Science-Writing Workshop with Dallas Murphy

Attaining Clarity in Science Writing.  Learning to think like a writer.

Registration form: closed

Registration deadline: June 7th

Max no. of participants: 12

Workshop Structure and Objectives

Each participant will submit a draft of his/her paper before the workshop. Dallas will read aloud the abstract, introduction, and conclusions, and, as a group, we will discuss each part individually.

We guarantee that, together, we can improve each paper, but that is not the ultimate objective of the workshop. We will use the papers to develop a writing process, offering principles and techniques that can be applied to the composition of the next paper and the next, thereby learning to “think like a writer”.

For new writers, the nearly universal writing problem is not syntax or grammar, though we will consider these aspects as needed. The problem is clarity due to a lack of structure. We will, therefore, focus on the means and techniques of attaining cogent structure and learn how to write prose that supports a new scientific discovery with maximum clarity.

We will also have time for rewrites with the objective to rewrite a particular section to improve its clarity—and to get used to the idea that writing is, in fact, rewriting.

The Lecturer

Dallas Murphy is a professional writer, author of nine books, fiction and nonfiction. He also conducts this science-writing workshop annually at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, the University of Hamburg, the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School, and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.