The University of Ghana-Carnegie Writing Centre (UG-CWC), in Collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning Innovation (CTLI), University of Ghana, invites graduate students of the University who are in their thesis year to the next in the Workshopping Series.
Details of the workshop are as follows:
Date: 19-20 April 2023
Venue: Biotechnology Centre Conference room (Near West African Centre for Crop Improvement)
Kindly register using the link below. Deadline for registration is Monday 17th April 2023.
https://forms.gle/V5P1J7bqMR7eBPCa8
Workshop overview
The UG-Carnegie Writing Centre/CTLI Workshopping Series focus on face-to-face coaching on specific sections of a writing project: introduction, literature review, methodology, analysis and discussion of results, and conclusions. The workshopping sessions deliver hands-on training for participants to work through various stages of their draft manuscripts. This module is intended to help students improve their writing of the methodology section of their thesis.
The methodology section is an essential part of your thesis/scholarly writing, as it enables you to answer the question of how the research questions were addressed (i.e., what materials and/or methods/experimental methods were used). The section may outline the methodologies applied to answer the research questions; the application of existing methods, theory and tools; or principles, concepts and models on which data collection or fieldwork is based. The form for each person’s methodology section may vary, but the building blocks are similar.
This workshop will guide you through the logical structure, language and style features of research methodology. An efficient use of these features will enable readers to understand/assess/validate how you studied the problem, the steps/procedures you followed in seeking answers to research questions and in what order, the replicability of experiments, etc. These features of language and style include tense, voice, point of view, precision & directness in describing design and procedure (e.g., avoiding wordiness, redundancy, nominalisation etc.), and how to maintain objectivity. Others include tools used to achieve coherence and clarity (e.g., by eliminating ambiguity and vagueness).
This two-day programme will therefore provide thorough, step-by-step, one-on-one practical sessions for writing a good methodology section. Participants must submit their draft methodology chapters before the workshop begins. They will then work with the resource persons during the sessions to review, revise, rewrite or fine tune their drafts. The goal is to help each participant produce a methodology section that communicates clearly and logically the steps/procedures adopted to answer research questions in the thesis.
Objectives of the Workshop
· Guide participants to apply the linguistic resources that are critical to writing a methodology for a thesis/scholarly paper
· Help students understand and practice writing the methodology as a structured narrative
· Offer hands-on practice in revising and improving the clarity and flow of the methodology section
Structure of the Module
This module will be delivered through the following topics.
1. Writing methodologies as narratives: Linguistic resources
2. From paragraph to chapter: The structure of the methodology as a narrative
3. Conveying detail: The language of description in methodologies
