Certification in Scientific Writing
The Certification in Scientific Writing program examines skills and knowledge in scientific writing. A participant who passes the examination earns a professional certificate. Currently, IIT Gandhinagar Ph.D. students are eligible to take the certification examination.
The Certification in Scientific Writing is expected to:
• Encourage research scholars to work on scientific writing from an early stage of their career
• Promote in the skill development of IIT Gandhinagar’s students and trainees
• Serve as a milestone for gauging students’ skills and knowledge in scientific writing
• Facilitate emergence of tutors in scientific writing
• Enable students to use scientific writing competencies during their life-long learning process
Certification Process:
(1) Eligibility: Doctoral students and postdoctoral trainees are eligible to apply for the certification. The certification is especially relevant for scholars who are planning to present their research in international conferences abroad or are drafting their first communique. IIT Gandhinagar’s students and trainees can obtain certification at no cost.
(2) The certification process will be conducted twice every year: Jan-Mar and Aug-Oct.
Timeline of events, Sem I 2023-24:
- 19th Jan., Friday: Application form closed.
- 22nd Jan., Monday: Phase 1 begins. Students prepare their written submissions for 6 weeks. Guidelines for the submissions will be provided to the students.
- 4th March, Monday: Phase 1 submission deadline.
- 8th March, Friday to 16th March, Saturday: Evaluation of written submissions. The submissions will be evaluated based on the organization, structure, logical flow of ideas, and quality of writing. They will not be evaluated based on the scientific novelty of the work/proposed work.
- 23rd March, Saturday: Phase 2 written examination (in person). Students who pass Phase 1 will undertake a 1.5-hour written examination on various aspects of scientific writing.
- 25th March, Monday to 1st April, Monday: Evaluation of Phase 2 exam papers.
- 2nd April, Tuesday (tentative):
Announcement of Phase 2 exam results. Students who pass Phase 2 will be invited to an event for the presentation of their certificates. - TBA: Awards ceremony
Student Testimonials:
I registered and submitted the required documents for this program to see how much I have learned in the past two years of my Ph.D. This program made me look at my writing and presentation of my work in a different light. It was interesting to re-read the documents several times by myself as taking views of others wasn’t allowed. That way, it made me read my writing as if I was looking at someone else’s piece of writing and gave me space to criticize my own mistake instead of being defensive of why I have written that way. This gave me a chance to open up and learn from the mistakes that I made. There is still a lot of scope to progress. The offline exam was well structured to test the knowledge and thought processes of the candidates. Those kinds of questions can’t be attempted just by mugging up the content. Overall, it was a good experience.
I was able to ideate, perform and submit a preprint article as part of the Scientific writing program. The program helped me to identify the points that I need to work on while preparing a manuscript.
With this certification course, I explored new ways of effective, clear, and concise representation of the technical thought process. It helps in improving the impact of the research work and boosts the confidence of the researcher.
Before obtaining the scientific writing certificate, the process of writing a scientific paper seemed very intimidating to me. I would stare at a blank page for many hours, constantly doubting and double-checking whatever I had managed to write. While giving me an opportunity to prepare a manuscript, the certification process provided the much-needed initial confidence in my ability to write a structured and coherent scientific manuscript. It helped me familiarize myself with the various aspects of a scientific paper. The process also helped me identify the weaker areas of my writing process, working on which will surely improve and refine future writing endeavors.
The certification program has allowed me to enhance my scientific writing and preparing posters for the presentation. It also helped me gauge my technical writing skills. Nevertheless, it gave me an insight into the implicit points that I have to remember while drafting a research paper.
The certification in scientific writing is a very thoughtfully designed evaluation process that includes not just scientific writing but also emphasized the ethical, legal aspects of it. This program gave me an opportunity to learn the intricacies of the writing, get comprehensive feedback on it. Scientific Writing, IITGN website presented all the relevant resources that helped me a lot during preparing documents for Phase-1 and also during preparation for Phase-2. I am much grateful to the entire Certification in Scientific Writing Team. Thanks.
The major part of the ‘Certification in Scientific Writing’ course was based on self-learning and self-assessment through critical revisions of one’s own written document. This process helped me in coming up with a good first draft of my research proposal. The resources provided on the scientific writing website proved to be very useful and the single-blind reviewers’ comments provided feedback that enhanced the writing and presentation quality of the actual submitted work.
I have never made any technical proposal or poster before. This certification course made me learn the proper ways to create these technical documents. I am very much thankful to Writing-Studio to provide all needed information through its website. I strongly encourage every PhD scholar to do this course.
This certification process aided in building my confidence in scientific writing. I could gain a better understanding of the technicalities through this process.
The certification process has given me a insight to writing a research proposal in a concise manner which is in general required rather than a detailed approach which I was more familiar in the past. Also, the poster submission has given more clarity on how to draw attention to the major point which we want the audience/reviewer to have.
In the similar manner the Phase II examination has helped me to go through the nuance of various points which one should follow but usually overseen in bigger picture.
The ‘Certification in Scientific Writing’ course explicitly focused on independent and ethical academic writing, which helped enhance my writing skills as a research scholar. The drafting of the manuscript, repeated revisions, and self-evaluation of the draft assisted me in building on my critical writing and thinking. Furthermore, the well-curated resources on the scientific writing website and reviewers’ constructive comments helped me recognize ways in which I can write more effectively, concisely, and coherently. For this, I am very thankful to the entire scientific writing team.
Scientific writing is a well-designed course, and it helped me enhance my writing skill. The most challenging thing about this course was that we had to write the manuscript independently without taking anybody’s help during phase-1. Therefore, I felt confident after completing this course. Moreover, the reviewer’s feedback helped me identify my weaknesses and the areas where I need to work to write more effectively. The material provided by the scientific writing website was beneficial for me in both phases. I am very thankful to the scientific writing team for conducting such an excellent course.
The certification process in scientific writing is not just a test of writing skill set but also a medium to enable one’s thinking to write, read, revise and rewrite critically. In the exercise of this program, I learnt to synthesize and structure our work, make a criticism on our drafts, and revise them. This program gears up researchers for scientific writing and gives a line of thought to draft better.
The process of writing a scientific manuscript for the first time in a structured and coherent way made my understanding of the topic clearer. I also learned about ambiguity, parallelism etc. which improved my writing skill.
It was a great experience. I have written more than 10 scientific research articles. But this competition helped me to strong my writing skills.
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