Previous Workshops

Considering the growing global influence of Asia, we invite you to the workshop to explore the nuanced landscape of communication with Asian partners, focusing specifically on China. Understanding the typical features of communication becomes increasingly vital for successful international interactions, including academic collaboration. Participants will gain insights into historical, social, and business contexts that shape communication practices in China. 

At the workshop, we will focus on Chinese cultural specificities, their impact on communication styles, and common pitfalls in maintaining a cross-cultural dialog with Chinese partners. We will also consider the concept of guanxi (关系, relationships) and its role in business and academic ties. The speaker will share verbal and non-verbal communication techniques that may be effective in contacts with Chinese counterparts and help to overcome misunderstandings. 

This knowledge can help participants to foster meaningful connections and achieve successful outcomes in their cross-cultural interactions with Chinese counterparts. 

Speaker: Alexandra Sizova, Ph.D. in history, Associate Professor, Vice Head of the School of Asian Studies, and Head of the Chinese Studies Department at the School of Asian Studies, HSE University. Being the author of more than 120 works and over 20 teaching courses, she specializes in international relations and intercultural communication in East Asia, Chinese and Mongolian studies, Russia's policy in Asia. Alexandra is also known as one of the leading Russian experts in the innovative teaching of the Chinese language and Asia-related disciplines, and is the lead author of the renowned series of textbooks for secondary school — “It’s the Time to Learn Chinese!” (“Prosveshchenie”). Head and expert of academic and applied projects in Asian studies, IR, foreign languages, and education.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• «Many-many thanks! Have been glued to the screen all the time.»
• «Thank you for the idea of this workshop and a special thank - to Alexandra!»
• «Many thanks for introducing stratagems!»
• «Thank you so much! I found the workshop incredibly interesting and engaging. I’m looking forward to the next events on similar topics!»

How can we use the appropriate academic register and accuracy to be understood by different groups of listeners? How can we effectively adapt to communicating with our target audience? During the workshop we'll figure it out together. The techniques we’re going to discuss will be useful for any researcher working with international audiences. In particular, we will discuss the benefits of choosing the right register and language adaptation, analyzing real-life examples. We will find out which approaches may help to adjust to the audiences we interact with, maintaining professionalism and clarity of presentation. We will also speak about how precision and register affect the academic and professional image of the researcher.  

Speaker: Olesya Petrenko, Ph.D. in Economics and Management, associate professor, supervisor of the Academic Skills in English program. Olesya has been teaching English for 17 seven of them in the University of Western Bohemia. She works with multinational groups of students, researchers, and university teachers, publishes research papers on gender income differentiation, the impact of higher education on economic development, and economics of AI.

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

Participants' Feedback:

• “The speaker prepared a high-quality detailed presentation and constantly communicated with the audience. The workshops included diverse topics and tasks, so it was easy to focus and follow the content.” 
• “It was highly interactive, friendly, with a lot of relevant examples; the topic was interesting.”
• “Informal atmosphere, the speaker's comprehensive explanations, simple yet effective tasks, life-hacks”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

In any communication, there are specific rules, and interaction with artificial intelligence is no exception. These rules pertain not only to formulating requests but also to processing the obtained results, as no AI-generated output can be used without proper modifications.

In the workshop, we will discuss in detail the strategies for creating prompts and editing texts generated by AI. We will also analyze the key characteristics of generated materials and review real examples of student work. Additionally, we will test AI as a tool for structuring ideas.

Speaker: Sofia Stalskaya is a linguist, translator, and English language teacher. She regularly conducts workshops and seminars on the topic of AI in education. Sofia is also the head of digital internships for teachers, where she discusses the application of AI tools in working with texts and creating educational materials.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The structure of the workshop was very good. I enjoyed the exercises as well, very engaging. We learnt about immediately usable AI tools and prompting techniques.”
• “The workshop was informative and illustrative. I also appreciated perfect time management, deep knowledge of the speaker, and a friendly atmosphere.”
• “It was interactive, there were a lot of practical assignments so that the knowledge about AI was built on practice. Time flew!”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Definitions are the linguistic timber that scholarly writers use to undergird their arguments, theories, paradigms, theses, and claims. Definitions are like a building’s load bearing beam – the entire weight of a writer’s argument rests on them. Without the “load bearing definition,” the writer’s argument, like a building, would collapse. Writers use definitions to both invent and support arguments.

The workshop presents definition's rudimentary rhetorical structures used to make arguments. We will discuss and analyze scholarly writers’ use of definition in published articles. We will also draft our own definitions. Ultimately, we will practice using definition's rhetorical form to both invent ideas and structure our written thought.

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. He currently teaches English language courses at Moscow Finance and Law University.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

•  “I was impressed by the thorough metaphysical approach to types of definitions and defining concepts and real-life objects.”
• “The topic of the workshop was just what I needed for my current article and a paragraph in my Ph.D. thesis. Now I can structure the article about storytelling in music using the approach I learned.”
•  “There was lots of practical information. I liked the flow of the workshop – we all worked on the tasks, but there was no pressure to rush. I appreciated that we could post our answers in the workshop chat. I enjoyed listening to the speaker’s comments on our answers.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

In academic texts, the ability to express the author's attitude is crucial to develop a persuasive and authoritative voice. This workshop explores modality as a key tool for articulating levels of certainty, possibility, and obligation in academic discourse. The workshop will provide an overview of grammatical, lexical, stylistic, and rhetoric means for expressing the writer’s attitude. We will explore how these means may be applied in each part of an academic article (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion) in accordance with the communicative purpose of each section. Strategic use of modality helps authors professionally demonstrate their authority, acknowledge uncertainty, and maintain a professional tone. Through interactive activities, practical examples, and collaborative analysis, the workshop equips participants with the skills to enhance clarity in their writing.

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:

• “Great discussion! The workshop offered a lot of useful information and good communication.”
• “Everything was useful: materials, exercises, phrases, working with participants’ own writing.”
• “Exercises, examples, and discussion about different cases of using modality were valuable for me.”

Automatic translators undoubtedly make the life of an EAL writer easy. But sometimes the results are far from being desired. At the workshop, you will learn how to refine the results and produce an accurate English text using AI-based tools. The speaker will present a protocol for translating research papers. We will also widen the range of prompts to improve English output. Be prepared to “play” with the tools and discuss effective ways to use chatbots as your translating assistants. Hopefully, the skills you’ll get will lead to minimizing the need for native English speaker review.

Speaker: Adrian Wallwork is an EFL & EAP teacher and author of 30+ textbooks for Springer Science, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and BBC. Since 2000, Adrian Wallwork has held more than 100 courses for doctoral students and researchers at universities primarily in Italy, but also recently in Turkey, China, and Qatar. In 2021 Adrian introduced automatic translation into the courses, and in 2023 he began analyzing how AI can transform writing and communication skills.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• "There were so many great aspects: clear, practical instructions; humor and personal anecdotes that built rapport; and a high level of professionalism throughout."
• "It was a great workshop! I discovered new AI tools, practiced creating effective prompts, and received checklists to help assess prompt quality."
• "I’ve finally learned why and how to write short sentences, and how to translate my text without losing its meaning."

WORKSHOP RECORDING

Objectivity is considered to be one of the major characteristics of research writing. How can we distinguish one writer from another in an impersonal text? To be recognizable, one needs to demonstrate their own authorial voice. Recent studies have demonstrated that research writers do express their opinions and attitudes in the articles rather than merely communicate facts. The workshop will focus on linguistic markers of authorial voice. We will find out what stance features are conventionally employed by researchers from “hard” and “soft” disciplines and practice using them in some tasks.

Speaker: Elizaveta A. Smirnova is an associate professor of Foreign Languages Department at the HSE University in Perm. She is an academic supervisor of the BA Programme "Foreign languages and intercultural communication in business."  She holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Vigo (Spain). Her research interests include corpus linguistics, academic discourse analysis, and teaching English for academic purposes. Her works were published in such journals as Lingua, Pragmatics and Society, the International Journal of Applied Linguistics.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The speaker drew on her own research in explaining the difference between the author's stance in hard and soft sciences, which was highly valuable. A very good balance between theory and practice!”
• “I appreciated the logical progression from doing exercises to writing an abstract and utilizing all this knowledge in one's own research.The tasks were well-structured and informative.” 
• “The speaker gave us detailed tips on how to write a summary in a research paper using words to enhance the author's point of view. The theoretical input and practical examples were very useful.”

Writing and reading skills are intertwined: a good writer has to be a good reader. But what does it mean to read well, especially when you have to process large volumes of text in limited time? What reading and thinking skills does a researcher rely on to decode, evaluate, and integrate other authors' texts? At the workshop, we will discuss critical thinking and analytical reading skills. Participants will explore and train such subskills as identifying key ideas, noticing syntactic and lexical markers, understanding logical connections at the sentence and paragraph level, and inference. Finally, we will look at summarizing based on the deep understanding of a text, which is an essential skill for writing a literature review.

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:

• “I liked testing myself with the tasks — they really helped me think more critically about how I read. The interactive parts made it more fun.”
• “Organizing the reading process is something I often struggle with, so it was great to get clear tips and try out helpful exercises.”
• “The workshop felt relaxed but lively. The practical tasks helped me stay focused and made the session really engaging.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

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.

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.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

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.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

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.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

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.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

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”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

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.”

WORKSHOP RECORDING

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."

No one will deny that the English language is widely used in the world. Its importance does not come from its 350 million native speakers. It is the ever expanding community of non-native speakers, who use English as the language of international communication or the lingua franca (ELF), which contributes to its importance. This way English is constantly evolving. By transferring features of their own mother tongue into English, non-native speakers eventually shape new varieties of English and add to its diversity palette. How to deal with those varieties and which variety to choose for communicating in ELF settings? We will answer these questions at the workshop.

The workshop will focus on the key units of the Russian - English pronunciation transfer (consonants and vowels) that may cause intelligibility problems in oral communication and quite often lead to underestimating Russian speakers’ public speaking performance and sociocultural image. The suggested approach may serve as an example for dealing with other transfer diversities which Russians are facing on a larger scale nowadays with the turn to the East.

Speaker: Tatiana Skopintseva, Ph.D. (Candidate of Sciences), Associate Professor, is currently 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. Tatiana is an IREX scholar exchange program alumna, a frequent speaker at international conferences (IATEFL, ASIATEFL, HAAL) and an invited speaker and teacher-trainer for Russian Universities. Her areas of expertise include phonetics and phonology, EAP, ESP, ELF, EMI; English accent and pronunciation, diction, fluency, and public speaking.

Language: English

Participants' Feedback:

• “The workshop was exceptionally informative, well-prepared, and expertly produced. It included a wealth of examples and engaging tasks that enhanced the learning experience.”
• "I particularly appreciated the tips on pronunciation and the emphasis that an accent is not a flaw but rather an identity feature"

Is it enough to put our ideas in English clearly, intelligibly, and even with style when dealing with international partners? Does only speaking “good” English bring about long-lasting relationships? This ability is to a large extent determined by our awareness of the culture we are dealing with. 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 make the next appointment? We are inviting you to discuss these and other questions at the workshop. We will introduce you to key world business cultures, focus on the potential cultural clashes between them, and suggest safe communicative strategies to avoid a communication collapse. Together with you, we will define the critically important stages of a successful networking conversation and train cautious language and attitudes.

Speaker: Tatiana Skopintseva, Ph.D. (Kandidat Nauk), Associate Professor, is currently 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. Tatiana is an IREX scholar exchange program alumna, a frequent speaker at international conferences (IATEFL, ASIATEFL, HAAL) and an invited speaker and teacher-trainer for Russian Universities. Her areas of expertise include phonetics and phonology, EAP, ESP, ELF, EMI; English accent and pronunciation, diction, fluency, and public speaking.

Language: English

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. 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. 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

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