How not to get lost in communication
What do good jokes have in common? Just one principle of effective communication taken to the point of absurdity.
How does AI change the writing instructor’s roles?
That is one of the questions that was widely discussed at the world biggest forum on academic writing - The 21st Symposium on Second Language Writing. It was held in Taipei, Taiwan, on October 23-25, 2025.
AWC Welcome day – 2025
On September 24, the new academic year started at the Academic Writing Center! And, as tradition goes, we began with the AWC Welcome Day. This year, our colleagues from HSE University covered a wide range of topics — from strategies for overcoming psychological barriers in writing to the art of creating presentations and other visual materials.
We have gathered the most memorable insights from the workshops — both from our team and from participants:
Mastering machine translation: 13 steps to success
Machine translation has become an indispensable tool, even for language professionals. However, its quality often leaves much to be desired. The main challenge lies in the differences in structure and syntax between languages - the issue that artificial intelligence has yet to fully overcome. Can this problem be solved?
How to express the author’s position through modality in an academic text
Modal verbs are one of the first language means we learn when studying the English language. However, as we craft an academic text, we have to ask ourselves if modal verbs and other means of modality are as common and appropriate in the academic style as they are in everyday communication.
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Navigating accent diversity
Did you know that around one-fifth of the world's population speaks English today, even though for most of them it’s not their first language? As a l lingua franca, English naturally absorbs influences from various cultures, making accents a unique marker of identity. However, no matter how diverse the accents are, we still need to understand each other. How can we ensure intelligibility? The best way is to be aware of typical pronunciation features that could create barriers to communication.
AI and academia: Bridging tradition with innovation
How should we tackle the challenges that AI presents for both science and education? What are the best ways to blend neural networks with traditional teaching methods to create effective educational products? And how can we leverage these technologies to streamline our routine tasks and beyond?
Crafting effective paragraphs for academic excellence
This semester, the Academic Writing Center menu offers three new courses. One of them is a face-to-face one-day course aimed at helping participants improve the quality of their writing through crafting logical and coherent paragraphs.