Writing in the Sciences with Kristin Sainani

hi my name is Kristen sonani and I'm a clinical assistant professor at Stanford University Writing is fundamental to what we do in science whether it's writing a lab report a manuscript or a grant your success as a scientist depends on your ability to communicate effectively using the written word but most scientists receive little if any formal training in writing it's kind of one of those practical skills that you're expected to magically absorb from the air in graduate school that's unfortunate because there are a few simple rules of style that can drastically improve your writing if someone points them out to you these are the tricks that I'm going to teach you in this course this is a very Hands-On course we're going to do a lot of interactive examples and a lot of practice I'm also going to help you to streamline your writing process so that you can write faster and with less anxiety and less struggle the first four weeks of this course we're going to talk about General principles of good writing so even if you're coming from a non-science discipline you can benefit from this training as well the second four weeks of this course we're going to talk about issues that are specific to Scientific writing such as the publication process and how to format an original manuscript there are no prerequisites for this course and everyone is welcome to join papers in the scientific literature even in the best journals are often difficult and frankly boring to read so my goals for this course are to make you a better more confident writer and also to do my small part in changing the scientific literature to make it more accessible efficient engaging and enjoyable to read the proceeding program is copyrighted by the Board of Trustees of the lelan Stanford Jr University please visit us at med.stanford.edu