ACADEMIC WRITING 2

The Academic Writing 2 course for students of the Ca 'Foscari international college aims to finalize the information and knowledge acquired in Academic Writing 1, further enriching the knowledge with new contents. Based on the general structure of the scientific publications acquired in AW1, the course foresees the deepening of the common criteria for a correct drafting of all sections of a publication, as well as discussing aspects related to the different kind of scientific journals. Subjects like journal selection, metrics of scientific publications, the reviewing process and the role of the editor will be discussed in detail.

STRUCTURE AND CONTENT OF THE COURSE COULD CHANGE AS A CONSEQUENCE OF COVID-19.

The expected learning outcomes can be divided into the following specific aspects:
1. Knowledge and understanding
i) knowledge of the different types of scientific publications, ii) knowledge of the sections of an article and their preparation iii) knowledge of the reviewing process and role of the author, publisher and reviewer.
2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
i) Ability to draft a simple complete scientific article in all parts including title, list of authors, affiliation, abstracts, introduction, tables, figures and diagrams, results and discussion, conclusions, bibliography, graphical abstract and cover letter; ii) ability to act as author and reviewer of simple scientific articles
3. Ability to judge
i) ability to organize experimental data for the drafting of article ii) ability to summarize in writing a scientific article; iii) critical ability in the review of scientific articles
4. Communication skills
i) Ability to appropriately highlight strengths of research results in comparison with the literature, ii) ability to describe the state of the art in a particular research field. iii) ability to prepare high quality clear graphic material (diagrams, tables, figures), iv) ability to critically examine a scientific work, judging its clarity, brevity, relevance.
5. Learning skills
i) ability to evaluate the quality and prestige of a scientific journal, ii) ability to draft simple scientific articles, iii) ability to critically analyze scientific articles

The course requires the completion of Academic Writing 1 as a prerequisite

The course covers the following topics in order:
-description of what is meant by scientific publication, experimental scientific method, research guided by curiosity or problem solving
- Reviewing process, role of the editor and reviewers
-descriptions of the different types of scientific journals and comparison methods, impact factor, green, gold and diamond open access
-metrics for the quantification of the reputation of scientific journals
-preparation of the title
- preparation of the abstract
-affiliation and list of authors, which criteria are applied to choose the co-authors of a scientific work
- preparation of the introduction, typical structure and key steps towards presenting the results
- results and discussion, in what order to report them and possible criteria
- fundamental importance of the meticulous preparation of figures, tables and schemes
-conclusions and future prospects
- preparation of the bibliography
- preparation of graphical abstract and cover letter

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/acs-webinars/collections/writing.html

Preparation of a simple scientific article on a topic chosen by the student (also based on imaginative data) of couple of pages long, following a template provided by the lecturer. In the article, all parts of the publication are requested to be prepared following the instructions given in class. The evaluation of the article will not consider the data and results reported, rather it will judge how these data are presented. Fundamental aspects are the effectiveness of the title, the clarity of the abstract, the ability of the introduction to be concise while bringing the reader to the heart of the results reported in the following results and discussion section, the clarity of the figures, tables and diagrams. The cover letter and / or a graphical abstract to be added as additional material to the scientific article will also be assessed. The student will then be called to act as a reviewer of the articles prepared by other students, discussing them in small groups and reporting the relevant observations to the lecturer.
The final evaluation will weigh 80% on the drafting of the article and 20% on the revision in groups.

The course is organized into class lectures (2.5 academic hours each) with the aid of a projector and powerpoint slides that will be provided to students and uploaded to the moodle platform.

The lecturer is available to meet the students upon request for further information on the course topics by email: alesca@unive.it

written and oral