Are you a PhD candidate or researcher looking to improve your academic writing skills? This course will give you insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your own writing skills and provide you with the tools to improve the quality of your academic texts.
Building on an analysis of participants' own texts submitted prior to commencement, this course gives you a clear idea of your strengths and weaknesses concerning written academic English. It shows you what you can do to improve your confidence in the short term, helps you to eradicate unnecessary mistakes, and gives you new options for expressing complex ideas in well-structured English sentences, so that you can add some variation to your writing. We will focus on those areas where your writing needs to be more advanced when you’re writing for publication: correctness, clarity, consistency, coherence, and conciseness.
Content
The course is intensive and lasts two weeks: three meetings in the first week and two in the second week. You will be given tools to improve your writing skills and avoid unnecessary mistakes in a short space of time. The emphasis is on improving the clarity and conciseness of your writing. You will also learn how to systematically revise your own work using a comprehensive checklist.
Course setup
Before the start of the course, you submit a text of roughly 1,500 words written in English, which you will work on during the course. For feedback, the teacher uses ELS-online, the ALP's feedback system. Assessment will be based on a rewritten text (after you’ve received feedback), a new text of 1,000 words, and some short editing assignments.
For whom?
PhD candidates (and other researchers) who want to improve or strengthen their academic English. This course will be most beneficial if you’ve been working on your PhD for at least a year. You will need to have written at least one or two longer texts relating to your research.
In order to participate in this course, you must have a connection with the VU and you must have started your PhD trajectory. If you do not meet these requirements, but you would still like to participate, please contact us before you register.
Teacher
Dr. Gea Dreschler, g.a.dreschler@vu.nl
Dates and time
- Monday 9 November, 09:30-12:15
- Tuesday 10 November 2026, 09:30-12:15
- Thursday 12 November 2026, 13:30-16:15
- Tuesday 17 November 2026, 09:30-12:15
- Thursday 19 November 2026, 13:30-16:15
The course is offered twice each academic year: in November and May. Would you like to be notified as soon as the new dates are announced? Send an email to alp.sgw@vu.nl and we will keep you updated.
Credits: 3 ECTS
Price
€ 475
Location
The meetings take place on the VU campus.
Registration and contact
Click here for the registration form.
For information and questions, send an e-mail to the ALP's course administration: alp.sgw@vu.nl.