BIO9600 – Science Writing

Writing is an essential part of scientific work. Scientists are required to write dissertations, reports, essays, articles and grant applications. In addition, the communication of scientific ideas to a non-scientific audience is an important skill often neglected by scientists. Much scientific writing is verbose and incorrect, and we, as scientists, often take it for granted that difficult ideas must be expressed in obscure and complicated language. However, the best scientists are able to express complicated ideas in crystal-clear language. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the principles of good writing in general, with a focus on science writing. While the course will be taught in English, and the texts and exercises will be in English, the emphasis will be on good writing habits, which apply to any language. The course is not a course on technical writing, but rather will aim to develop good writing, editing, and journalistic skills. The course will be in the form of workshops. The following topics will be covered: Drafts, revisions, the structure of specific types of writing (scientific articles, essays, summaries) and writing for non-scientist readers. The course will discuss general points of style, sentence construction, voice and tense.

• You will practice different types of science writing 
• You will learn to edit and shorten long texts without losing content
• You will learn to write a brief article on any given scientific topic
• You will learn to write scientific pieces for a non-scientific readership, and to express scientific ideas clearly and concisely.

PhD candidates from the University of Oslo should apply for classes and register for examinations through Studentweb.

If a course has limited intake capacity, priority will be given to PhD candidates who follow an individual education plan where this particular course is included. Some national researchers’ schools may have specific rules for ranking applicants for courses with limited intake capacity.

PhD candidates who have been admitted to another higher education institution must apply for a position as a visiting student within a given deadline.

The courses BIO4600 and BIO9600 have joint admission. There is 12 seats at this subject. Applicants are ranked by the following criteria:

1. PhD students and master students at the MN faculty who have the course as part of the approved curriculum.

2. Other PhD students and visiting PhD students.

3. Students with admission to single courses on master’s level and exchange students

4. Applicants are ranked by credits in each group; all applicants within 1st rank before applicants in 2nd etc. If admission is limited to a fixed number of participants, admission will be decided by drawing lots for students who are ranked equally

• The course will be taught in the form of workshops.
• The students will mark and discuss the work of two or three other students, so at the end of the course each student will have substantial feedback from their peers for his/her work.
• Three short written exercises (500 words each)
• and two final assignments. One 1500 word article, and one 750 word "kronikk"-style article.

All course activities are mandatory. If you can not attend the first lecture, please send a note to studieinfo@ibv.uio.no, before the first lecture.

The assessment will be based on the completion of 3 short pieces (500 words) during the course, and two longer, final, assignments. One article(1500 words) and one "Kronikk"-style article (750 words). Students will be expected to complete all writing assignments on time, and attendance every day will be required.

Examination attempts 

It will also be counted as one of the three attempts to sit the exam for this course, if you sit the exam for one of the following courses: BIO4600 – Science Writing (continued), BIOS9500 – Scientific Writing and BIOS5500 – Science Writing (discontinued).

All examination support material is allowed.

The examination text is given in English, and you submit your response in English.

Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about the grading system.

This course offers both postponed and resit of examination. Read more:

• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Withdrawal during an examination / Resitting an examination