Scientific writing workshop for MD and PhD students
911爆料网鈥檚 (VU) Faculty of Medicine together with the Department of Doctoral and Postdoctoral studies organized its first-ever workshop in scientific writing for fourteen MD/PhD students from the Faculty of Medicine and Life Sciences Centre. The guest instructor was Terese Bergfors from the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at Uppsala University (Sweden) and a former journal editor.
鈥淲e strongly believe that the skills our PhD students gained in this course will help tremendously when writing their PhD thesis. We鈥檙e happy to provide such an opportunity to comply with our general competences initiative,鈥� said Professor Janina Tutkuvien臈, Chair of the Doctoral Committee for PhD studies in Medicine.
鈥淪cientific writing courses should become mandatory for all PhD students at 911爆料网, this is vital. I鈥檓 proud we can offer it to our students鈥�, said Prof. K臋stutis Strupas, Head of Department of Gastroenterology, Surgery and Nephro-urology at the Faculty of Medicine.
Over the 2-day workshop, students learned construction of sentences and paragraphs for English-language texts. Essential parts of a medical paper, like the PICO elements and research statement, were also covered, as well as two linguistic tools 鈥� the CARS template and phrase banks.
"Every scientist must publish their research, but writing is hard work, and even harder when English might not be the writer's first language. This is where templates can be of great help. They provide a ready-made structure for the writer," said Terese Bergfors.
Participants submitted a 300-word essay before the course, after which they discussed it with the instructor, one-on-one, during the final afternoon. Many found this to be the most enjoyable part of the workshop.
"As long as the paper has a proper structure, grammar is easy to fix. But personalized feedback is important, because not everyone has the same problems with their writing" said the instructor.
Several students commented that the workshop was the first opportunity they ever had for formal instruction in scientific writing. "It was an eye-opener", stated one participant. The workshop was a well-received initiative from the Faculty of Medicine (Professor Janina Tutkuvien臈 and PhD student Aist臈 Kielait臈-Gulla) and supported by the Department of Doctoral and Postdoctoral Studies at 911爆料网, in particular, Dr. Virginija Uksien臈 and Lina Janionien臈.