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Interesting that there was teaching on how to write at all. In my technical PhD in Germany we had zero instruction on writing other than feedback from the prof

Interesting that there was teaching on how to write at all. In my technical PhD in Germany we had zero instruction on writing other than feedback from the prof near deadlines. You're just supposed to pick it up by reading papers (plus the experience of having written a bachelor and master thesis where you're guided by a PhD student who may themselves not be great at writing).

Jiocus 6y ago
When I went to uni in Sweden, there was a mandatory course in academic writing as part of CS program. The learning objectives was more than just a styleguide proofreading by supervisors though, as methodologies, data collection and paper structures was covered. Pretty much the scientific process really. This seemed to be quite needed for students to get up to speed. I was from Finland, where this subject was brought up before uni. For what it's worth, I remember my supervisor calling bullshit on my then dense and overly academic writing and I thank them for it. It was a process of un-learning bad patterns or preconcieved notions about the writing process. Recommend.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  We have seminar courses for this where master students do some lit review (mainly based around one paper) and present that work in a longer form writing. This is also "just" learning by doing. There is some back-and-forth with PhD students who help with the structure, but there's no explicit instruction.
data_acquired 6y ago
Oh good god :) Picking up writing from reading the average paper is likely injurious to the health of your future readers. Few papers are well-written and you're likely to unknowingly pick up bad habits from reading the average paper. If your advisor was actively training you in good writing and providing you critical feedback on sentence construction, paragraph organization, the flow of ideas from one section to the next, then sure, you wouldn't really require a class. But I doubt the average advisor has the bandwidth for such feedback, esp. in my field of biology. In the context where I taught, most students coming into the PhD program had no training in writing whatsoever. The first round of essays that people turned in were typically very poorly written. Most folks really needed the training in my view.
- bonoboTP 6y ago
  I mean, you wouldn't emulate the average paper though, but the ones from the best labs in your field, the papers that get awards etc. I think it's actually better to seek writing advice on the Internet (not from randos, but if you're cut out for a PhD you should be able to tell apart crap advice from good ones.) I'm pretty sure it's better than whatever my university could offer as a course. And just as everywhere, 90% of everything is crap. Perhaps more than 90% of papers are crap and 90% of academics have nothing to say and write terribly to hide it.
  - data_acquired 5y ago
    Fair enough. It does sound like you fall/fell on the more advanced side of the grad student curve though. +1 on 90% of papers having nothing much to say.

Jiocus 6y ago

When I went to uni in Sweden, there was a mandatory course in academic writing as part of CS program. The learning objectives was more than just a styleguide proofreading by supervisors though, as methodologies, data collection and paper structures was covered. Pretty much the scientific process really. This seemed to be quite needed for students to get up to speed. I was from Finland, where this subject was brought up before uni. For what it's worth, I remember my supervisor calling bullshit on my then dense and overly academic writing and I thank them for it. It was a process of un-learning bad patterns or preconcieved notions about the writing process. Recommend.

bonoboTP 6y ago
We have seminar courses for this where master students do some lit review (mainly based around one paper) and present that work in a longer form writing. This is also "just" learning by doing. There is some back-and-forth with PhD students who help with the structure, but there's no explicit instruction.

data_acquired 6y ago

Oh good god :) Picking up writing from reading the average paper is likely injurious to the health of your future readers. Few papers are well-written and you're likely to unknowingly pick up bad habits from reading the average paper. If your advisor was actively training you in good writing and providing you critical feedback on sentence construction, paragraph organization, the flow of ideas from one section to the next, then sure, you wouldn't really require a class. But I doubt the average advisor has the bandwidth for such feedback, esp. in my field of biology. In the context where I taught, most students coming into the PhD program had no training in writing whatsoever. The first round of essays that people turned in were typically very poorly written. Most folks really needed the training in my view.

bonoboTP 6y ago
I mean, you wouldn't emulate the average paper though, but the ones from the best labs in your field, the papers that get awards etc. I think it's actually better to seek writing advice on the Internet (not from randos, but if you're cut out for a PhD you should be able to tell apart crap advice from good ones.) I'm pretty sure it's better than whatever my university could offer as a course. And just as everywhere, 90% of everything is crap. Perhaps more than 90% of papers are crap and 90% of academics have nothing to say and write terribly to hide it.
- data_acquired 5y ago
  Fair enough. It does sound like you fall/fell on the more advanced side of the grad student curve though. +1 on 90% of papers having nothing much to say.