Descriptif

Scientific Storytelling is a course for graduate students who are interested in refining the way they narrate their academic interests, research experience and professional focus. The three core aspects of this course are the science where we work on popularising your areas of specialisation), the story (where we merge the art of storytelling with the scientific content that you work on) and the telling (where we work on your voice as a scientist, as an engineer and build your ability to think on your feet across different academic and professional contexts). 

You will have the opportunity to sharpen your academic writing skills as well - with a 2000-word scientific paper to be produced at the end, the emphasis in the sessions will be on the art of scientific storytelling (Eco, 1977; Luna, 2012). We will look at a range of storytelling techniques from literature to the humanities to science itself; focusing on language strategies that bring theory, experiment and data to life. We will do a considerable amount of discourse analysis as well as exercises in identifying and formulating good research questions. We will also work through many examples of scientific writing in English through a variety of styles- from Richard Feynman to Martin Rees via Chien-Shiung Wu. 

The unique combination of storytelling and science provides a dynamic framework in which to develop your writing skills; and a strong enthusiasm for both science and language is all you need to do well on this course. This course is very good initial preparation for those of you intending to do research and publication at further levels in your studies and careers.