the group through the chat function. IMPORTANT. During the workshop, you will need to have some of your own academic writing to hand, to put into practice what you’re learning (e.g. a (draft) section of a chapter you are working on at the moment).

Course mapped to

Vitae's Researcher Development Framework domains: A1 (Knowledge base), D2 (Communication and dissemination)

Course information

PLEASE NOTE: This workshop will run online.  If you are no longer able to attend, please cancel your place at least two working days before so that we can allow others onto the course.

We all want our writing to be well-structured – but what does that mean in practice? In this workshop we look at different aspects of organising a text. Topics include:

• creating coherence
• ordering sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into sections
• highlighting connections and transitions
• developing an argument

To attend this workshop, you need to bring a piece of (your own) academic writing, ideally something that you’re currently working on, eg a thesis chapter or a paper.

What previous participants have said about (the in-person version of) this course:

• "Very useful in the writing process, especially if you're at the drafting stage."
• "I found it useful thinking more scientifically about my work & writing looking particularly at whether I use core sentences & the pointers I put in the text to convey my logic."
• "It highlighted aspects I would normally take for granted about writing."
• "It offers a great possibility to critically look at the structure of your writing."

Aims and objectives

By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to:

• check their writing for textual features that support coherence
• sketch the structure of their text in terms of components, connections and forward movement
• identify whether their text contains a clear argument

Tutors

Dr Rebecca Wilson

Course provider

IELLI
Email: ielli@st-andrews.ac.uk