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Core: Academic Skills for Linguists

Vak
2025-2026

Admission requirements

Research Master students in Linguistics who are taking their pre-final or final semester. First-year ResMA students who want to take the course may only be admitted after permission by the study advisor.

Description

This course provides a training in three skills that every researcher needs:

  • Writing a successful conference abstract;

  • Preparing and performing an excellent presentation, both oral and poster;

  • Constructing a research proposal (e.g. to apply for a PhD position).
    During the course, we analyze various types of abstracts, research proposals and presentations — both good and bad — and apply the insights thus gained to practical assignments and peer-reviews of each other’s work. Part of the credits are earned by attending and assessing actual lectures from lecture series at LUCL. The course will be taught by experienced, senior staff members. You will be asked to bring your own research topic to work on; for example, the topic of your thesis. There is an option for doing joint presentations and hence, those interested in this option should come prepared with a topic they can present jointly with someone else.

Course objectives

In this course, students learn to

  • Critically evaluate each other’s work as peer-reviewers

  • Write a coherent and convincing conference abstract and research proposal

  • Prepare and present a clear and attractive oral presentation about their research

  • Prepare and present a clear and attractive poster presentation about their research

  • Take into account the philosophy and ethics of linguistic research

  • Relate the results of their research to the existing literature

  • Formulate clear research questions, hypotheses and proposed analyses in correct academic English

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

  • Seminar

  • Research

Assessment method

  • Active Participation/coöperation in class/group

  • Essay, paper

  • Abstract, oral presentation.

Assessment

During the course, there are 5 assignments:
1. An Abstract & Peer reviews of abstracts
2. An Oral Presentation & Peer reviews of presentations
3. A Poster presentation & Peer reviews of presentations
4. A Research Proposal & Peer reviews of proposals
5. Presence at and assessment of 3 lectures from lecture series at LUCL

Weighing

The final grade of the course is established by determining the weighted average of 3 grades: Abstract (30%), Oral/poster presentation (35%), Research Proposal (35%), and a pass/fail for the lecture attendance and assessments.

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.

Resit

Only insufficient assignments can be sat again; maximally one of the assignments may be sat again (Dutch ‘herkanst’)

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

The following websites can be consulted before and during the course:

Ethics:
https://www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/ling/63/2/html

Abstracts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6k9sqEHxp8
https://conferences.ncl.ac.uk/media/sites/conferencewebsites/isoctal2015/abstractadvice.pdf

Presentations:
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/goldenrules.html
http://matt.might.net/articles/academic-presentation-tips/

Posters:
https://www.lsadc.org/content.asp?contentid=354
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMSaFUrk-FA

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office Reuvensplaats

Remarks

None.