Workshops & Seminars

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.