Workshops & Seminars

Literature review is an important part of academic research in any discipline. A review can be treated as part of an article or as a standalone and independent genre - a review article.  A review article aims to get insight into a landscape of views on the topic in order to generate new knowledge and new research questions in the field. At the workshop, we will discuss why we need to write a review, what key types of review articles exist, and what effective strategies can be used in the writing process. We will also deal with typical mistakes that can be made when we build a literature map for our review and prepare a review article . We will practice analyzing different types of review articles (using published samples of abstracts and introduction sections) to get a better idea of how to write a literature review.

Speaker: Natalia Tsatsenko, Ph.D. in Economics, postdoc and research fellow at the Centre for Productivity Studies, HSE University. She participated in an interdisciplinary project in the ZALF institute,  Leibniz Association and  was a member of SME Management Graduate School at the University of Siegen where she ran seminars for international master students.  Natalia’s research interests lie in the fields of economic growth and economics development; interdisciplinarity and sustainable development; and the intersection between entrepreneurship and structural transformation.

Target audience: HSE teachers, researchers, and graduate students
Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• ”The workshop had a well-structured format that made it easy to follow and engage with the content.”
• ”The interactive exercises provided a great opportunity for active participation and learning.”
• ”The seminar offered a comprehensive overview of various types of LR, giving a broad understanding of the topic.”
• “The utilization of visualization techniques in the literature review segment was a pleasant surprise and added a unique dimension to the learning experience.”

The workshop is aimed at discussing changes in publication activity due to external circumstances. We will talk about mapping up your publication strategy in the situation where everything around you is being evaluated and measured. As the principles and tools of such measurements diverge considerably in Russia and the rest of the world, it is becoming more difficult to develop a personal publication strategy. We will look at the main approaches to evaluating publications and authors in Europe, Asia, the US, and Russia, including changes in recent years. We will discuss how to navigate among these rocks to get somewhere without ending up either in the clutches of pirates or on a desert island.

Speaker: Ivan Sterligov, the founding director of HSE Scientometrics Center and a current advisor to the HSE Vice-Rector. Ivan brings years of experience in applied science studies and bibliometrics, having published papers in journals such as Scientometrics, Journal of Informetrics, and Research Evaluation, among others.

Target audience: HSE teachers, researchers, and graduate students
Language: English
 

Participants' Feedback:

• “The presentation provided a logically structured explanation of the global situation, demonstrating relevance in a contemporary context with a plethora of useful links.”

• “The speaker's enthusiasm and expertise stood out, making it a pleasure to listen to his detailed and informative presentation, enriched with updated information and diverse useful resources.”

• “The presentation offered a logically structured explanation of the situation the world of academia.”

Discussion is an important part of an academic article in which the researcher puts their findings in the broader context of research in their field. Russian scholars find this part one of the most difficult to write, probably due to the absence of such conventions in academic writing in their native language. At the workshop, you will learn what structural elements the Discussion section contains, and what functional language is pertinent to these elements. You will practice using the language of comparison and contrast to analyze your research outcomes at the backdrop of previous findings in the field. You will understand why hedging and tentative language are particularly important for this part of a research article and learn how to incorporate them in your writing. Finally, you will become aware of why you may need citations in your Discussion, and you will learn how to use them appropriately. 

Speaker: Svetlana Bogolepova is Associate Professor at HSE School of Foreign Languages with a Ph.D. in Language Theory. She supervises the “Foreign Language and Intercultural Communication” bachelor program. Svetlana has authored and co-authored more than 40 research articles and textbooks, including “English for Academics” and “How to Write a Research Article: Theory and Practice.”

Target audience: HSE teachers, researchers, and graduate students
Language: English
 

Participants' Feedback:

• “A highly interactive workshop with clear navigation between the presentation and the materials and an informative discussion with examples. I was impressed to learn about the evolution of academic English.”
• “A very detailed and step-by-step approach to the theme. It was easy to follow and comfortable to complete the tasks.”
• “The topic was very interesting and important for novice researchers. The workshop was interactive, everyone was engaged. The content was very relevant and easy to understand, with genuine examples.”

This session will look at how to criticize politely in written and spoken English, in formal settings and more casually, so that our message will be taken on board more easily and our professional relationships continue more smoothly.

In order to be considered robust, research needs to be scrutinized by others in the community. The peer review process for publishing papers, being central to academic work, presupposes an exchange of comments and critiques. Sometimes we also find ourselves called upon to comment more personally on our colleagues' work, both informally when a peer asks for advice or help and sometimes more formally in departmental meetings. Feedback should be both clear and phrased so as not to offend a person. Having joined the workshop, you will learn how to give helpful constructive criticism ensuring effective communication.

Speaker: Heather Belgorodtseva is Director of Studies for Teacher Training. She has worked as an English teacher and teacher trainer for over 20 years, in the UK and Russia, in private language schools and in further education settings. She often runs high-stakes courses where giving feedback, including constructive criticism, is an integral part of the process.

Target audience: HSE teachers, researchers, and graduate students
Language: English

Writing an academic paper can be compared to driving a car since there is a need to leverage the author’s attitude: hit the gas, using emphatic constructions when necessary, or slow down to soften the claims and use hedging when we are unsure. This workshop will focus on using some techniques, which will allow you to demonstrate your attitude towards ideas, varying the degree of emphasis. You will practice effective use of boosting and hedging nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs and some expressions in academic writing. Manipulation of certainty and doubt will be discussed from the point of view of reasonable distribution among different sections of academic paper. 

Speaker: Olga Karamalak, Ph.D. in linguistics, an associate professor of the HSE School of Foreign Languages (Moscow), an ICELT (In-service Certificate in English Language Teaching issued by Cambridge) holder, a member of the international association Distributed Language Group, a member of a research team in Switzerland Digital Fashion Communication (Università della Svizzera italiana), an alumna of American educational program Fulbright FLTA at Lees-McRae College (Banner Elk, NC) and German scientific program DAAD Immanuel Kant at Leibnitz University, Hannover.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The workshop was well-structured, with lots of wisely-organized tasks.”
• “I found the topic highly relevant. There were practical exercises and examples.”

In this workshop, we will delve into nominalization, the process of forming noun phrases. Understanding how to build up complex noun phrases is essential for enhancing academic writing as such texts should be succinct and the number of content words should be maximized. We will examine the core components of complex noun phrases, their relevance in academic texts, and address challenges such as articles, prepositional phrases, and noun forms. Additionally, we'll evaluate some samples from various sources including online translators and AI tools to practice linguistic strategies that improve writing quality. By focusing on nominalization and mastering the nuances of complex noun phrases, participants will gain valuable insights into crafting concise and informative academic content.

Speaker: Anna Kashcheeva, a CELTA and DELTA trainer, MSc in Educational Management (University of Portsmouth, UK); Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (DELTA, the University of Cambridge); MA in TESOL; International House Teacher Training Certificate (IHTTC). Anna is a teacher trainer of International House, Trinity College, and Cambridge University’s Teacher Training programmes. She is also a teaching practitioner, running courses for higher-level students and teachers for over 25 years. Her main areas of interest are exam preparation, material design, and teacher development. Anna is an author of various programmes for different educational establishments like IH Izmir, IH Moscow BKC, Language Link Beijing, Thimar Teacher Training Centre, New Economic School, HSE University, Cambridge English Assessment, and a co-writer of Certificate of Advanced Methodology course for International House Worldwide Organisation.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I liked the well-chosen examples and the handout. The speaker's assistant was professional, which is a rarity nowadays.”
• “The speaker’s support of the group was valuable, and her tandem with a colleague was effective. Demonstrating exercises and keys on slides was very useful.”
• “The manner of the speaker; interesting topic; a lot of exercises; interactive style”

Whether you would like to apply for an educational program, participate in a professional contest, or earn a grant, a motivation letter is a pre-requisite. Seemingly undemanding, this genre may prove to be challenging because of somewhat vague requirements. This workshop will guide you through the process of writing a strong motivation letter from making sense of what is asked of you to planning and structuring your text. You will look at both strong and weak examples of motivation letters, practice making choices about language and structure, and take away strategies and tips. Join us to beat your competitors at this game!

Speaker: Natalia Fedorova, manager at the HSE Academic Writing Center, has over 15 years of experience in teaching English in a variety of contexts. She holds a degree in English Philology, Trinity CertTESOL (Trinity College London), CPE, and FTBE (Pearson). Her professional interests include EAP, ESP, teacher training, and project management in education.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Overall, I would highly recommend this workshop for its engaging structure, thought-provoking content, and real-world focus. It was an extremely valuable learning experience that left me with a deep understanding of the subject matter and new insights to apply in my own work.”
• “The workshop provided numerous valuable takeaways, which were supported by illustrative examples that made the information easy to understand and apply. The language exercises were also interesting and helped to reinforce the learning.”

The workshop will focus on the concepts of emotional intelligence and empathy to clarify what they really mean and how empathy contributes to successful presentation of your research. We will discuss how to make your texts credible and efficient and how to provide and receive non-evaluative feedback. 

The speaker will: 

• present cases of efficient interaction with colleagues and partners in research and education
• specify and emphasize some aspects of academic writing and style related to empathy and emotional intelligence to explain some of their “rules and norms”
• suggest techniques of non-evaluative feedback and provide an opportunity to train them.

Speaker: Yulia Ryabukhina, Ph.D. in linguistics, vice-director of Academic Writing Lab at ITMO University, St. Petersburg. She has more than 25 years’ experience of teaching foreign languages to STEM students, including courses in academic writing and speaking as well as professional and business communication. A qualified translator and interpreter, Yulia translated books on psychology and psychotherapy, interpreted workshops and lectures on related topics, and took advanced courses in psychology both in Russia and in the UK. This has led to designing courses and workshops on emotional intelligence for students and research faculty.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

“The workshop was such a great experience. I learned many concepts that I normally don't think about on a day-to-day basis. Very inspiring. Excellent structure and presentation.”

“It was good to have an opportunity for training and discussion. Also, it was interesting to know about new research on emotional intelligence.”

“The group tasks were really interesting. I've never done anything like this in the workplace before. Valuable examples, new academic writing models and conceptions involving EI”

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to transform research and education, the need for robust ethical frameworks in academia has never been more critical. This workshop will offer an open discussion of the challenges HE institutions and scientific journals face in creating policies that balance innovation with accountability. We aim to explore how the new ethical norms and innovations are shaping the future academic landscape. We will share the most representative cases of AI-driven change in institutions’ and journals’ policies.  Having analyzed current trends in education and research, we will invite participants to discuss the new roles of the researcher and strategies that will ensure successful human-AI partnership in academic context.

Speakers: Oksana Nakonechnaya teaches ESL, ESP in IT and ITH, Academic Writing and Russian as a foreign language in ITMO University. In the past two years, she’s been exploring AI in teaching languages. She has participated in a number of international edtech conferences, run several workshops and seminars on AI-driven education, and developed a comprehensive course for educators. Currently Oksana sees herself as an ambassador of safe and effective integration of AI-based tools into educational context. 

Artem Sigaev is an ESL teacher with a B.A. in English Philology and M.A. in Psychology. At ITMO University, he teaches General English and ESP courses such as Academic Writing, ESP for IT and Information Security both for bachelor and master students.  Artem’s research interests include teaching writing, educational technology, and materials development.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The workshop was well-structured and informative, different perspectives were taken into account in the discussion about the attitude to AI worldwide.There was a place for interaction with the audience.”
• “Some comments, insights, and new ideas related to AI were interesting. There will be a reason to think about them later on.”
• “The topics were relevant; the speakers were experienced. I liked the clear and concise presentation, relevant information, useful links and resources, and the steady pace.”

We all know that publications are important for our professional success and progress. We also know that many of our great ideas and publication drafts never make it to the printed page or the journal’s website. In this workshop, we will focus on strategies for persevering through the publication process and for revising our drafts to meet journal expectations. We’ll also discuss how to become reviewers so that we can understand the publication process from a different perspective and strengthen our own submissions.

Speaker: Talinn Phillips is Professor of English at the College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University (USA) where she is Director of Composition and former director of the Graduate Writing and Research Center. She holds an M.A. in TESOL & Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Talinn teaches various courses at Ohio University including Writing for Publication, Writing and Rhetoric, Developmental Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English and has authored a number of research publications. Talinn’s scholarly interests include rhetoric and composition, multilingual writing, graduate writing, lifespan writing research, and writing centers.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• "The workshop was incredibly informative and engaging. The presenters communicated the material clearly and concisely, covering relevant topics that provided valuable insights. I especially appreciated the interactive sessions, which fostered meaningful discussions and created a collaborative atmosphere." 
• "Time management and event organization are always perfect and accurate at AWC HSE! I enjoyed the speaker's manner of instruction and her ability to involve the participants. The task of finding and comparing the requirements for reviewers was very useful."
• "Tallinn shared her personal experiences and described some difficult situations she had faced. It was very supportive and inspiring for me." 

“Selling” our work is an idea that sometimes conflicts with the way we see ourselves as scholars. Though we want the power of our ideas to stand on their own, we can increase their power with thoughtful framing and word choice. This workshop focuses on marketing our research to editors by choosing the best journal, articulating our contributions carefully, and developing effective abstracts and introductions.

Speaker: Talinn Phillips is Professor of English at the College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University (USA) where she is Director of Composition and former director of the Graduate Writing and Research Center. She holds an M.A. in TESOL & Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Talinn teaches various courses at Ohio University including Writing for Publication, Writing and Rhetoric, Developmental Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English and has authored a number of research publications. Talinn’s scholarly interests include rhetoric and composition, multilingual writing, graduate writing, lifespan writing research, and writing centers.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• "The insights about the article's title were very useful. I used to think a title only needed to reflect the content, but I now see the importance of making it attention-grabbing as well."
• "I especially appreciate the practical tips for presenting research to journal editors."
• "I liked the effective examples of "selling" titles and abstracts, the interactive activities, and the productive discussions based on participants' experiences."

Academic publishing in English requires repeated correspondence with editors and reviewers in another language in order to situate and defend our scholarly work. This high-stakes correspondence is very stressful and often feels like we’re being forced to repeat our articles or prior messages. In this workshop, we’ll focus on “threading the needle” when corresponding with editors and reviewers between language that is too aggressive and too weak. We’ll also talk about how to take reviews seriously without compromising a publication’s aims.

Speaker: Talinn Phillips is Professor of English at the College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University (USA) where she is Director of Composition and former director of the Graduate Writing and Research Center. She holds an M.A. in TESOL & Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Talinn teaches various courses at Ohio University including Writing for Publication, Writing and Rhetoric, Developmental Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English and has authored a number of research publications. Talinn’s scholarly interests include rhetoric and composition, multilingual writing, graduate writing, lifespan writing research, and writing centers.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• "I found the topic to be both interesting and important, though opportunities to discuss it are unfortunately rare. The speaker's English was very clear and well-articulated, striking a perfect balance between being slow and simple enough to understand while still engaging. Additionally, the panel featured brilliant experts who provided inspiring insights."
• "It was fascinating to learn that editors can take on various roles. It's important to tailor our conversations with them based on these specific roles. I also appreciated the discussion and the valuable advice provided by the editors."

We keep receiving requests about organizing a workshop on punctuation. To meet that need, we invite you to the workshop that is focused on basic punctuation conventions in American writing culture. Unlike Russian punctuation, there are no rules carved in stone in English. The punctuation usage largely depends on the writer’s intention,  language variant, and style conventions. It is important that we explore this very complicated issue to get the message across clearly.  Punctuation matters as it may change the meaning of the text completely. Participants will learn basic rules and do a lot of exercises. Come to have fun while playing with punctuation marks.

Speaker: Svetlana Suchkova, Ph.D., associate professor, a teacher of English, teacher trainer, Cambridge examiner, and director of HSE Academic Writing Center.  She has widely published in the field of ELT methodology. She authored a number of EFL course books for Russian university students and academics, including English for Academics series (CUP) и How to Write a Research Article (Nauka). She has participated with presentations and workshops in numerous national and international conferences. She is a Vice-president of the National Writing Centers Consortium.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Very helpful information. Essentials of the whole punctuation in two hours!”

• “The content was amazing, so much material was covered that I felt focused all the time. The speaker is wonderful. This is a great example of what a webinar should be like - intense and fun at the same time.”

• “Cosy atmosphere and encouraging speaker; relevant data and detailed information on the topic; excellent, memorable examples.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Failure is universal. By nature of our humanity, failure unites us. We have all experienced it, but rarely do we utilize it as the profoundly powerful tool it is: the catalyst to build bravery and resilience in our daily lives. 

How might we change if we were set free from the fear of failure? What might we accomplish if we learned how to harness it and turn it into a catalyst for our betterment? This intercultural discussion delves into techniques, strategies, and resources selected from the world’s leading thinkers on the subject. Cultural sensitivity is foundational to this exploration of personal storytelling, facing our fears, building bravery, and ultimately, employing the power of resilience. A recommended reading list and directory of specialists is provided.

Speaker: Johanna Campbell, MA in Applied Linguistics from the University of Houston, has been a teacher trainer, conference presenter, writing center editor, public speaking coach, and a young adult English club teacher. Her expertise includes teaching intensive academic English with top-tier American universities. For two years, Johanna had the privilege of living in Russia and working with university colleagues across the Russian Federation. Her research interests include how culture shapes language, learner-centered oral fluency skills, and sociolinguistics.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I really liked the topic of the seminar and the fact that it was based on intercultural discussion. The topic seems to be a bit different than usual, but failure and its potential is certainly connected with academic writing.”

• “This theme was provoking and really valuable.”

• “We had an opportunity to have extensive speaking practice in breakout rooms.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

The presenter’s answer to these questions is yes, and if yours is too, this workshop is for you: Have you experienced (or caused) offense or embarrassment in an email with an international colleague? Does learning to work through email-based misunderstandings to build better cross-cultural relationships interest you? 

Using examples both public and personal, this session explores the functional language of politeness and its power in relationship-building in higher academia. What are the rules? How do we strategize past our blunders? Knowing how to use these tools generates an effective, compelling piece of dialogue in intercultural communication.

With a focus primarily (but not exclusively) on Russian-American correspondence, discussion will include do’s and don’ts, strategies, and an opportunity to practice both hypothetical and any real-life examples that participants would like to workshop. Editing and context considerations, as well as Q&A, will be included.

Speaker: Tamrika Khvtisiashvili, Ph.D. in Theoretical Linguistics and M.A. in TESOL (the University of Utah and University of Frankfurt), is an English Language Specialist, who has taught, given numerous workshops and facilitated Professional Development for teachers in the Unites States, Russia, Estonia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Germany, Tajikistan, India, and Palestine. She taught as an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah in the United States and Alfaisal University in Saudi Arabia, teaching courses in Linguistics, Methodology and Anthropology, as well as directing the University Preparatory Program for women. Her research interests are language teacher education, linguistics, anthropology, and intercultural communication.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• "Well-organized class; many ways to engage me in active work online."
• "I found the teaching approach pretty interesting: theoretical statements were supported by examples and pictures."
• "I liked the friendly energy created by the speaker. Communication with the speaker was really pleasant."

WORKSHOP RECORDING

To publish a research article, the author needs to highlight their contribution and provide their argument in a convincing factual manner.

In the workshop, we will talk about Anglo-American rhetoric conventions and discuss how to "own" a text, making authorial voice strong. We will focus on such descriptors as

•    self-identification expressions

•    intensifiers

•    references to the available resources and their combination

•    responses to other voices.

They all indicate the quality of the author’s voice and the writer’s presence in the text. We will analyze model samples and work on your texts to emphasize your autonomy of thought.

Speaker: Elina Savitskaya (Chuikova), Doctor of Education, Associate Professor, Head of FL Teaching Department, Head of Philological Faculty at Samara branch of Moscow City University. She is a specialist in Germanic philology, a teacher of the English language and literature, a specialist in FL teaching methods, an academic writing tutor, the author of more than 70 published books, articles, and teaching guidebooks – 47 of them are about academic writing skills and their development.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Practical examples of a good and less developed author's voice in the abstract.”

• “Interesting topic with lots of writing practice.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

The surge of digital literacy apps and tools is affording us exciting opportunities to communicate research in novel ways. In this workshop, we will explore three different ways to create multimodal digital texts to present and disseminate our research. Participants will be able to practice the 10 steps necessary to create and develop infographics, microblogs, and slide sharing to help increase the impact of their research on science and society in online spaces. They will also be given some tips on how to use social media to help the visibility of their research outside of their typical academic circles.

Speaker: M. Sidury Christiansen, Ph.D.  is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a former Fulbright Scholar. She specializes in the research and teaching of sociolinguistics and digital literacies among bilinguals and transnational populations. Her research explores the intersection between digital literacy and language ideologies, identities, and culture.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “A lot of pointers and real-life examples of how research micro-blogging should be done. A very engaging manner; I now feel motivated to try my hand at microblogging - something I would have probably never considered had I not attended the workshop.”
• “Positive and friendly speaker; helpful hands-on information to be applied straight away; engagement through eye-catching visuals.”
• “Useful information presented clearly in a friendly and engaging manner; lots of examples illustrating the speaker's point.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Effective dissemination of findings is important in bridging the gap between the research  making process and society (whether it is other academics or the public in general). Reaching audiences outside one’s circle is particularly important in a globalized world. In this workshop, participants will be exposed to 3 approaches for improving the visibility of their research findings. Participants will have hands-on experience in the creation of effective video abstracts, podcasts, and social media posts, all of which can be linked to academic author identifiers (e.g., ORCID, ResearcherID) and other ways to help visibility of their research.

Speaker: M. Sidury Christiansen, Ph.D.  is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Texas at San Antonio and a former Fulbright Scholar. She specializes in the research and teaching of sociolinguistics and digital literacies among bilinguals and transnational populations. Her research explores the intersection between digital literacy and language ideologies, identities, and culture.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “A lot of useful information, I really learned something new from the speaker who used interesting examples during the workshop. I'm also fascinated with the speaker's manner of communication - so warm and friendly, really engaging!”

• “The lecturer delivered an incredibly comprehensive presentation with recommendations and tools to look at after.”

• “I liked that there were various tasks at the workshop. The practical session was really engaging. For me, I started thinking of making video abstracts.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Writing  literature review is often considered challenging as it requires the integration of multiple skills.  However, splitting this complex task into its essential components could make it much less intimidating. In the workshop, we will brush up on the skills needed for writing a successful literature review  such as citation and referencing, summary, paraphrasing, and combining sources. We will also look at the annotated bibliography, which synthesizes most of those skills, in terms of its function, structure, and the way it can serve as a minimal building block for literature review.

Speaker: Elizaveta Tikhomirova is a language instructor, translator, and course designer in ESP, academic writing, and public speaking skills. Her main interests embrace modern pedagogical practices, use of digital tools and edutainment in language teaching, developing STEM students’ soft skills and academic writing.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Overall, the material presented was incredibly insightful and valuable, and the structure of the workshop was particularly logical. I would also like to express my gratitude for the various online resources shared, which are sure to prove helpful.”

• “A lot of useful ideas about literature review and information about programs for reviewing.”

• “I liked the metaphors and techniques that the trainer used when talking about designing the literature review.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

AI is rapidly transforming the world, and the academic realm, which has been at the forefront of this revolution, is eagerly anticipating significant changes along with the rest of the world. How can we adapt and effectively utilize these new tools for the greater good? Join us at our seminar as we explore the possibilities together.

Specifically, we will discuss:

•  Incorporating general generative AI, such as ChatGPT and similar technologies, into various aspects of the academic publication workflow
•  Utilizing AI-based tools for academic writing and proofreading
•  Exploring new literature search and summarization tools

Speaker: Ivan Sterligov, the founding director of HSE Scientometrics Center and a current advisor to the HSE Vice-Rector. Ivan brings years of experience in applied science studies and bibliometrics, having published papers in journals such as Scientometrics, Journal of Informetrics, and Research Evaluation, among others.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The information and explanations provided by the speaker were brain blowing for me. In the first place, Ivan had opened a new universe of instruments to aid the researcher.”

• “Very interesting topic and good review of current instruments, thanks to the lecturer!”

• “The topic is certainly engaging in terms of using legal forms of cooperation with the AI tools to alleviate some boring, time-consuming scientific stuff, which is a great help while writing.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Numerous writing software is available for various writing needs. How should an author select writing tools that can be useful for research writing?  The focus of this workshop will be on writing software operated by artificial intelligence (AI) such as Good AI, Rytr and QuillBot. During the workshop, we will practice using AI writing software for different purposes, depending on your writing needs. Participants should prepare a short text and select a topic of their interest for constructive work during the workshop. While all AI writing software functions well on all available technology, it is still recommended to use your PCs and/or laptops.

Speaker: Diana Akhmedjanova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Programmes, Institute of Education, HSE. Her research interests include self- and socially regulated learning, academic writing, formative assessment, and research methods. Diana also teaches the Academic Writing course in English at the Institute of Education and continues doing research in this area.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Engaging interactive activities, clear instructions in the handout, as well as the immediate implementation of the knowledge received. I feel like my time has been invested the best way possible.”
• “The workshop gave a quick overview of different tools and allowed to discuss their applicability with colleagues from other fields. I really liked the interactive format; I did not get bored or distracted at any point.”
• “The session was very useful in a sense that it connected theory with practice to provide hands-on experience and troubleshooting that had a long-term learning impact.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Advertising has penetrated our everyday life, and its influence on the audience is not a surprise to anyone. However, have you ever thought that advertising can play a crucial role in academia as well? We’re inviting you to the workshop “Advertising in the academic world.” We will discuss the features of the genre, the characteristics of the language used in advertisements and will create a text to promote your program, lab, or department.

Speaker: Yulia Chanturidze, Ph.D.,  is an associate professor at HSE University. She has been teaching English there since 2013. She is also a trainer of the HSE Academic Writing Center, an author of self-study materials for researchers, and organizer of extra-curricular activities.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Packed info, good examples, well-built argumentation, the friendly manner of the speaker.”
• “Fascinating tasks in handouts, useful words and expressions, clear information, fun examples.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

The idea of personal branding has rapidly made it to mediagenda and since then received numerous interpretations. For some people, this concept is all about brand awareness; for others, it is part of infobusiness; many consider personal branding as an essential part of their CV. Whichever the case,  technology and sales personal branding is a must-have in the era of media. This workshop will explore why a researcher may need personal branding, what it actually is in academia, and what questions it poses to its owners. Participants will practice setting goals for creating a personal brand and take away a set of tools to start or continue working on their brand.

Speaker: Anna Podpryatova, director for marketing communications, HSE University, has more than 10 years of experience in such fields as Digital PR and brand media. In 2010, working with the Office of the Russian President, helped to launch the first twitter-account of the Russian president. Anna was in charge of official digital communications of the Russian Government for almost a decade. In HSE University Anna is leading brand media and brand communications department, organizing various media projects and events.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “It's important to understand that it's not just about marketing oneself or being famous, but about showcasing one's skills, values, and contributions.”
• “I liked how Anna applied techniques of personal brand specifically to academia.”
• “There were practice tasks at the end of the presentation and throughout it. The information was clear and easy to follow.”

When approaching a writing task, authors often overlook the fact that writing is a psychologically demanding process. Writing difficulties may happen at different levels: cognitive (lack of ideas, “foggy” mind, attention slips), emotional (fear of blank page, apathy, even anger), and behavioral (procrastination, demotivation). Not knowing or ignoring one’s own barriers may have an overall negative effect on the result and interfere with the writing process. 

This session will help participants identify and explore their own writing difficulties through self-reflection and group work. At the second stage of the session, we will look at a variety of pre-writing strategies that can help authors overcome their difficulties. These pre-writing strategies are inspired by psychology, theories of learning, coaching, methodology of teaching writing, and academic writing practices. 

By the end of the session, participants will learn about typical writing difficulties authors face, will become aware of their own possible barriers, and will get to know pre-writing and during writing strategies that can help them overcome these barriers.

Speaker: Ekaterina Redkina is a psychologist and a qualified EFL teacher with more than 10 years of experience. She is a CELTA, TKT CLIL, IHCAM and DELTA (M1-2) holder, and a Fulbright scholar. Currently, she is teaching at the Institute of International Education of Moscow Pedagogical State University. Her primary interests are CLIL, ESP, EAP, lesson frameworks, syllabus and materials design, and the use of information technology in the ELT practice.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• "We learnt a lot of useful techniques for starting writing and fighting procrastination."
• "Inspirational, highly qualified teacher; she created a warm and friendly atmosphere."
• "An amazingly useful workshop, full of insights!"

This practice-oriented workshop continues a series of sessions on the use of AI tools for research purposes. By harnessing the power of AI, participants can enhance their research outcomes, save time, and stay abreast of the latest developments in their fields of study. The workshop aims at exposing researchers to such free tools as Elicit, Bing, and Semantic Scholar that can assist them in writing an efficient literature review. We will try the tools and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. 

To make the most of the time, we recommend preparing at least three search points related to your research topic in advance, for example:

•    Find seminal works on the subject\method\problem X
•    Find the most recent and relevant works on the subject\method\problem Y
•    A direct research question, e.g., “How effective is beer shampoo in reducing hair loss in men?”

We will feed these questions into Semantic Scholar and Elicit to find out whether they add anything useful to traditional search workflows based on Google Scholar and the like.

Speaker: Ivan Sterligov, the founding director of HSE Scientometrics Center and a current advisor to the HSE Vice-Rector. Ivan brings years of experience in applied science studies and bibliometrics, having published papers in journals such as Scientometrics, Journal of Informetrics, and Research Evaluation, among others.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “It was really interesting and thought-provoking to have an opportunity to compare different AI-based tools.”
• “The tools that were presented are quite useful and definitely must-have. We received detailed explanations of the functionality of the tools.”
• “It was great! A lot of new knowledge and hints about AI tools for searching and working on publications plus step-by-step explanations. I hope I will apply these tips.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

One of the major differences between speaking and writing is the ratio of verbs to nouns, and academic writing typically uses the highest number of nouns and noun phrases of all.

However, there are many nuances to master in order to use this information-rich aspect of language successfully. Using interactive tasks and examples, we will look at:

• why academic writing needs noun phrases

• what types of nouns and noun phrases are used in academic writing

• how we can successfully construct noun phrases, and

• what pitfalls are associated with getting them right.

Speaker: Heather Belgorodtseva is Director of Studies for Teacher Training. She has worked as an English teacher and teacher trainer for over 20 years, in the UK and Russia, in private language schools and in further education settings.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Excellent! I liked the presentation and the speaker’s emotional manner of delivery.”
• “It was really practical, full of examples, and interactive.”
• “Complicated topic that goes beyond basic things.”

An essential part of scholarly writing is understanding and applying accurate organizational structures, content components, and language preferences across a variety of writing genres in one’s discipline.

In this workshop, participants will focus on analyzing several research articles provided by the facilitator. The articles will be from scholarly journals in different disciplines, and discussions will center on identifying structural, content, and language components. Analyses will be guided by a list of questions and prompts provided by the facilitator in worksheet format. By closely examining research articles of diverse disciplines, participants will develop their skills of observation and apply these skills to learning more about advanced scholarly writing conventions expected of them. An additional benefit will be the ability to apply similar strategies with other types of writing in their disciplines.

Speaker: Leslie Dupont, Ph.D., earned her degree in Rhetoric, Composition, and Teaching of English in 1999. She is also an experienced editor and writer, having published two textbooks on writing. With over 30 years of teaching experience, Leslie is especially suited to her roles as both a writing coach and an English Language Specialist to scholars and professionals across cultures and disciplines. Over the years, she has worked with populations from across disciplines, cultures, nationalities, ethnicities, gender identities, and ages in both higher education and the private sector. At present, she works directly with students, staff, and faculty in the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona. Leslie is experienced in individual, small-group, and large-group teaching and workshop contexts, both online and in person. She is strongly committed to inclusivity and individual empowerment. Through teaching and coaching, Leslie takes a strong mentoring approach, encouraging independence and confidence in writing.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “It was a thorough well-structured session applicable both for early-career and advanced researchers. At the end of the workshop, we did some practical things. I found the list of questions very useful.”
• “The speaker’s manner was friendly and encouraging. Besides, she is a great expert in the theme of the workshop.”
• “Examples of breaking articles and abstracts into pieces were useful, and we had a chance to practice it on the spot.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Book reviews are a unique subgenre in the area of professional peer review. Some scholars and academic professionals are invited to be book reviewers, but they might have little or no experience of writing this kind of review, especially in English. Being a book reviewer in multiple languages demonstrates versatility and an expanded scope of professional literacy. The role also offers researchers opportunities to develop scholarly writing competencies (e.g., synthesis, analysis, audience awareness, vocabulary, etc.) and begin developing a list of publications.

In this workshop, participants will discuss how being a reviewer can boost their writing skills. Participants will analyze features specific to book reviews and evaluative language, including ways of hedging and levels of formality that are embedded in a reviewer’s critique. Insights gained from workshop discussions and activities are intended to strengthen awareness of the publication conventions of this genre.

Speaker: Leslie Dupont, Ph.D., earned her degree in Rhetoric, Composition, and Teaching of English in 1999. She is also an experienced editor and writer, having published two textbooks on writing. With over 30 years of teaching experience, Leslie is especially suited to her roles as both a writing coach and an English Language Specialist to scholars and professionals across cultures and disciplines. Over the years, she has worked with populations from across disciplines, cultures, nationalities, ethnicities, gender identities, and ages in both higher education and the private sector. At present, she works directly with students, staff, and faculty in the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona. Leslie is experienced in individual, small-group, and large-group teaching and workshop contexts, both online and in person. She is strongly committed to inclusivity and individual empowerment. Through teaching and coaching, Leslie takes a strong mentoring approach, encouraging independence and confidence in writing.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I did enjoy group work, discussion, and the provided materials. The speaker has a good style of giving new information and uses the best methods of motivating participants. Thank you!”

• “I think it made many of us think outside our disciplinary bubble.”

• “I enjoyed the speaker’s engaging manner. We also discussed some aspects of a review I've never thought about.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Peer-writing groups create collaboration, community, accountability, and ongoing momentum. One of the most valuable benefits of these groups is that writers gain insights into their own writing from peers across a variety of disciplines and/or research areas. Group discussions can enhance writers' awareness of texts and genre conventions and offer supportive motivation to continue writing. Writing groups can also be facilitated by writing instructors and writing support staff, who can offer additional expertise and insights as well as fostering in-depth discussions about various writing practices.

This workshop is intended to familiarize attendees with strategies that they can use to guide others in organizing successful, long-term writing groups. Participants will be introduced to strategies such as how to structure the work of a peer-writing group; what the roles of facilitators are; how to give feedback on writing in progress; and what tools can be used to foster the writing and revision processes. The workshop is open to writing instructors and writing center staff from both HSE and other Russian universities.

Speaker: Leslie Dupont, Ph.D., earned her degree in Rhetoric, Composition, and Teaching of English in 1999. She is also an experienced editor and writer, having published two textbooks on writing. With over 30 years of teaching experience, Leslie is especially suited to her roles as both a writing coach and an English Language Specialist to scholars and professionals across cultures and disciplines. Over the years, she has worked with populations from across disciplines, cultures, nationalities, ethnicities, gender identities, and ages in both higher education and the private sector. At present, she works directly with students, staff, and faculty in the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona. Leslie is experienced in individual, small-group, and large-group teaching and workshop contexts, both online and in person. She is strongly committed to inclusivity and individual empowerment. Through teaching and coaching, Leslie takes a strong mentoring approach, encouraging independence and confidence in writing.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I really enjoyed the practical part where the participants had to work on a task together and present a mini-project.”

• “The rationale for peer-writing groups is just amazing and the workshop itself was interactive and highly useful.”

• "I really enjoyed how hands-on the workshop was. It gave me some great ideas to implement in my current job."

WORKSHOP RECORDING

The Academic Writing Center is inviting you to a panel discussion about the hurdles of a reviewing process. You’ll have a chance to look at the review through the eyes of both the reviewer and the author. First, panellists will share their experiences and tips on how to handle the process. Then, you will have an opportunity to ask questions. Don’t miss it. Register and write your question.

Speakers:

Maria Yudkevich, a Vice Rector for academic development at the HSE University

Elena Shakina, a Deputy Director of the HSE Campus in St. Petersburg

Petr Parshakov, a Deputy Head of the International Laboratory of Intangible-driven Economy at the HSE Campus in Perm

Dmitry Veselov, a Deputy Dean for Research at the Faculty of Economic Sciences

Alexander Tarasov, the Department Head of the Department of Theoretical Economics at the Faculty of Economic Sciences

Sergey Popov, a Leading Research Fellow at the Center for Institutional Studies

Alexey Zakharov, an Associate Professor of the Department of Theoretical Economics at the Faculty of Economic Sciences

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Relaxed and very sincere discussion, а high level of the speakers' involvement, a quick reaction to the participants' questions, both in the chat and orally, a well-organized structure, and a good atmosphere created by the moderator. I also liked the opportunity for the listeners to submit their questions in advance, which were well-integrated into the event. And one more thing - I enjoyed those real- life cases.”
• “Very interesting and relevant personal experience of the speakers. Special thanks for funny stories and personal "failures," it is important to know that this is normal and may happen to everybody. The discussion was lively and exciting, a great format!”

Discussion Recording

Syntax is the backbone of any academic text.  It is on the syntactic structure of the sentence that the success of communication between the author and the reader largely depends. One of the characteristics of academic discourse is the use of complex sentences; the author's goal is to find the most effective syntactic constructions for the accurate transmission of their ideas. At the seminar, we will look into the main types of sentences in English, review the use of conjunctions and punctuation, and discuss the choice of syntactic constructions depending on the context of academic discourse: STEM disciplines vs. humanities. There will be a lot of practical tasks, which will help make your research texts more variable and more unambiguous. 

Speaker: Irina Kostyukovich is an English teacher and teacher-trainer with more than 20 years of experience. Irina taught at Vitebsk State University and has been a British Council teacher-trainer since 1998. Now she works as an English teacher at E.M. Primakov Gymnasium and as a coach of the Moscow region English language student team.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I liked the comparison between hard sciences and the humanities in terms of sentence structure. This is not what you usually find in the literature.”
• “Balance between theory and practice, feedback to the audience, Interesting examples and very clear explanations.”
• “The information was very precise and specific, no beating about the bush. Very interactive seminar, we were all involved.”

Workshop recording

The workshop is focused on the problem of word combinability in English. You will be exposed  to a variety of electronic dictionaries and reference resources that can help you  in the process of creating a manuscript. We will learn about their layout, general features, and advantages of using them. We will also have a lot of practice in working with these resources to spot combinability mistakes and correct them. You will be able to select the resource(s) that will suit your writing demands best. 

Speaker: Tatiana Martseva, Ph.D. in Germanic languages, CPE, DELTA (Cambridge), FTBE (Pearson). Tatiana has over 20 years of experience in teaching English for special purposes, academic writing, presentation skills, cross-cultural communication, and linguistic and country studies. Her areas of research interest include modern English language, stylistics, teacher training, and digital technologies in teaching.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I liked the practice and the use of online services based on real cases. It was a very productive time!”
• “There was lots of valuable information; a well-structured presentation, learning through examples and interaction.”
• “Thank you for interactive exercises and links to dictionaries!”

While many people learn how to write articles, few talk about the companion genres and other language interactions that are essential to a successful publication. This workshop describes these so-called “occluded genres” and helps participants develop titles, cover letters, and abstracts that will get reviewers’ attention. We will also discuss common editorial norms and language use for contesting a reviewer’s decision or feedback, requesting extensions, and more.

Speakers:

Ron Martinez,  Ph.D.,  is Associate Editor of the Oxford University Press journal Applied Linguistics. Dr. Martinez has lectured on subjects related to vocabulary and writing at several universities, including the University of Oxford and UC Berkeley, and his current research interests center on English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) and English Medium Instruction (EMI). Now at the University of Arkansas, Ron is working on implementing new writing for research publication support programs for international students.

Talinn Phillips is Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Writing & Research Center at the College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University (USA). She holds an M.A. in TESOL & Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Talinn teaches various courses at Ohio University including Writing and Rhetoric and Developmental Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English and has authored a number of research publications. Talinn’s scholarly interests include rhetoric and composition, multilingual writing, graduate writing,  lifespan writing research, and writing centers.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The information was presented in an interesting manner. The speakers shared their experience and I certainly learned a lot from them.”
• “There was a lot of practical advice on communication with editors."
• ”I liked the examples and suggestions. The speakers shared useful advice and links.”

Scholars are often afraid of reporting the limitations of their research, concerned that doing so will undermine their chances for publication. In fact, the opposite is true. This workshop discusses the role of reporting limitations in research, why they can help strengthen your chances for publication, and how to use them to your advantage.

Speakers:

Ron Martinez,  Ph.D.,  is Associate Editor of the Oxford University Press journal Applied Linguistics. Dr. Martinez has lectured on subjects related to vocabulary and writing at several universities, including the University of Oxford and UC Berkeley, and his current research interests center on English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) and English Medium Instruction (EMI). Now at the University of Arkansas, Ron is working on implementing new writing for research publication support programs for international students.

Talinn Phillips is Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Writing & Research Center at the College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University (USA). She holds an M.A. in TESOL & Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Talinn teaches various courses at Ohio University including Writing and Rhetoric and Developmental Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English and has authored a number of research publications. Talinn’s scholarly interests include rhetoric and composition, multilingual writing, graduate writing,  lifespan writing research, and writing centers.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I liked very vivid examples and clear explanations. The presentation was great!”
• “The topics were important. Each idea of the speaker was followed by practical examples."
• ”Ron is amazing! He is a great speaker, able to involve the participants into his dialogue. His metaphors are colourful and vivid.”

Grants are a powerful tool for supporting your research and other initiatives in your institution or community. Most academics have come to grantwriting the hard way through painful trial and error. Yet given the effort, timelines, and stakes involved in many grants, it is important to prepare yourself by understanding the genre first. While each grant comes with its own unique set of requirements that often include disciplinary norms, at the workshop, we will focus on the common elements and process that underlies the vast majority of grants, whether research, program, or community focused. Participants will learn about the “moves” that grants have in common, how to identify their grant’s audience and how to interpret grant guidelines.

Speakers:

Ron Martinez,  Ph.D.,  is Associate Editor of the Oxford University Press journal Applied Linguistics. Dr. Martinez has lectured on subjects related to vocabulary and writing at several universities, including the University of Oxford and UC Berkeley, and his current research interests center on English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP) and English Medium Instruction (EMI). Now at the University of Arkansas, Ron is working on implementing new writing for research publication support programs for international students.

Talinn Phillips is Associate Professor and Director of the Graduate Writing & Research Center at the College of Arts and Sciences, Ohio University (USA). She holds an M.A. in TESOL & Applied Linguistics and a Ph.D. in English Rhetoric and Composition from Ohio University. Talinn teaches various courses at Ohio University including Writing and Rhetoric and Developmental Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English and has authored a number of research publications. Talinn’s scholarly interests include rhetoric and composition, multilingual writing, graduate writing,  lifespan writing research, and writing centers.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “This was a very supportive workshop with great speakers who are ready to share their experience.”
• “I loved the explanations and the opportunity to look at the real examples of grants submitted. It was also helpful to analyze the guidelines to ensure the key concepts are understood. Learning about grant sustainability was pretty useful too!"

The workshop addresses a common difficulty that appears within academic texts. A writer creates, what it seems to them, a consistent and clear piece of text, whereas the reader sometimes struggles to understand what was originally meant. The confusion may appear when the reader cannot tell which word a modifier is attached to. Thus, we get misplaced, dangling, and squinting modifiers, which modify a word ambiguously or illogically just because of their placement in a sentence.

At the workshop, we will learn to first notice such modifiers and then practice correcting the ambiguity to get across a clear and straightforward message to the reader. Participants will also practice writing their short texts and will work in pairs to check the clarity and the readability of each other’s texts.

Speaker: Ekaterina Redkina is a psychologist and a qualified EFL teacher with more than 10 years of experience. She is a CELTA, TKT CLIL, IHCAM and DELTA (M1-2) holder, and a Fulbright scholar. Currently, she is teaching at the Institute of International Education of Moscow Pedagogical State University. Her primary interests are CLIL, ESP, EAP, lesson frameworks, syllabus and materials design, and the use of information technology in the ELT practice.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• "A very positive speaker, clear explanation of the topic with relevant examples and practice"

• "The seminar was intense. The exercises were very helpful!"

• "Good and clear-cut, useful exercises"

WORKSHOP RECORDING

From the very first steps in learning English, we have been taught to use an abundance of linking words in our texts because, otherwise, the texts may seem illogical and unclear to the reader. But is this true?  You will know the answer at the workshop as well as discuss other myths concerning coherence and cohesion. You will find out which linking words are used most frequently in academic texts, what the difference between their meaning consists in, and how you should use them not to violate any grammar rules. As a result of the workshop, you will be able to differentiate between those linking devices that are common in academic writing and use them in your own academic papers.

Speaker: Yulia Chanturidze, Ph.D., is an associate professor at HSE University. She has been teaching English there since 2013. She is also a trainer of the HSE Academic Writing Center, an author of self-study materials for researchers, and organizer of extra-curricular activities.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “I liked the amount of individual work. The speaker demonstrates strong expertise, and Yulia's delivery is very engaging.”
• “I enjoyed that we’ve discussed those practical things that are essential while preparing written materials.”
• “The material was really well-prepared, evidence provided, and we’ve done  various tasks.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

To be persuasive, the author has to be logical. But what does it mean to be logical? Many logical fallacies hide behind frequently used rhetorical techniques and have become so common in public discourse that it may be challenging to recognize them in an academic text. At the workshop, we will focus on the most common logical fallacies that weaken argumentation and discuss the ways to spot and avoid them. If you would like to be able to recognize breaches of logic in other authors’ train of thought and avoid logical fallacies in your own argumentation, this workshop is for you.

Speaker: Natalia Fedorova, manager at the HSE Academic Writing Center, has over 15 years of experience in teaching English in a variety of contexts. She holds a degree in English Philology, Trinity CertTESOL (Trinity College London), CPE, and FTBE (Pearson). Her professional interests include EAP, ESP, teacher training, and project management in education.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “The selection of material and activities was brilliant. It helped to move gradually from theory to practice and, by the end, I began to feel quite confident in identifying the fallacies. The manner of speaking was very comforting and friendly.”
• “We had had the handouts in advance, so it was possible to see what the session was going  to be about and get acquainted with some new terms. The topic itself is relevant, and it was presented in a really understandable way. The theoretical part was followed by some practice, and the speaker managed to pay attention and respond to comments in the chat.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Writing an academic text in English is challenging even for native speakers, let alone non-natives. The most common vocabulary challenges include differentiating between frequently confused words, deciding if the words go well together, and choosing the most appropriate prepositions. At the workshop, we will look at the language problems Russian speakers are more likely to face and useful online resources that can help overcome these difficulties.

Speaker: Maria Besova was the chief editor of HSE University’s English website 2014-2022. The website has consistently topped the ranking of Russian universities’ English websites compiled by the Russian Council for International Affairs since 2015. Maria is also an ESL tutor with over 20 years of teaching experience. She holds an In-service Certificate of English Language Teaching (ICELT with Distinction) and CAE and CPE certificates (both at Grade A). Her interests include copyediting, translation studies, and digital resources for teaching and editing.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “Everything was perfect: interaction, real-life cases and examples, use of vocabulary, discussion.”
• “The topic was definitely relevant; the delivery was professional.”
• “I liked it that there was a lot of useful information presented in a calm and friendly manner”  

WORKSHOP RECORDING

In 1966, an American linguist Robert Kaplan observed that “logic per se is a cultural phenomenon” (1966, p. 12). This means that what we consider to be logical and coherent in our culture might seem illogical and incoherent in another society. Therefore, it is essential for a researcher in a modern globalized world to be aware of international publishing requirements and the differences between the academic discourse construction in Russian and in English. During the workshop, we will talk about academic writing traditions in different cultures, and we will discuss how to make academic texts coherent in English. You will learn about the dimensions which will help you, the author, to construct your academic texts in compliance with international publishing expectations.

Speaker: Irina Khoutyz, Doctor of Philology, is a professor at Kuban State University. Since 2016 Irina has been coordinating the master degree program “Cross-сultural communication in international academic environment.” Irina specializes in academic communication studies. Her research interests lie in the area of contrastive rhetoric, discourse studies and pragmatics, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, cross-cultural and academic communication.  Her most recent publications in English, connected with the topic of the workshop, include “Storytelling in English and Russian” in Moderna Sprak, 114 (2), 2020; “Verbalization of cultural communication traditions in academic discourse” in European Proceedings of Social and Behavioral Sciences: Conference Proceedings. London, 2020; “Academic Communication: Writing research papers as a culturally conditioned activity” in ESP Across Cultures, Universita di Foggia, No 13, 2016. She also has an international teaching experience (Macalester College, St.Paul, MN, USA).

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “I enjoyed engaging tasks on cross-cultural differences in writing traditions; great tasks introducing the structural elements of papers and the insights into cultural issues in various contexts.”
• “I liked it that at the workshop we discussed the idea of different writing cultures, Aristotelian and Confucian approach, and conclusions structure.”
• “The speaker explained all the information clearly and I had no problem understanding it. The tasks were engaging and interesting, so the time flew by really fast. Also, additional thanks to the co-listeners who participated in the discussion and proposed their own views and concepts.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

A researcher’s claim, or thesis statement, is the most important element of her or his argument. And each discipline has its own structural conventions for writing and situating the thesis statement in its published discourse (journal articles). First, the workshop presents empirical analysis of thesis statements taken from current academic articles across the disciplines (Economics, Business, International Studies, Law, and Philosophy). We take an inductive approach to defining and describing a thesis statement’s form and function that will provide practical examples for researchers to model in their own writing. Second, the workshop provides researchers, graduate students, and instructors with practical exercises to practice drafting and revising their own thesis statements and an opportunity to receive feedback on their own writing.

Speaker: Dr. Melvin Hall has a Ph.D. in Composition and Rhetoric from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and has taught academic writing, argument, and critical thinking for over fifteen years with an emphasis on the cultural role of rhetoric and comparative rhetoric.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “The speaker was fully aware of how diverse the audience would be in terms of disciplinary affiliation, so he made sure everyone was reading texts in his or her field and made the best of the workshop.”
• “I was always told by my Ph.D. supervisors to discuss an issue dialogically, but I was always curious HOW? Now I've got the answer!”
• “The approach of the speaker to let the listeners participate was awesome, it was very engaging.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

At this workshop, we will discuss current opportunities for a wider use of machine-assisted human translation technologies and other smart instruments in the field of research writing. At the present stage of technology development, these instruments offer a number of advantages to both researchers and specialists working with research texts. These include the facility to skim and scan large amounts of information in foreign languages, as well as to act as digital dictionaries, thesauri, and encyclopedias. We will discuss modern tools for terminology search and verification, effective computer-assisted translation systems, and smart dictionaries. Participants will be offered practical examples and useful assignments. The workshop could be of interest to Ph.D. students, researchers, translators, and those interested in various aspects of research writing.

Speaker: Natalia Popova, Ph.D., is Deputy Chair of the Scopus Expert Content Selection and Advisory Board (ESCAB) in the Russian Federation. She is also an active member of the International Sociological Association (ISA), Assistant Editor of the journal Changing societies & personalities, an editorial board member in several Russian and international journals, an expert in the quality evaluation of scientific journals at the Association of Science Editors and Publishers (ASEP). Natalia has authored a number of research publications and textbooks. Her most recent focus of interest is translation of scientific texts and their preparation for publication in international scholarly journals.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “The workshop was very well prepared and delivered. Good exercises and well showed evidence of the differences in translation by Google, Yandex, and DeepL.”
• “I'm glad that we had a lot of practice and could implement new instruments right away.”
• “The variety of tools is impressive. Thank you for this rich research.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Articles being one of the most challenging aspects of the English language can be idiosyncratic in terms of their usage in any type of discourse including academic writing. At the workshop, we will review major functions of articles and their use in formal writing depending on the context. It will allow us to categorize their usage so as to come up with some simple strategies which will enhance your writing and enable you to master articles as an effective tool for making academic texts sound more natural and explicit. Besides, potential error patterns will be considered in order to reduce the recurrence of typical  errors. We will practice a lot and, by the end of the workshop, you will be on friendly terms with English articles.

Speaker: Irina Kostyukovich is an English teacher and teacher-trainer with more than 20 years of experience. Irina taught at Vitebsk State University and has been a British Council teacher-trainer since 1998. Now she works as an English teacher at E.M. Primakov Gymnasium and as a coach of the Moscow region English language student team.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “A new perspective on articles, well-adjusted exercises.”

• “I really liked the speaker and updated my knowledge about articles.”

• “Many interesting examples of using articles in academic writings were represented and explained by the lecturer.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

After the title, abstract is the second and the only really informative part of the paper that literally everybody reads. An effective abstract can promote the paper and its author and ensure their visibility in the academic world. At the workshop, we will talk about the requirements to an abstract, its components, structure, and useful expressions for each part that will help you formulate your ideas effectively. We will also compare conventions in different disciplines and journals, practice writing abstracts and evaluate them using a set of criteria.

Speaker: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, and genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “It was clear, well-structured, and very applicable to my experience.”
• “What did I like? Time, duration, and intensity.”

In this workshop, we will explore how disciplinary values and practices affect research writing conventions. We will explore patterns of variation in vocabulary and grammar as well as rhetorical strategies for engaging with readers. In addition to exploring variations, participants will examine published writing in their own discipline and will practice implementing some of the conventions that we identify.

Speaker: Christine Tardy is Professor of English Applied Linguistics at University of Arizona. Her research and teaching focus on academic writing, writing for publication, and second language writing instruction. She has published extensively in these areas and served as co-editor of the Journal of Second Language Writing for several years.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “A lot of useful tips about academic writing; great examples accompanied by the speaker's interesting comments; interesting information about cross-cultural differences of academic writing.”
• “The speaker shared very important information. I appreciated the possibility to work in groups."
• “Good balance of theoretical input and hands-on practice. Perfect timing and new perspective.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

This session will look at how to criticize politely in written and spoken English, in formal settings and more casually, so that our message will be taken on board more easily and our professional relationships continue more smoothly.

In order to be considered robust, research needs to be scrutinized by others in the community. The peer review process for publishing papers, being central to academic work, presupposes an exchange of comments and critiques.  Sometimes we also find ourselves called upon to comment more personally on our colleagues' work, both informally when a peer asks for advice or help and sometimes more formally in departmental meetings. Feedback should be both clear and phrased so as not to offend a person. Having joined the workshop, you will learn how to  give helpful constructive criticism ensuring effective communication.

Speaker: Heather Belgorodtseva is Director of Studies for Teacher Training. She has worked as an English teacher and teacher trainer for over 20 years, in the UK and Russia, in private language schools and in further education settings. She often runs high-stakes courses where giving feedback, including constructive criticism, is an integral part of the process.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “It was extremely informative and very useful for my job.”
• “I really like the speaker's view of criticism; it was very exciting. I was only expecting to learn the phrases how to criticize politely, but the speaker showed us how to correct phrases indirectly and explained that too polite phrases express rudeness; that is why it is very important to keep a balance in an academic criticism.”

Research writing is often considered to be “neutral” or “impersonal,” but in fact analysis of published texts shows that writers use a variety of strategies to engage with their readers, to express their own attitudes about their subject matter, and to establish authority and credibility. In this workshop, we will examine some of these strategies and consider how they might be employed in different genres and disciplines. Participants will leave with concrete ideas for establishing an “authorial presence” in their research writing.

Speaker: Christine Tardy is Professor of English Applied Linguistics at University of Arizona. Her research and teaching focus on academic writing, writing for publication, and second language writing instruction. She has published extensively in these areas and served as co-editor of the Journal of Second Language Writing for several years.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “For me, it's a new level in reflecting about my writing.”

• “The seminar was lively, to the point, balanced.”

• “The session was very exciting, creative, informative, and interactive.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

One of the more challenging (and often mysterious) aspects of writing for publication can be corresponding with editors and reviewers in the revision process. This workshop aims to demystify those communication practices. We will discuss how to interpret and respond to peer reviews, as well as how to approach disagreements with editors and reviewers in effective ways. The workshop will also address frequently asked questions about editorial communication, including those shared by participants.

Speaker: Christine Tardy is Professor of English Applied Linguistics at University of Arizona. Her research and teaching focus on academic writing, writing for publication, and second language writing instruction. She has published extensively in these areas and served as co-editor of the Journal of Second Language Writing for several years.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• "The topic and content of the seminar are very important and relevant. Moreover, I appreciated the variety of activities very much."
• "I enjoyed Dr. Tardy's manner of speech and style of presentation. It was very engaging and friendly, too. It helped me relax even though we were discussing such a worrisome issue."
• "The information is very valuable; it will be useful when submitting articles to foreign journals and interacting with reviewers and editorial boards."

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Voice is a unique instrument that we possess. It needs care and fine-tuning before the performance as well as sophisticated control during the performance to communicate ideas clearly and with impact. The workshop will teach you how to use volume, pitch, rate, pauses, and inflection meaningfully to orchestrate a presentation delivery to the presenter's best advantage. We will focus on most effective rapport-building and other rhetorical techniques to make your public speech powerful and memorable. You will have a chance to test the skills in practice.

Speaker: Tatiana Skopintseva, a Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow. Before joining NES, she worked at the Department of English Phonetics at MSLU where she earned her Kandidat Nauk and Associate Professor degrees. Tatiana is an IREX alumna (UPenn), a frequent IATEFL speaker and a former IATEFL PronSig committee member.

Language: English

The participants’ feedback:

• “It was great to switch from written communication to discussing some techniques of a spoken presentation. The speaker has prepared wonderful examples and has a warm and friendly manner of communication and very beautiful pronunciation.”

• “I've got much interesting information; now I am sure I do everything with my students in the right way. We (teachers) must be actors!”

• “I truly enjoyed a wide range of interesting exercises and the combination of theoretical materials with practical sessions. Everything was extremely positive and wise, modern and useful.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Today everything is still happening online, including workshops, seminars, and meetings. In this interactive session, we will take a look at what makes for successful online participation and organization. The online mode has its peculiarities and challenges, in terms of both communication and technologies, that can affect the quality of discussions. We will talk about some communicative strategies for effective discussions including specific useful expressions for dealing with problematic situations online. We will practice a lot, so please be prepared to speak!

Speaker: Tatiana Golechkova, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I liked everything. The friendly, encouraging and highly professional speaker, discussions in break out rooms, useful handouts.”
• “Effective way of delivering a seminar; the speaker’s perfect way of engaging participants; a lot of hints and valuable advice from the speaker.”
• “The topic is very relevant; a lot of useful tips, a lot practice. I like how Tatiana structures and accentuates the material. Her charisma and discipline were brilliant.”

To publish a paper in a leading mathematical journal, obviously, one needs to obtain original tangible results. This stage is the most important one, but we will not discuss it during the workshop. However, there is still a lot to do before submitting the paper. Namely, we should choose a suitable journal, structure the article according to the journal’s requirements, write a high-quality text, checking it for completeness and logical development, proofread the text for typos and mistakes. It is also important to establish effective communication with the editor and reviewers. Some colleagues do not pay meticulous attention to these stages, and this affects the quality of publications. At the seminar, we will discuss how to cope with thеse routine tasks as efficiently as possible in order to publish a mathematical article.

Speaker: Ivan Arzhantsev, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Computer Science, Head of the Laboratory of Algebraic Transformation Groups at the Faculty of Mathematics, HSE University. He is the author of more than 50 mathematical papers, a co-author of the monograph "Cox Rings," published in 2015 in the Cambridge Studies in Advanced Mathematics. He is the winner of the European Academy Award for Young Russian Scientists (2006), Pierre Deligne Grant (2008-2010) and other scientific grants. He regularly cooperates with universities in the UK, Germany, USA, France and Chile. He has supervised 10 Ph.D. dissertations.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I liked everything. The friendly, encouraging and highly professional speaker, discussions in break out rooms, useful handouts.”
• “Effective way of delivering a seminar; the speaker’s perfect way of engaging participants; a lot of hints and valuable advice from the speaker.”
• “The topic is very relevant; a lot of useful tips, a lot practice. I like how Tatiana structures and accentuates the material. Her charisma and discipline were brilliant.”

At the workshop, we will discuss how to apply the pyramid principle while planning and writing your manuscripts. This approach can help you to present your argument in a clear and logical way and maintain the attention of the reader. You will find out what research of human perception mechanisms underlies the pyramid principle, how it works at the planning and writing stages. As a result, you will learn to apply a powerful tool that will help you to create high-quality articles with a transparent evidence base. Your manuscripts will become more reader-centered which will increase your chances for publication and citation.

Speaker: Tatiana Martseva, PhD in Germanic languages, CPE, DELTA (Cambridge), FTBE (Pearson). Tatiana has over 20 years of experience in teaching English for special purposes, academic writing, presentation skills, cross-cultural communication, linguistic and country studies. Her areas of interest and research include modern English language, stylistics, teacher training, digital technologies in teaching.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Very interesting idea which I can simply use in practice.”
• “I appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with other participants. The topic for the group activity was really worth discussing.”
• “Good approach to writing! Reader-centered. I liked the clear structure, useful tips, friendly and involving speaker.”

Researchers are increasingly expected to talk about their work not just to their colleagues but to a broader audience — even major funding agencies often want links to media stories on the project in the final report. But getting onto that front page is not so easy: first, good science journalists need to get excited about your work. Clearly, everyone’s after coronavirus researchers, but is there hope for other scientists? What’s the best way to grab and hold the attention of a journalist and explain to them what it is that you do? In this workshop, we will learn to turn the secret journalistic weapon, the pitch, against the journalists. After a short theoretical intro to pitching, participants will get to test their presentation skills on an actual science journalist — the speaker herself — and receive extensive feedback on ways to improve the effectiveness of that presentation. Naturally, these skills will be useful not just in communication with the media, but whenever you need to get a non-specialist fascinated with your research.

Speaker: Olga Dobrovidova is a science and environment journalist, communicator, and educator. She has been covering science and environment, with a focus on science policy and climate change, for 10 years, working for RIA Novosti, TASS, N+1, GEO Russia Magazine, Russia Beyond the Headlines, Climate Home, STAT, and Nature. She works as a senior copywriter and science communicator at Skoltech. Olga is also the acting president at AKSON, the Russian science communicators association, the vice president of the European Federation for Science Journalism, and a 2014-2015 Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She’s been teaching science journalism at ITMO University for three years and has taught science communication and multimedia journalism at SAS UTMN.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “In fact, everything was good! The speaker showed different models you could use to structure your own pitch and shared many practical examples.”
• “The information on pitches was really valuable! I liked real examples of pitches.”
• “The lecturer was dedicated and conscientious!”

In article writing you often need to refer to somebody’s ideas. To do this efficiently you need to master the strategies of summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting. Paraphrasing is one of the essential skills, which is an alternative to quoting; it helps you use your own words to formulate someone else’s idea. Paraphrasing lets you show the reader that you have processed and understood the source you are using through its explanation and interpretation. Paraphrasing is also an effective tool used to restate, clarify, or condense your idea. At the seminar, we will compare paraphrasing with quoting and summarizing. We will practice these strategies and come up with successful paraphrasing techniques: the effective use of synonyms, different parts of speech, and a variety of sentence structures.

Trainer: Ekaterina Redkina is a psychologist and a qualified EFL teacher with more than 10 years of experience. She is a CELTA, TKT CLIL, IHCAM and DELTA (M1-2) holder, and a Fulbright scholar. Currently, she teaches academic and professionally oriented skills to Russian psychology students at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Her primary interests are CLIL, ESP, EAP, lesson frameworks, syllabus and materials design, and the use of information technology in the ELT practice.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I liked the clear, understandable exercises and the instructions for doing them. The speaker's strategy was excellent!”
• “The workshop was well-structured, active with a lot of tips and references.”
• “For me, it was a good revision of earlier studied materials.”

Writing a research paper is a challenging, time-consuming, and often lonely endeavor. Seeking feedback from others might be a productive way to find support along the way and to improve your text. This workshop will serve as both a theoretical and practical exploration of group feedback as a way to a better text. We will discuss how to give and receive beneficial feedback in a group. Then, we will have hands-on experience as a writing group: we will analyze examples of academic texts in terms of their structure, clarity, and language. Together, we will discuss what can be improved, and, hopefully, see that not only the author but also the readers can benefit from exchanging feedback and practicing editing skills.

Speaker: Svetlana Malyutina, Ph. D., a Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director at the Center for Language and Brain at HSE. Svetlana graduated from the Department of Theoretical and Computational Linguistics of Moscow State University and obtained a Ph.D. degree from the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of South Carolina in 2015. Svetlana conducts research in psycho- and neurolinguistics (aphasia, language changes in healthy aging, non-invasive brain stimulation, etc.) and has co-authored over 15 peer-reviewed papers in English. Svetlana is leading a weekly academic writing group at the Center for Language and Brain.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “It was informative, interactive and encouraging. We received tips for giving and receiving feedback. Academic writing groups is an excellent idea!”
• “I learned new information about feedback types and group feedback. And we had a lot of practice.”
• “Very practical! Discussing texts and mistakes was really valuable.”

Whether it is disgruntlement from a brusque email or discontent from an unfortunate conversation, professional disagreements can be a stressful experience. To handle them with a satisfactory outcome in mind, one will require strategies aimed at avoiding hostility as well as turning the situation around in a favourable way. These strategies include using appropriate tentative language alongside applying certain soft skills which facilitate oral and written communication in challenging situations.

In this practical session, we will explore real life examples of such skills and language as well as practice implementing them in resolving various conflicts of interests and disputes within a professional environment.

Speaker: Aaron Chan-Fedorov has been teaching and specialising in exam preparation for over ten years both in the UK and in Russia. Together with his pedagogical background, Aaron also has an additional decade of experience delivering workshops and training staff within a number of international media companies and news agencies both in the UK and the US.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “Excellent examples and tips on how to handle communication. They really brought out the potential issues that can cause miscommunication and negative feelings.”
• “Everything was great. It was informative and practical. The speaker's visits to breakout rooms were really supportive and helpful.”
• “I liked the speaker's manner. I enjoyed doing tasks and learning from the colleagues.”

Growing evidence shows that intonation is important on many levels, as good intonation skills correlate with greater intelligibility. This workshop will briefly draw on theory and feature the pitch, accent, and pausing - key elements of English intonation. We will evaluate samples of oral presentations and have a lot of practical activities. We will look at why and how to improve pronunciation in order to get your message across effectively.  Join us to get in tune with the “music” of the English language!

Speaker: Elena Kryukova is a tutor at the HSE School of Foreign Languages and a postgraduate student at Moscow State Pedagogical University with more than 10 years’ teaching experience. Elena holds a double degree in linguistics (MSLU) and English philology (Alcalá University, Spain). Her primary interests are phonology and teaching English for special purposes.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

- “I appreciated a good balance between pronunciation theory and pronunciation practice; and then the opportunity to apply those individual elements of prosody to our own conference talk.”

- “I liked interaction, individual exercises and instant answers in the self-check.”

- “Thank you, it was interesting and useful, especially the practice with colleagues.”

Probably more often than writing papers, reports, and proposals, we engage in communication by email. This can become tricky in sensitive or problematic situations. Nobody wants to do the whole team’s work, get underpaid by mistake, or deal with constant delays in projects. How can we phrase emails so that we get what we want without making people resent us? We will discuss common Russian errors and practice strategies that can help achieve our goals and keep friendly relations with colleagues.

Speaker: Tatiana Golechkova, PhD, Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The chosen theme was very useful for work. I liked all the recommendations how to make official emails more polite and at the same time to emphasize the essence of the problem.”
• “The seminar was well-structured and helpful even for those with many years of experience of teaching/using English. Every single assignment made sense within the overall framework of what we were supposed to learn. The speaker maintained a positive tone throughout and handled questions well.”
• “The topic was extremely interesting and useful. The content was clear, but never too categorical leaving room for other options. And it was very useful for me to learn about the Padlet as a form of communication in our lessons.”

How can hashtags afford and facilitate international exchange and collaborations in our domain? At this workshop, we will explore visibility and networking strategies to connect with fellow researchers and practitioners. After a review of account options, audience focus, and content goals, you will create a series of hashtags for self-promotion, cross-promotion, and conference promotion. You will learn to use hashtags wisely and meaningfully. You will be engaged in practical activities and discussions. Join the workshop to be part of a wider community of researchers.

Speakers:

Olga Karamalak, Ph.D. in linguistics, an associate professor of the HSE School of Foreign Languages (Moscow), an ICELT (In-service Certificate in English Language Teaching issued by Cambridge) holder, a member of  the international association Distributed Language Group, a member of a research team in Switzerland Digital Fashion Communication (Università della Svizzera italiana), an alumna of American educational program Fulbright FLTA at Lees-McRae College (Banner Elk, NC) and German scientific program DAAD Immanuel Kant at Leibnitz University, Hannover.

Katharina Sand, Professor at the Fashion Department of UQAM (Montreal) and Ph.D. Candidate in Digital Fashion Communication at USI (Lugano). She has taught at Parsons Paris, SCAD, HEAD-Geneva, the Fashion & Technology Department of the Kunstuniversität Linz, and is a frequent speaker at international fashion conferences.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The subject is useful and highly relevant. I did learn quite a lot of new and potentially applicable things.”
• “Very informative! It was useful to hear about the speakers’ experience in foreign academic institutions.”
• “Thank you for a great workshop!”

Making contributions in meetings, answering questions after presentations or lectures, and discussing a project with colleagues are the situations in which we have to give short talks. The problem is that there we have virtually no time to prepare, let alone rehearse what we are going to say, which is likely to prove challenging, especially in a foreign language. At the workshop, we will discuss recommendations for giving short unprepared talks and strategies that help quickly get together and present our ideas. Then we will practice, practice, and practice!

Speaker: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Languages at the New Economic School, a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate, graduate students, and academics. Tatiana's areas of special interest include strategies for effective communication, public speaking, genre features, and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Language:  English

Participants' Feedback:

• "Tatiana practices what she preaches. If she says that the structure is important, that is exactly what she does in her workshops. They are always well-structured and easy to follow and there's humor involved as well."
• "There was a very clear message and lots of practice. Besides, I met some colleagues who do super exciting research."
• "A very professional speaker, a well-developed workshop with the detailed presentation and a lot of interactive practice with other participants."

Academic English has the reputation of being measured, impartial, and objective - as far from the word of advertising as possible. And yet, academics do sometimes need to sell themselves, and their work, or the work of others in their field or university. This session, therefore, is all about the sort of persuasive language suitable for motivation letters or CVs, letters of recommendation, or grant proposals. We will look at the kind of language that is used for this purpose, what effect it creates, and decide what is appropriate for the academic context.

Speaker: Heather Belgorodtseva is a teacher trainer working on CELTA and post-CELTA courses such as the International House Certificate in Advanced Methodology and DELTA Modules 1 and 3. She has worked for over 20 years as an English teacher and teacher trainer in Russia and the UK, in private language schools and in further education. She also has a long term interest in blogging, starting her first blog in 2006.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “It was a pleasure to listen to the speaker with her both vivid and academic manner.”
• “Interesting insights and useful advice. The speaker is very engaging!”
• “The presentation was clear and well-structured, with excellent examples. Every task was understandable and useful.”

Academic writing in English is the object of study in hundreds of publications. There are numerous textbooks and reference books in which one can find guidelines for creating an academic text. Yet, which grammatical constructions are really typical of an English-language research article? Which structures are most difficult for Russian-speaking authors? The researchers from the teaching and research laboratory of learner corpora have looked into the use of academic speech markers in several corpora of articles published in leading journals in six disciplines, and they know the answers to these questions. At the seminar, they will share their research findings and suggest training exercises for the most significant markers.

Speakers: 

Elizaveta A. Smirnova, Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) in philology, is Associate Professor of Foreign Languages Department (HSE, Perm), a research fellow, and an academic supervisor of the educational program “Foreign languages and intercultural communication in business.” She has authored a number of research papers, some of which were published in international journals. Her research interests include corpus linguistics, academic discourse, EAP, and functional grammar.

Ivan A. Avramenko, Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) in philology, is Associate Professor of Foreign Languages Department (HSE, Perm) and a research fellow. He is the author of a number of research papers. His research interests include stylistics, discourse linguistics, and EAP.

Dmitriy S. Tulyakov, Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) in philology, is Associate Professor of Foreign Languages Department (HSE, Perm) and a research fellow. He is the author of a number of research papers. His research interests include stylistics, literary theory, and EAP.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I really liked the exercises and the statistics, it helped me understand the perspective of Russian learners of English and be aware of the mistakes I might do as a researcher when writing my own article/thesis. Also, the interactive online test during the first segment.”
• “I liked the reaction of all three speakers to the comments from the audience.”
• “Useful information with a lot of exercises. Thank you!”

Workshop recording

The workshops address a common difficulty writers face while working on academic texts. Demonstrating familiarity with existing research and citing prominent studies is expected in a scholarly paper, but doing it effectively is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. During our hands-on sessions, we will work on incorporating information from outside sources into authors' paragraphs logically and naturally. We will take a step-by-step approach and progress from some closely guided exercises to more independent and individualized expression. While the first session will be spent on constructing paragraphs containing quotes or paraphrases from prescribed elements, the second one will allow participants to apply that process to their own writing. Participants will need to prepare two or three sources they want to incorporate into their papers and will produce some paragraphs ready to go into an essay or an article.

Speaker: Natalia Knoblock is an Associate Professor of English at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, USA. In addition to linguistic courses, she teaches academic writing to native and non-native speakers of English. Her research interests lie mostly in political and cognitive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and corpus-assisted discourse analysis. Her articles were published in such journals as Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict, Linguistics Vanguard, Pragmatics and Cognition, and Discourse and Society. She edited Language of Conflict: The Discourses of the Ukrainian Crisis (Bloomsbury) and Grammar of Hate: Morphosyntactic Features of Hateful, Aggressive, and Dehumanizing Discourse (Cambridge UP), and she currently serves as a co-editor of the Journal of Language and Discrimination.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “I have learnt some useful tricks of how to make a paragraph and summarize other authors’ opinion in a short manner. Also the professor provided some English constructions which I was not familiar with.”
• “The materials were very clear and well-illustrated, with colorful presentation of different sandwich levels in a paragraph.”
• “I liked the opportunity to practice and clear tasks with gradual level of activities.” 

Session 1 recording

Session 2 Recording

After the title, abstract is the second and the only really informative part of the paper that literally everybody reads. An effective abstract can promote the paper and its author and ensure their visibility in the academic world. In the workshop we will talk about the requirements to an abstract, its components, structure, and useful expressions for each part that will help you formulate your ideas effectively. We will also compare conventions in different disciplines and journals, practice writing abstracts and evaluate them using a set of criteria.

Tutor: Tatiana Golechkova, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Foreign Languages at the New Economic School. She is a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Her areas of special interest include strategies for efficient presentation and communication, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Good writing  starts with effective  reading, that is why the workshop aims to help researchers develop reading strategies that will lead to writing for publication. Such reading strategies as predicting, previewing, scanning and skimming, guessing  meaning from context,  paraphrasing and summarizing, evaluating weaknesses and strengths of others’ texts can result not only in better critical reading skills, but also can help you annotate articles and ensure more confident academic writing. Come to the workshop to enjoy reading and practice reading into writing activities.

Tutor: Ekaterina Mashurova is an EFL teacher, teacher-trainer, examiner, and curriculum developer. Currently, she is the head of the educational center “Fine”. She is a board member of the National Association of Teachers of English. She participated in the IVLP program (USA).

Whether you are applying for a scholarship, writing an article, an abstract, a report, a personal statement, in any academic text you are obliged to use references extensively. To do this effectively, you need to be able to integrate other authors’ opinions and arguments into your text, i.e. to paraphrase and to use reporting verbs appropriately (claim, argue, state, asset, assume, contend, etc.). In this seminar, you will have practice reading short academic texts and paraphrasing them in writing. You will learn to differentiate between different reporting verbs and avoid plagiarism through manipulating the sentence structure, grammar, and lexis of the academic writing style.

Speaker: Ekaterina Redkina, teacher of English at Moscow State University, teacher trainer, CELTA, DELTA.

When writing for publication, researchers are presented with a rhetorical problem: They have to establish a context for their writing and their own perspective as authors, attend to their audience, topic and purpose, and make decisions about how to do all of the above in the most effective way.

The session will provide insights into the system of grammar tenses in the English language with a particular focus on tense usage in article writing.  We will explore and expand our experience of effective use of tenses in academic discourse where verb form usage goes beyond the simple representation of chronology. Tense choice indicates the degree of generality intended and discloses the author’s attitude towards the idea/theory that is being reported. The basic distinctions of meaning in the verb tense system will be considered in detail with application to the most common framework of an academic article. 

Tutor: Irina Kostykovitch, EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with over 20 years’ experience in the sphere of ELT. Taught at Vitebsk State University, British Council teacher-trainer since 1998.

We write academic biographies (bio) and CVs and publish them on the organization’s website, create profiles in academic social networks in order to find new colleagues, expand our research collaboration, get an invitation to speak at an international conference, publish a paper in high-impact journals, get funding, or get a new position or an internship. Writing about yourself and highlighting your unique professional skills clearly is the shortest way to communicateу effectively in the academic community.

At the webinar, we will analyze bio samples and CVs from international conference programs, personal profiles from university websites and social networks worldwide. We will also discuss Dos and Don’ts of writing about yourself to make the right impression on the colleagues. As a result, you will be able to write your own personal information more effectively and get feedback from the tutor and participants.

Tutor: Yulia Falkovich has been teaching English for over 10 years and specializing in scholarly communication and research networking.  For five years, she worked as the head of Research Intelligence and Publications Department, Tomsk Polytechnic University, where she was responsible for research visibility and research output. She initiated and developed programs to boost scholarly communication and publishing papers in high-impact journals. She was an invited speaker at Elsevier conferences and other international research events. She used to be part of the international project “Team Teaching for Nuclear Security Students” at Monterey Institute of International Studies, California, USA.  Yulia is currently the director of the HSE Scholarly Integration Center, where she is responsible for Russian postdocs and early career researchers’ scholarly communication skills development.

Many English learners claim that they often get challenged by all the nuances of English grammar. Particular difficulties appear when we need to use tenses, aspects, and infinitive constructions. This webinar will help you understand what elements of English grammar are absolutely necessary for the academic style, when and how to use them. The practical tips and activities will clarify the ambiguities, so that you can successfully use academic grammar in your writing.

Many English learners claim that they often get challenged by all the nuances of English grammar. Particular difficulties appear when we need to use tenses, aspects, and infinitive constructions. This webinar will help you understand what elements of English grammar are absolutely necessary for the academic style, when and how to use them. The practical tips and activities will clarify the ambiguities, so that you can successfully use academic grammar in your writing.

Guest speaker: Ekaterina Redkina, a psychologist and a qualified EFL teacher with more than 10-year experience. She is CELTA, TKT CLIL, IHCAM and Delta (M1-2) holder, and a Fulbright scholar. Currently, she teaches academic and professionally oriented skills to Russian psychology students at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Her primary interests are CLIL, ESP, EAP, lesson frameworks, Syllabus, material design, and the use of IT in the ELT practice.

This webinar aims to explore a series of potential challenges that every author may encounter when submitting a piece of academic research for publication. The webinar discusses issues such as what to expect from journal editors and professional reviewers, providing tips on how to deal with the feedback provided. The webinar is based on the samples of correspondence with professional editors and reviewers, provided by the HSE scholars.

Tutor: Konstantin Sheiko - an AWC consultant, a PhD in History and International Relations at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He worked as a research assistant in the United States and as a Lecturer/Tutor at the University of Wollongong for 15 years. The author of several books and research articles on history.

Whenever we write we have to consider the audience, our purpose for writing and the means we are using to communicate our words, be that paper and pen essays, via the computer as an email or as an online blog available to all.

Blogging is an excellent way for individuals or institutions to communicate their area of expertise to the outside world or to others with the same passionate interest, but it isn’t really the same as writing an academic paper. Or shouldn’t be at any rate.

In this workshop we will look at some of these differences with a view to making sure that our writing for this less formal context will be accessible, interesting, inspiring and motivating. Whatever the topic.

Tutor: Heather Belgorodtseva is a teacher trainer working on CELTA and post-CELTA courses such as the International House Certificate in Advanced Methodology and Delta modules 1 and 3. She has worked for over 20 years as an English teacher and teacher trainer in Russia and the UK, in private language schools and in further education. She also has a long term interest in blogging, starting her first blog in 2006.

The workshop is focused on a very complicated issue — punctuation. This session looks at the rules (and “guidelines”) of English punctuation, which are much more flexible and varied than the rules in Russian. There are few situations where punctuation changes the meaning, we will cover those and the general principles of good punctuation. We will also look into the differences between British and American punctuation and cover peculiarities of punctuation in formal and informal texts. Come to have fun while playing with punctuation marks.

Tutor: David Connolly - teacher, proofreader, editor and translator. David has been living and working in Moscow since 2004, and has been working at the AWC since its inception. He has worked on over 500 academic papers, preprints and presentations covering subjects from mathematics to management, folk music to finance, linguistics to law and everything in between.

In this workshop, we will look at one of the cultural types of English communication that helps establish connections with colleagues – small talk. We will speak about situations when it is necessary to keep it up, possible topics for discussion, and ideas that can help you start the conversation. Apart from speaking, communication involves listening to and interacting with the speaker, which could also appear challenging. How do we show that we are following? How do we manifest our interest and respond to what is being said without interfering? We will look at different strategies of effective listening and practice them in a number of situations along with small talk.

Tutor: Tatiana Golechkova, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Foreign Languages at the New Economic School. She is a Cambridge Delta qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Her areas of special interest include strategies for efficient presentation and communication, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Those who have ever experienced the writer’s block know how frustrating this may be: when you have your article or review deadline approaching, but something inside you impedes your writing and, what is worse, it may last for days, weeks, or even months. With a lot of psychological tips helping to overcome this condition available on the Internet, not many of them are really helpful. So, at this seminar we will consider the notion of self-regulation and discuss why it is important to apply it to the process of writing in English. We will also look at some of the self-regulating writing strategies that are necessary to use while engaging in writing activities and, what is more, we will go together through a set of practical exercises that will help us make these strategies part of our usual writing routine.

Speaker: Natalia Ivanova-Slavianskaia, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the School of International Relations  of Saint-Petersburg State University, a teacher of General English and ESP, the author of courses in Academic Writing. In 2018 Natalia completed a MSc course in Applied Linguistics (Teaching English in University Settings) at Oxford University, having explored the problem of Russian learners’ self-regulating writing strategies as the topic of her Masters dissertation. Since 2010, Natalia has been working as a Speaking Examiner for Cambridge Assessment.

Participants' Feedback:

• “Good structure of the seminar, content is very relevant, nice usage of interaction tools, thank you!”

• “A really friendly speaker who is an expert in the field of self-regulation. She shared helpful practical recommendations with us.”

• “I liked the interactive format of the seminar, a combination of lifehacks and opportunities for the audience to speak up.”

The text is polished, the slides are double checked, the glorious moment has finally come. But why are we standing gaping, tongue-tied, and frozen stiff with hands shaking, looking for words? Fear. Fear of speaking in public in English makes it still worse. At the workshop, we will provide you with a number of proven warming-up exercises and techniques to recover breath, perfect diction, and fine-tune your body and voice. The survival kit will help to facilitate the kickoff and reduce stage fright. During the workshop, we will eventually reveal the secret of an English smile.

Speaker: Tatiana Skopintseva is Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow. Before joining NES, she worked at the Department of English Phonetics at MSLU where she earned her Kandidat Nauk and Associate Professor degrees. Tatiana is an IREX alumna (UPenn), a frequent IATEFL speaker and a former IATEFL PronSig committee member.

Partipants' Feedback:

• “Exercises were excellent! I've never trained in such a way before public speech.”
• “The level of the speaker's expertise is very high. The exercises seem to be simple but very practical for everyday use.”
• “Really amazing! Clear explanation of the pitfalls we have to avoid in public speaking in a foreign language, the manner of delivering the workshop, perfect British accent, in-class practice.”

Have you ever struggled when reading other scholars’ papers? Have reviewers criticized your articles for lack of clarity? One of the reasons for that might be unclear progression of ideas. This workshop aims to help you introduce a good structure into your writing. We will deal with signposts and learn that there are many more connectors than just “and,”  ”but,” and “however.”  You will also learn that signposting is not only about using appropriate connectors but  about clear referencing, too. You will practice choosing between connectors that look synonymous, discuss the differences, and do exercises, which will help you to ensure coherence in your text. This workshop will equip you with the means to make your text flow.  Join us!

Speaker: Elena Petrova,  Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics. Elena is an HSE Associate Professor of English with extensive experience in teaching ESP. She holds an international certificate in teaching English (CELTA). Elena’s professional interests are teaching foreign languages and translation studies.

Participants' Feedback:

• “I enjoyed doing tasks with the group, it was useful.”
• “I liked the explicit wording solutions I can borrow and use immediately.”
• “Professional expertise of the speaker; a great set of practical exercises!”

Have you ever got comments about inappropriate use of vocabulary or style in your article? Have you ever wondered how to use a word / phrase or what a credible reference source is?  If the answer is yes, then this workshop is for you. It aims to develop B1+ learners’ competence in the domain of academic vocabulary. The participants will develop awareness of what academic vocabulary is and practice checking the meaning and appropriate usage of academic words with the help of online resources. Paraphrasing practice and the discussion of relevant paraphrasing strategies will be included. The workshop will be held in a conference format in Zoom.

Speaker: Svetlana Bogolepova, an Associate Professor at the HSE School of Foreign Languages. She holds a Ph.D. in Philology and a Masters' in Management in Higher Education. Svetlana teaches Advanced English, Research Methods and Teaching Methods classes. She has authored a number of academic publications, both in Russian and in English. Academic writing, assessment, and materials development lie within her professional interests.

Participants' Feedback:

• “The workshop subject is very relevant and applicable. Lots of activities.”
• “Everything was perfect, especially, practice with corpora and dictionaries.”
• “I liked the set of very useful links and the demonstration of their practical usage. The speaker's attitude was very helpful.”

Voice is a unique instrument that we possess. It needs care and fine-tuning before the performance as well as sophisticated control during the performance to communicate ideas clearly and with impact. The workshop will teach you how to use volume, pitch, rate, pauses, and inflection meaningfully to orchestrate a presentation delivery to the presenter's best advantage. We will focus on most effective rapport-building and other rhetorical techniques to make your public speech powerful and memorable. You will have a chance to test the skills in practice.

Speaker: Tatiana Skopintseva, a Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow. Before joining NES, she worked at the Department of English Phonetics at MSLU where she earned her Kandidat Nauk and Associate Professor degrees. Tatiana is an IREX alumna (UPenn), a frequent IATEFL speaker and a former IATEFL PronSig committee member.

Participants' Feedback:

• “Very practical recommendations with good examples. It was inspiring!”
• “Academism, clarity and artistry at the same time!”
• “Tatiana is a wonderful speaker! I like speech practice with pronunciation. It is very useful for presentation.”
• “Informative and easy to follow presentation, great examples and involving in the process, and very considerate comments of the speaker, too!”

Imagine you have a 20-minute break to build a lasting and fruitful business relationship with several designated partners. How to begin a conversation and end it leaving a memorable impression? How to fix the next appointment? The speaker will introduce you to key world business cultures, focus on the potential cultural clashes between them during networking, and suggest safe communicative strategies to avoid a communication breakdown. Together we will determine the critically important stages of a successful networking conversation and train cautious language.

Speaker: Tatiana Skopintseva, a Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow. Before joining NES, she worked at the Department of English Phonetics at MSLU where she earned her Kandidat Nauk and Associate Professor degrees. Tatiana is an IREX alumna (UPenn), a frequent IATEFL speaker and a former IATEFL PronSig committee member.

Participants' Feedback:

• “I learnt that communication is an art; for an effective communication one needs to understand how to approach the communicating process. Depending on the culture of the person in question, different strategy or approach can applied.”
• “The practice was wonderful. The handouts, the topic, the examples (particularly, the case with Mrs. Obama and the Queen).”
• “The highest level of professionalism of the speaker. Tatiana is a fantastic teacher!"

The Passive voice is considered unfashionable in academic writing and, increasingly, in other genres too. Why is this? Do we really need this grammar structure? Is this true all over the English-speaking world? The seminar will answer these questions. We will look at some uses and abuses of the Passive, compare British, American, and Russian academic conventions and come to a conclusion about how to deal with this controversial language point in our writing.

Speaker: Heather Belgorodtseva, a teacher trainer working on CELTA and post-CELTA courses such as the International House Certificate in Advanced Methodology and DELTA modules 1 and 3. She has worked for over 20 years as an English teacher and teacher trainer in Russia and the UK, in private language schools and in further education. She also has a long term interest in blogging, starting her first blog in 2006.

Participants' Feedback:

• “Good examples were given. Working in special rooms helped to work more closely with participants.”
• “I liked the lecturer and the exercises we had. And the atmosphere was really cozy!”
• “Heather organized the class perfectly. I like the way she performed. It was fascinating. I am very happy that my Ph.D. student could attend the class, as we always struggle with overusing the passive.”
• “Demonstration of passive forms from different angles, it was useful for understanding.”

This seminar is intended for those who are eager to improve their skills in the use of English punctuation. We are going to review the conventions that are well known or less so, but necessary to master. There will be sets of tests for each rule to check everyone’s intuition and skills in the use of punctuation marks. After discussing each rule, we will look at exceptions - sentences in which proficient learners have to violate the rule, rather than abide by it.  In line with the title and with one more quote: “Nature provides exceptions to every rule, ” I hope to demonstrate that exceptions serve the purpose of showing language intricacies even better than the rules per se .

Speaker: Olga Vinogradova, an Associate Professor at the School of Linguistics, HSE, Moscow, Researcher at the Learner Corpus Laboratory, Department of Humanities.

Participants' Feedback:

• “A wonderful digest of very useful information! Many thanks to Olga Vinogradova!”
• “The workshop was truly informative, with clear explanations, vivid examples, links and sources for self-study. It was interactive and practical.”
• “An awesome try to give participants as much as possible within a limited timeframe.”

The writing process can be daunting at times because it requires overcoming psychological barriers. However, there are tools that can help us come along.  The webinar focuses on one of them - Scrivener , a word-processing program for authors. We will address the classic stages of the composing process, from planning to editing, and share ideas on how this process can be facilitated – with or without technology. The speaker will explain why discovering Scrivener has become a game changer for her and brought joy to the writing process. The practical part of the session is devoted to getting to know the tool. Disclaimer: the speaker does not advertise the program, but spreads the word voluntarily because she believes her experience might be helpful to other academics.

Speaker: Lada Smirnova, a PhD from the University of Manchester and DELTA (UCLES, Cambridge). She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Programs of the Institute of Education in the HSE. She has expertise in training EFL teachers and has been teaching ESP and EAP in Russia and worldwide for more than 25 years. Her areas of interest and research include teacher training, and more specifically - educating teachers in technology integration, sustainable teacher development, teaching online, and creating professional development programs.

Participants' Feedback:

• “Good insights! I find it very useful to visit the seminars with practical experience in working with relevant software decisions. They are sometimes not easy to find and to get accustomed to.”
• “The topic is very relevant. Such tools are helpful in general, since working with the text is a tough activity, which requires a lot of attention. If there is a chance to make it (handling research nuances) easier, we should do it!”
• “The speaker has a very positive attitude!”
• “The structured lecturer's speech, fixed examples, real-time working experience with lecturer's support!”

The success of communication in English depends not only on our knowledge of the language, but also on how well we know the culture of our communication partners. Culture here does not mean music, literature, or art of their country, but something else - their assumptions about themselves and others, values, habits, patterns of behaviour. This cultural knowledge and the ability to apply it in the process of communication in a foreign language form the basis of communicative competence - the key to successful communication with representatives of other cultures. The aim of the seminar is to introduce participants to the elements of intercultural communication, the importance of which we are not always aware of, and to discuss how to be a better communicator.

Speaker: Lyudmila B. Kuznetsova, MPA (Rutgers University, USA), PhD in Linguistics, Associate Professor. She teaches Effective Professional Communication and Academic English at St Petersburg State University. She has coordinated the British Council project RESPONSE and co-authored the course books English for Academics, Books 1, 2 published by Cambridge University Press.

Participants' Feedback:

• "I really liked the presenter. She has some mystery and definitely knows many secrets. I liked the way she organized the materials. It is not common."
• "There was a lot of interesting stories which enriched presentation slides!"
• "It makes one think."

Speak on the professional conference circuit! An effective approach to entering the publishing world is to speak on your expertise. Based on TESOL International Association standards, this discourse reveals the method and practice of writing a title, abstract, and summary. Learn what conference proposal reviewers are looking for, and learn how to write material that gets selected. Time permitting, a brief Q&A will conclude the session.

Tutor: Johanna Campbell (MA in Applied English Linguistics from the University of Houston) is an English language teacher, trainer and curriculum developer with extensive field experience across the US and overseas. Currently, she is serving as an English Language Fellow in Moscow, Russia. Her expertise includes teaching intensive academic English with top-tier American universities (7 years), language program instruction and administration in US-based colleges in the Middle East (2 years), training, tutoring, writing center coaching, and presenting at myriad professional engagements (14 years). She has spoken on such varied topics as a cultural influence on English teaching and learning, civic resource use to generate language production, and student learning beyond the classroom. Her research interests include how culture shapes language, learner-centered oral fluency skills, and sociolinguistics.

The seminar is dedicated to the art of producing a workable academic hypothesis, also known as an academic statement. The seminar will consist of two parts. Part one is a theoretical introduction, and part two is a practical workshop. First, we will learn how to approach, and then handle the process of hammering out a clear-cut hypothesis. Next, we will have a look at various types of academic hypotheses. We will analyse several examples of what might constitute ‘good’ or ‘bad’ hypotheses, and vigorously discuss their relative strengths and weaknesses. A practical exercise will involve group work, focused on deconstructing several short academic texts, and producing a viable hypothesis for each of them. By the end of this session you will have a perfect understanding of why an academic hypothesis is crucial for the research. You will know how to develop a hypothesis from scratch depending upon the nature of your research, becoming aware of its potential pitfalls and limitations. This seminar could be particularly interesting to the humanities’ researchers (History, International Relations, and Politics).  

Tutor: Konstantine Sheiko (PhD in History and International Relations, University of Wollongong, Australia), worked as a research assistant in the United States and as a Lecturer/Tutor at the University of Wollongong for 15 years. During this time, he has published two books on Russian historical revisionism with Ibidem Verlag. In 2017, he published a book chapter ‘Empires of the Mind’ with Rowman & Littlefield.

Unlike fiction, academic texts aim at presenting data in a principled and linear way. In other words, it is crucial to avoid overgeneralization and ambiguity. Instead, one should pursue clarity and, for non-native speakers especially, focus on simplicity. At our session “Why pursue clarity and avoid ambiguity” we’ll be practicing both. Come and see.

Tutor: Evgeny Bakin, owner of Cambridge CELAT and DELTA certificates, Fulbright alumnus, worked in Rhodes College, Memphis, TN, USA, studied in the University of Oslo, was the director of HSE Academic Writing Centre, organised Spring ELephanT School, 2017.

This is a practice-oriented workshop, which aims at helping writers to improve their texts for publication. The presenter will focus on major challenges experienced by Russians writing in English, for example, the usage of tenses, articles and prepositions, vocabulary in context, etc. He will invite participants to analyse written samples and find ways of improving them. At the end, there will be a Q&A session. Be ready with your questions!

Tutor: Peter Dick, he grew up and was educated in Lytham St. Annes, Lancashire. He spent all his working life in the computing industry, prior to moving to Moscow in 2010, the majority of that time was spent running his own IT Consultancy and working with government and financial institutions. When Pete moved to Moscow, he retrained and qualified as an English teacher, having already had experience of teaching and training within the IT industry. His background, together with people management and project management skills saw him quickly develop into the role of Deputy General Director of a school in Moscow before he set up his own, independent school. He has also had a wide experience in editing and proofreading papers written by Russian speakers of English.

Do you find it hard to understand lectures and presentations in English? Do fast speech and an unknown accent scare you? You cannot fully participate in seminars and discussions because you do not understand everything that your English speaking colleague has said? We will deal with peculiarities of the spoken language, macro- and micro-listening strategies, and note taking techniques. The participants will also have an opportunity to listen to different accents, familiarize themselves with various forms of presentation delivery and reflect on them.

Tutor: Lyubov Zavarykina, earned a degree in the English Language and Linguistics from Moscow State University in 2000, Master degree in Education Policy and Management from MSSES and Manchester University, and Master degree in Professional Development for Language Education from Chichester University. She worked as an education projects manager at the British Council and RANEPA. She currently teaches ESAP and EGAP courses at MSSES. Professional interests: ESAP and EGAP teaching, education projects management, ESAP materials development. 

The seminar will address some ethnocultural features of the academic environment including its communication aspect in the number of Asian countries. What are the specificities of the communication within the framework of educational and research processes in comparison with those in the European tradition? What are the most common communication problems for foreign partners and what are the possible strategies for successful communication when implementing common projects? The seminar may be of interest to the professionals planning to study or teach at Asian universities, participate in international projects with Asian colleagues, as well as to all those interested in issues of intercultural communication and academic traditions in various regions of the world.

Tutor: Alexandra Sizova holds a position of an Associate Professor and Head of the Chinese Studies Department at the School of Asian Studies, Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs, NRU HSE. Dr. Sizova is an author or co-author of more than 70 works including scientific and methodological publications on historical and contemporary international relations in East and Central Asia, Russia's diplomacy and Russian diaspora in Asia, China and Mongolia area studies, Siberian studies, Chinese language and intercultural communication, methods of teaching of foreign languages and Asian studies. Alexandra as well is known as one of the leading Russian experts in teaching Chinese language and an innovative teacher of Chinese and Asia-related disciplines to young generation and an author of more than 20 teaching courses, a winner of a number of young scholars' scientific and creative competitions.

Using examples of English and Russian-style texts (all texts will be in English), we will look at the differences in style at the sentence and phrase level. We’ll explore such features of a research text as clarity, coherence, and conciseness that will make a text in English more accessible to the reader. Some vocabulary issues will also be addressed.  This is a workshop not a lecture, so be prepared for lots of activities.  

Tutor: David Connolly, teacher, proofreader, editor and translator. David has been living and working in Moscow since 2004, and has been working at the AWC since its inception. He has worked on over 500 academic papers, preprints and presentations covering subjects from mathematics to management, folk music to finance, linguistics to law and everything in between.

To improve your academic writing, before working at the level of the whole text, you need to understand what possible errors arise at the sentence level. In the academic writing, poor sentence structure may result in the misunderstanding and confusion. Inability to use the variety of sentences or to use them correctly might create the unprofessional impression of the writer. In this workshop, you will learn to recognize these errors, to distinguish between them and to find strategies to avoid them. First, we will look at the different sentence types (simple, compound, complex, compound-complex sentences) and then at the most common problems with the sentences, such as sentence fragments, run-on sentences, loose and choppy sentences. We will also consider the excessive subordination, parallel structures, and sentence variety. The workshop will suit teachers of various experience and background.

Tutor: Ekaterina Redkina, a psychologist and a qualified EFL teacher with more than 10-year experience. She is CELTA, TKT CLIL, IHCAM and Delta (M1-2) holder, and a Fulbright scholar. Currently, she teaches academic and professionally oriented skills to Russian psychology students at Lomonosov Moscow State University. Her primary interests are CLIL, ESP, EAP, lesson frameworks, Syllabus, material design, and the use of IT in the ELT practice.

Getting published requires more than producing a good manuscript. Scholars must also be able to “sell” their work. Writing a persuasive cover letter is the first step. To that end, this workshop has three major goals: to review general guidelines, to demonstrate the importance of a rhetorical perspective, and to begin the drafting process. Specifically, participants will review sample letters, analyze the use of persuasive language, and begin work on a template letter. If participants have cover letter drafts already, they are encouraged to bring them. If not, a template will be provided.

Tutor: Rachel Koch (BA in English and an MA in TESL (teaching English as a second language) with an emphasis in applied linguistics from Northern Arizona University (NAU). She has taught first-year/academic writing at northern Arizona university since 2010. Her professional areas of interest include the following: academic writing, first-year writing, collaborative learning, blended learning, peer education, writing center research, basic/developmental writing, ESL/international programs and curriculum, first-generation students, education leadership, teacher training, faculty professional development, scientific writing, mentoring/mentoring programs (especially of women), etc.

A well-written text should be coherent. It means the sentences must hold together and the movements from one sentence to the next should be logical and smooth. The same refers to paragraphs and sections in a research article – they should be organised coherently and read as one piece. This workshop will discuss how to achieve coherence and avoid sudden jumps in a research article. The workshop is going to be interactive and involve hands-on practice. 

Tutor: Olga Dolganova, MA in Educational Technology and TESOL (University of Manchester, 2011), MEd in Educational Policy and Management (University of Manchester, 2008), CELTA certificate, "New methods in teaching English", British Council certificate. Olga has been teaching Study Skills, Research Methods; Education and International Development, Theories of Teaching and Learning, Online Teaching and Learning in the University of Manchester since 2015. Currently, she is finishing her PhD at the University of Manchester.

This workshop will cover two topics, literature reviews and academic publication process. These two topics may seem to be separated by a wide gap in the process of academic writing. After all, a literature review may be one of the first parts of the paper, and the publication process definitely comes at the end. Yet, strategic choices in developing a literature review are frequently tied to the decisions about prospective publishing outlets. This workshop will combine reflection, didactics, and practice to provide participants with an experiential learning experience that will include an overview of key steps in developing an outline for a literature review, formulating paragraph- and section-level arguments, and employing rhetorical strategies for strong writing style and mechanics. Participants will learn how to review and evaluate prospective publication outlets, how to communicate with editorial team, and how to manage the publication process. Specific learning objectives are as follows:

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to

1. Identify strategies for a focused review of literature.
2. Prepare a draft of a literature review.
3. Describe steps of an academic publication process.
4. Identify a topical, international journal for a publication.

Tutor: Dr. Yulia A. Strekalova is Assistant Research Profession of Mass Communication in the UF College of Journalism at the University of Florida (UF) where she also holds the position of Director of Grants Development. She is also Director of Educational Development and Evaluation for the UF Clinical Translational Science Institute. 
As a graduate faculty, Yulia directs a lab with 18 undergraduate and graduate students. Her research is situated in the general areas of health communication, health education, and social interaction. She is particularly interested in issues that intersect these domains, such as the role of communication in collaborative and experiential learning about health and medicine in virtual and interpersonal environments. Dr. Strekalova has published 25 research papers and book chapters in journals such as Journal of Health Communication, Health Education and Behavior, Science Communication, Qualitative Health Research, Journal of Cancer Education, Journal of Communication in Healthcare, and Journal of National Cancer Institute. As Director of Educational Development and Evaluation for the UF CTSI, she conducts evaluations of the CTSI training programs (TL1, KL2, and Mentor Academy) as well as the assessments of 21 pre- and post-doctoral training programs across the UF Health Science Center (T32, T35, T90). Dr. Strekalova has over 12 years of research administration experience. She is a trained Master Mentor and board-certified academic leadership coach.

As a researcher, you are supposed to be a professional writer. Successful writing encompasses a number of useful techniques and strategies. Among them is paraphrasing, which helps to avoid overquoting and, thus, plagiarism. In this workshop, we are going to discuss the difference between paraphrasing and summarising, touch upon a range of paraphrasing strategies, and do a series of exercises to practise paraphrasing. In the second part of the workshop, we will be talking about a storytelling technique in academic papers, using the principles of story structure and embedding them into your academic paper. We welcome those who would like to improve academic writing skills.

Tutor: Irina Malinina has been teaching English for 25 years in different contexts. Currently, she is an educational consultant, assisting state and private schools on syllabus design. She has got Cambridge Delta and is doing her MA in English Literature at Northumbria University. She also has Writing Fiction diploma from Norwich Writers’ Centre and University of East Anglia (2017).

Modals, being one of the most powerful means of successful interaction between the author and the reader within academic discourse, are often misused due to cross-linguistic interference. We will investigate the main functions of modals and look into contextual factors determining their interpretation in academic discourse. The practical part will be focused on the ways to make the use of modals safe and effective. Modals are crucial for setting interaction and turning academic writing into a social act. We’ll discuss and practice the use of modal auxiliaries and other devices to convey the interpretive views of the writer and to establish a certain relationship between the writer and the reader.
 

Tutor: Irina Kostykovitch, EFL teacher and teacher-trainer with over 20 years’ experience in the sphere of ELT. Taught at Vitebsk State University, British Council teacher-trainer since 1998.

Who are we? Does our language shape our perception of who we are? What if we speak two or more languages, does it mean we have two or more identities? Are there identity boundaries we can/cannot cross?

The present practice-oriented interactive seminar addresses the questions related to the relationship between language and identity. More specifically, we will discuss how identity can be constructed (and reconstructed) by means of language use. Questions of (multiple) group and culture belonging, of who we are and what language we self-identify with, especially when it comes to learning foreign languages, will be raised and discussed in the present seminar.  Likewise, we will analyze different cases where the link between language and identity is not always linear (or straightforward) and discuss why this happens.

 Learning outcomes

Participants will be acquainted with major theoretical concepts related to the complex relationship between language and identity.

Participants will be given self-reflection tasks that will help them to explore their own identity(ies) and the possible ways of how it(they) is(are) constructed through language practices.

The seminar will help the participants to understand better the complex and multi-layered combination of language-culture-identity.

Tutor: Denis Zubalov is an Assistant Professor at the Department of General and Applied Philology. He is an academic supervisor of the "Language Policy in the Context of Ethnocultural Diversity" MA programme.

We will go through the process of putting an interdisciplinary research paper together – from an idea to the submission stage. We will discuss pros and cons of the leading energy research journals and approaches to positioning your paper in these journals.  Working with samples of energy-related research papers, we will  look at concrete examples and mistakes in key structural elements of an article: title, abstract, keyword, etc. The presenter will share tips for a good publication, recommended by journal editors.

Tutor: Dr. Liliana N. Proskuryakova is the Leading researcher at the Science and Technology Studies Lab of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE, Russia). At HSE Dr Proskuryakova specializes in energy studies, science and technology policy and international cooperation in research and innovation. She also lectures at the MA program ‘Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation’.

She holds an MA degree in international relations (1999) and a PhD in political science (2009) from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University). She has over 15 years of professional experience in international relations and public policy working with and within the UN system, non-profits, think-tanks, universities and political parties.

She took part and led dozens of basic and applied research projects, among which are those implemented for the national government, international organizations, and companies. Dr. Proskuryakova authored over two dozens publications in Russian and international peer-reviewed journals.

Whichever written discourse in the academic discipline you endeavour to undertake, be it linguistic, cultural or scientific, you will be interpreting the results of your study and drawing conclusions. Therefore, it is vital to apply tentative language in order to indicate their speculative nature. Crucially, these methods of speculation should be used judiciously. Otherwise, if they are employed excessively, they are likely to undermine the persuasive capability of your argument. In contrast, the lack of speculation may be regarded as an attempt to impose your views on the reader, who might falsely regard them as facts. In this practical workshop, we will analyse various ways of speculation within the academic context and develop its use strategically, effectively as well as accurately in order to make the intended impression on the reader.

Tutor: Aaron Chan-Fedorov has been teaching and specialising in exam preparation for over ten years both in the UK and in Russia. Together with his pedagogical background, Aaron also has an additional decade of experience delivering workshops and staff training within a number of international media companies and news agencies both in the UK and the US.

In the modern global world, the science is not limited by any state borders. However, some branches of science are more "nation-oriented" than others, which makes it difficult for a researcher to fully feel a part of the global academic community.

There are several challenges for researchers in law to make an "international" text, whether it is an article, a lecture, or a conference presentation. One of the challenges is the transmission of concepts and ideas that may be completely different in other countries.  When preparing a text in English, the author should be careful about legal terms.  Translation is often not the best strategy. 

How can we make a legal  text more "readable" and clear for the  international audience? How can we avoid literalism and share ideas, not just words?

We will try to find answers together during the seminar. We invite colleagues with  a wide experience of interventions and publications in foreign languages. Although no universal recipes or recommendations exist, you will probably have some useful ideas how to make your research more internationally-oriented.

Maria Filatova

  Polina Malkova

The workshop deals with the use of articles in the English Language with a major focus made on their usage in academic contexts. Being an auxiliary part of speech, articles perform diverse pragmatic roles.  You will learn basic principles of their usage, have practice to make articles new staunch allies for academic communication. 

Tutor: Ekaterina Mashurova is an EFL teacher, teacher-trainer, examiner, and curriculum developer. Currently, she is the head of the educational center “Fine”. She is a board member of the National Association of Teachers of English. She participated in the IVLP program (USA).

When writing for publication, researchers are presented with a rhetorical problem: They have to establish a context for their writing and their own perspective as authors, attend to their audience, topic and purpose, and make decisions about how to do all of the above in the most effective way.

In this interactive workshop, participants will discuss and practice strategies to address different parts of a rhetorical problem. Particularly they will focus on how authors articulate research problems and communicate relevance to international audiences. Participants will analyze examples from articles published in top journals, identify rhetorical strategies used by authors, and discuss how they might use these strategies in their own writing. The workshop will offer participants an opportunity to expand their repertory of rhetorical strategies and develop a better understanding of what questions journal editors might ask and how to respond to them.

Participants are invited to bring their work in progress. They will have an opportunity to receive feedback on their own manuscripts and may spend some time revising. 
 

Tutor: Tatiana Glushko - Coordinator, Richard Wright Center for Writing, Rhetoric, and Research Jackson State University, Jackson, Mississippi, USA

The workshop is focused on a very complicated issue - English punctuation. Punctuation matters as it may change the meaning of the text completely. You will learn basic rules and do a lot of exercises. Come to have fun while playing with punctuation marks.

Tutor: Svetlana Suchkova

This session targets needs of researchers who are looking for assistance in academic writing. How is a text in Russian different from one in English? Why direct translation is a false friend? How one can avoid Runglish? At the seminar participants will explore some features of academic texts, analyze a few (short) articles and write there own (short) passages. Significant attention will be given to academic vocabulary. A lot of speaking practice is guaranteed!

Tutor: Zhenya Bakin

The workshop is focused on how to make a speech more convincing and inspiring by means of phonetics. The target audience of the workshop are the HSE lecturers who deliver speeches at international scholarly conferences and regularly lecture in English. In the 1^st part of the session we will take a close-up look at the fundamental differences of English articulation from Russian one, while the 2^nd part will be an opportunity to practice some rhetorically potent intonation contours and to recreate the effect of a well-known speech on its listeners. You might be surprised at how creatively the phonetic features of English can be used to achieve your communicative goals – come and check it out for yourselves!

Tutor: Alexey Shikhantsov

The session is aimed at looking into language problems in the English Language for second language learners from the perspective of a native speaker.  We will visit the continuous and try to explain the perfect tense from the perspective of a British mind, lightly investigate syntax and what difference it makes in a sentence, get a sense of what happens when we translate one cultural style to another, try to have another look at those wonderful things called prepositions, and collocations, review articles and touch on the importance of speech and spelling. Be ready to work hard and have fun!

Tutor: Kevin Gordon

Hedging is one of the most powerful means of successful interaction within academic discourse. Although academic writing is often thought to be impersonal and hard, it is a misguided impression. Its objective is to convey the interpretive views of the writer and to establish a certain relationship between the writer and the reader. Hedging and modal auxiliaries are a crucial communicative resource and are We’ll explore academic writing as a social act and hedging as a communicative strategy. We’ll look into effective hedging strategies and interactive aspects of hedging, practice using them to boost our confidence in academic writing and recognize hedging devices as academics’ best friends.

Tutor: Irina Kostyukovitch

The aim of the workshop is to introduce some online tools for checking errors in grammar, style, syntax, which can help participants to write error-free research articles or essays. The participants will produce a piece of writing and try those tools. They will work both individually and in pairs. Some handouts will be provided. To make the workshop effective, please Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

Tutor: Tatyana Kuzmina

Most writers are concerned about grammatical correctness, particularly when writing in a second language. However, not all errors are created equal. English articles (a, an, and the), for instance, are very difficult to master, but they rarely impact the ability of a reader to understand your text. Errors with verbs, on the other hand, are very noticeable to readers and are fairly easy to notice and fix. Writers, however, will tend to get their priorities backward, obsessing over the difficult aspects of grammar at the expense of elements that have far greater impact. This workshop will present general strategies for the difficult task of self-editing and then focus on a set of frequent Russian - English errors that should be considered high priority, enabling writers to maximize their returns on the time they invest in editing their own work.

Tutor: Ashley Squires, Ph.D in English (University of Texas at Austin). Ashley is the Lecturer (Department of English) and Associate Director of the Writing and Communications Center at the New Economic School. Ms. Squires is an author of a number of research publications, primarily in Christian science, and an international expert in professional writing skills development (academic writing).

The workshop is designed to  share the experience of a Russian-English speaking journal editor, who routinely publishes and reviews articles for scientific journals in Social Science. Dr. Nezhina will invite participants to reflect on the differences between Russian and English academic styles. The participants will read and correct English samples written by speakers of Russian authors and do the reverse: change English sentences into typical Russian sentences. This workshop will be useful to aspiring academics at all levels who prepare to publish internationally, to Ph.D. students, and to graduate students, who want to publish their theses.

Tutor: Tamara G. Nezhina. Ms Tamara Nezhina has the doctoral degree in Public Administration and Policy from American university. She worked as a Professor of Public Administration at two American universities before relocating to Moscow to teach at the NRU HSE. Tamara conducted research and published in high-ranking journals in the USA on the topics of personnel and volunteer management in nonprofit and government organizations. In 2017, Tamara Nezhina worked as a Guest-editor for the “International Journal of Public Administration” (IJPA) SAGE Publishing.

In this seminar we will define clearly different types of academic fraud and provide you with some useful guidelines to ensure that your paper is free of plagiarism. Plagiarism is considered a grave sin in the academic world. We all are aware of the necessity to avoid committing either accidental or intentional plagiarism. However, plagiarism in the English-speaking world has its own specifics in comparison with the views in Russia. It does not only refer to the practice of copying someone else’s work and presenting it as your own or paraphrasing someone else’s wordings without giving them any credit. Plagiarism comes in many guises in the academic environment abroad.

Tutor: Anna Sebryuk (PhD in philology, associate professor of the Department of the English language for the humanities at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow). Anna teaches English and does research on English language acquisition. She has published articles on various aspects of linguistics, cultural studies and approaches and methods for English language teaching. In 2014 she received a Fulbright scholarship and was selected to participate in the program for teachers of English as a foreign language in the USA (Union college, New York).

The seminar is devoted to the most popular styles to cite sources and create a bibliography in an academic paper. The participants will learn a number of techniques to employ in their publications on different subjects and take a look at the most popular online citation generators.

Tutor: Anna Sebryuk (PhD in philology, associate professor of the Department of the English language for the humanities at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow). Anna teaches English and does research on English language acquisition. She has published articles on various aspects of linguistics, cultural studies and approaches and methods for English language teaching. In 2014 she received a Fulbright scholarship and was selected to participate in the program for teachers of English as a foreign language in the USA (Union college, New York).

The workshop will focus on the five key English accent features that need to be built on a Russian accent to further prevent the most common intelligibility flaws in Russian English speech. It is impossible not to have an accent. Both native and non-native speakers most commonly retain an accent as part of their identity. The assumption that positive attitude towards the L1 (in our case Russian) accent and the acquisition of some degree of native speaker accent so as to ensure intelligibility has proved to be reliable in practice.

Tutor: Tatiana Skopintseva, the Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow. Before joining NES, she worked at the Department of English Phonetics at MSLU where she earned her Kandidat Nauk and Associate Professor degrees. Tatiana is an IREX alumna (UPenn), a frequent IATEFL speaker and is currently an IATEFL PronSig general committee member.  

Voice is a unique instrument that we possess. It needs care and fine-tuning before the performance and sophisticated control during the performance to communicate ideas clearly and with impact. The workshop will first provide a set of relaxation and articulation warm-ups that will help enhance voice stamina, diction and help combat stage fright. Second, it will teach how to use volume, pitch, rate, pauses, and inflection meaningfully to orchestrate a presentation delivery to the presenter's best advantage.

Tutor: Tatiana Skopintseva, the Chair of the Humanities and Languages Department at New Economic School in Moscow. Before joining NES, she worked at the Department of English Phonetics at MSLU where she earned her Kandidat Nauk and Associate Professor degrees. Tatiana is an IREX alumna (UPenn), a frequent IATEFL speaker and is currently an IATEFL PronSig general committee member.

The workshop is focused on the relevant issues of preparing and delivering a public speech in English taking into consideration sociocultural differences between Russian presenters and their English-speaking target audiences. Unawareness of these differences may lead to mutual stereotypes and a complete failure of a potentially successful public speech. Special attention will be paid to typical sociocultural mistakes made by Russian presenters and occurring in their choice of 1) a speech structure, 2) interactional patterns, 3) ways of delivering information, 4) language means, and 5) a time limit. The participants will be offered to watch a video-material demonstrating typical sociocultural mistakes and analyzing it the participants will gain the skills of preparing and delivering a successful public speech to an English-speaking audience. The workshop will be interactive and will include individual, pair and group work. The target audience of the workshop – lecturers and HSE employees whose duties include presenting at international conferences and interacting with representative of different cultures in English.

Tutor: Galina A. Pavlovskaya (PhD in pedagogy (2012)) is a senior lecturer of English at the Foreign Languages Department, the English Language Department for Economic and Mathematical Disciplines, in the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Galina is an author of the video-course “Avoiding Sociocultural Pitfalls Presenting in English” and “New Challenges in Public Speaking”. She has been teaching English to university students, top-managers and IT-specialists for more than ten years and she is experienced in teaching sociocultural public speaking skills. Galina was elected as one of the “best teachers of the HSE” in 2017.

In this workshop we will discuss Q&A sessions that take place after presentations or seminars. First, we will take the position of the listener and practice techniques of efficient questioning to make sure the presenter hears us, understands us and gives the answer to our question. We will very briefly revise related grammar (direct and indirect questions). After that we will assume the position of the presenter and practice answering questions, paying special attention to techniques for clarification and admitting elegantly that we do not have the answer, as well as strategies for avoiding or postponing answering. At the end of the workshop we will use your research topics to model a Q&A session and practice all these techniques and strategies.

Tutor: Tatiana Golechkova is an assistant professor at the English Department for Economic and Mathematical Disciplines at HSE. She is a Cambridge Delta-qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Her areas of special interest include strategies for efficient presentation and communication, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Most genres of academic writing in English involve making an argument, but figuring out what your argument really is can be one of the most challenging tasks of presenting your research. This workshop will present the theory of academic argument in an understandable and usable form and then take participants through the process of planning and structuring a piece of writing that will make an impact on readers.

Tutor: Ashley Squires, Ph.D in English ( University of Texas at Austin). Ashley is the Lecturer (Department of English) and Associate Director of the Writing and Communications Center at the New Economic School. Ms. Squires is an author of a number of research publications, primarily in Christian science, and an international expert in professional writing skills development (academic writing).

In this workshop we will look at one of the essential cultural features of English communication – small talk. We will speak about situations when it is necessary to keep it up, possible topics for discussion and ideas that can help you start the conversation. Apart from speaking, communication involves listening to and interacting with the speaker, which could also appear challenging. How do we show that we are following? How do we manifest our interest and respond to what is being said without interfering? We will look at different strategies of effective listening and practice them in a number of situations along with small talk.

Tutor: Tatiana Golechkova is an assistant professor at the English Department for Economic and Mathematical Disciplines at HSE. She is a Cambridge Delta-qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Her areas of special interest include strategies for efficient presentation and communication, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Those who often speak at conferences, symposiums and academic events will benefit from this workshop. Speech is a "link" between the inner worlds of people which is a reason for developing one's oratory skills. To succeed in public speaking one needs to pay attention to three things: body, breathing, posture. The seminar will deal with such important aspects of public speaking as: logic, composition, argumentation, working with the audience, non-verbal cues, ability to listen, willingness to have a dialogue.

Tutor: Tatiana Parshina, theatre and cinema actress, has 17-year theatre experience and 8-year teaching experience, teaches public speaking skills development classes and workshops.

If you are a researcher, have an idea or a hypothesis, and want to test it, but lack funds, this seminar is exactly for you. Our aim is to demonstrate how to prepare and write fundable grant proposals. At the seminar you will learn how to:
• find a fund;
• plan project stages;
• estimate project costs;
• present visual data;
• write a persuasive grant proposal narrative;
• pitch your proposal.
You will also have a chance to try a foundation board’s shoes and feel their concerns. We hope that the activities we offer will provide you not only with an opportunity to master technical skills, but also to interact with researchers from different fields so that you could share your experience and learn from others. 

Tutor: Varvara Sosedova, graduated from Moscow Linguistic University in 2010 and earned a PhD in Philology from Moscow City Pedagogy University in 2015 where she did research into the connection between English language and culture. Varvara has a number of publications on linguistics and cultural science based on her PhD research. In 2009 Varvara joined Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO) where she is responsible for integrated-skills teaching and coordinating students' project work. She specialises in cognitive linguistics, pragmatics, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Varvara Sosedova also has a degree in Economics from Moscow Aviation Institute, which lets her apply project management techniques in the teaching process.

As we all live under the pressure of ‘’publish or perish,” we need to master self-editing techniques. This deems to be the most effective investment of time. The workshop aims to invite participants to try editing strategies while working on research papers. The presenter will introduce some editing strategies and encourage participants to improve samples of research writing. The workshop is going to be interactive and practice-based.

Tutor: Svetlana Suchkova (PhD), associate professor, English teacher, director of HSE Academic Writing Center, teacher trainer, and Cambridge ESOL examiner (YLE, KET, PET, FCE, CAE, CPE, BEC, BULATS). She has widely published in the field of ELT methodology. She authored a number of EFL course books for Russian university students and academics. She has participated with presentations and workshops in numerous national and international conferences. She is a member of the Management Board of the Russian Writing Centers Consortium.

Working language: English
Time: 25 September 2018.

It is easy to think that once you have submitted a paper that you have finished the hardest part. To some extent that is true, but often the part that comes once you have received reviewer feedback is the most difficult because you may be asked to dig back into a project you haven't looked at in some time and because you must now try to see it from an entirely different point of view. The revision process is ultimately about reconciling your original vision of the project with what the reviewers and editor want. This workshop take participants through the process of sorting out useful from unhelpful (or even hurtful) feedback, making a decision about the manuscript's future, formulating an initial response to the editor, planning a revision, and finally resubmitting the manuscript with a detailed outline of the ways you have addressed reviewer requests.

Tutor: Ashley Squires, Ph.D in English ( University of Texas at Austin). Ashley is the Lecturer (Department of English) and Associate Director of the Writing and Communications Center at the New Economic School. Ms. Squires is an author of a number of research publications, primarily in Christian science, and an international expert in professional writing skills development (academic writing).
Time: 3 October 2018, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Emailing has become the main means of communication. A lot depends on whether our email is effective, meets genre conventions and expectations of the addressee. It will determine our partners’ willingness or unwillingness not only to understand our questions and issues, but also to respond to the email and continue cooperation. In the workshop, we will look at most common emailing errors, paying special attention to English speakers’ expectations and their differences from our conventions. Participants will analyze and correct ineffective emails, and have an opportunity to discuss their questions.

Tutor: Tatiana Golechkova is an assistant professor at the English Department for Economic and Mathematical Disciplines at HSE. She is a Cambridge Delta-qualified EFL teacher with broad experience in teaching academic writing and speaking to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as academics. Her areas of special interest include strategies for efficient presentation and communication, genre features and sociocultural peculiarities of English academic texts.

Working language: English
Time: 16 October 2018, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.

The workshop is focused on a very complicated issue - American punctuation. Punctuation matters as it may change the meaning of the text completely. You will learn basic rules and do a lot of exercises. Come to have fun while playing with punctuation marks.

Tutor: Svetlana Suchkova (PhD), associate professor, English teacher, director of HSE Academic Writing Center, teacher trainer, and Cambridge ESOL examiner (YLE, KET, PET, FCE, CAE, CPE, BEC, BULATS). She has widely published in the field of ELT methodology. She authored a number of EFL course books for Russian university students and academics. She has participated with presentations and workshops in numerous national and international conferences. She is a member of the Management Board of the Russian Writing Centers Consortium.

Working language: English
Time: 1 November 2018, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.

The word ‘elegance’ is mainly associated with literary prose or poetry but not with academic texts. While writing a research paper in English, scholars often aim to create a concise, clear, and coherent text that is grammatically correct. However, in the pursuit of grammar accuracy, scholars often neglect different ways of expressing ideas creatively to get these ideas stuck in the reader’s mind. The presenter will share some tips on how to make an academic text elegant. During the workshop, participants will be engaged in hands-on activities aimed at employing such techniques as coordination and parallelism that will add a flash of elegance to the text and enhance the reader’s interest in the paper.

Tutor: Valeria Evdash is currently the Director of the Center for Academic Writing 'Impulse', the University of Tyumen. Prior to establishing the Center, she worked as the Head of English language department of the Regional Institute for International Cooperation, UTMN. She has had more than 20 years of EFL teaching. She also works as a teacher trainer. She was the British Council teacher-trainer (2012-2015) in Russia. She is a member of the Russian National Association of Teachers of English (NATE Russia) and the head of Tyumen English Language Teachers' Association (TumELTA). She is also an alumna of the U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs. She has participated with presentations in national and international conferences. Her areas of expertise are Continuous Professional Development, English language acquisition & methodology, and academic writing.

Working language: English
Time: 21 November 2018, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Academic writing is unique in that it requires writers to position their ideas within a broader scholarly conversation.  In this workshop we will discuss how scholars can better map and intervene in their field’s ongoing conversation.  We will discuss the “They Say / I Say” model of scholarly writing and examine the ways in which what “they say” is presented in published scholarship.  In addition to a deeper theoretical understanding of academic writing, participants will discover templates and phrases they can incorporate into their own work. We will also discuss and practice some scholarly research techniques.  Using free online tools such Google Scholar and Zotero, a popular citation management program, we will learn how to track down the latest scholarship and organize what we find.  Participants are encouraged to bring their laptops to take full advantage of these resources.

Tutor: Matthew Overstreet is an Assistant Professor of English at the New Economic School.  He holds a PhD in rhetoric and composition from the University of Pittsburgh.  Originally from the United States, he has taught writing and research on three continents.

Working language: English
Time: 11 December 2018, 5 p.m. - 8 p.m.

Are you politically correct? The seminar is devoted to a highly problematic phenomenon of political correctness which dictates certain socio-cultural standards of behavior and communication. How not to ruin your reputation and career just by choosing the wrong word? You will learn about the most current guidelines for appropriate “public” English and start using them in practice.

Tutor: Anna Sebryuk (PhD in philology), an associate professor of the Department of the English language for the humanities at National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow. She is teaching English and doing research on English language acquisition. She has published articles on various aspects of linguistics, cultural studies and approaches and methods for English language teaching. In 2014 she received a Fulbright scholarship and was selected to participate in the program for teachers of English as a foreign language in the USA (Union college, New York). 

Working language: English
Time: 17 December 2018, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m.