Writing and Communicating your Science - an IAA-CSIC Severo Ochoa Workshop

There is no science without communication and no successful scientists without good writing and communication skills. You can do the best science that exists, if you don’t write papers about it – papers that get cited! ­– and if you don’t give presentations that impress people, your science will likely be ignored. Moreover, if you do not write convincing proposals that appeal to non-specialists, you won’t get observing time, nor the coveted post-doc position and certainly not the very competitive but needed grants to fund your research. Finally, as a scientist, it is your duty and privilege to communicate your science to the general public, policy makers and the media, and like all the rest, this is something that needs to be learned. This course is an introduction about how to get your message across in the various supports you need to use as a scientist. It is aimed are junior scientists who are writing their first papers, but will also be helpful for colleagues with more experience. The skills learned in this course will be more generally applicable as well, whether or not you not plan to build a further career as an academic. The course will be split in five sessions combining two hours of lectures and 1.5 hours of exercises. During the course and the exercises, you will refer to your own writing when we discuss items like title, abstract, introduction, or paragraph and sentence structure, so bring with you your latest paper, whether in early draft form or submitted to a journal.