Writing at postgraduate level: The University’s criterion ‘clearly written’ – what this means

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Writing at postgraduate level

In this series of four sessions we’ll be taking an in-depth look at various aspects of writing at postgraduate level. Each session will be 90mins, with 30mins at the end for questions and discussion.

Whilst they have been designed as a set of sessions, with each building on from the previous, the individual sessions have been designed to be standalone – which means that you can attend the whole series or just those that particularly speak to you.

Workshop 2: The University’s criterion ‘clearly written’ – what this means

If you’ve ever had a look at the Cambridge Student webpages as to the requirements of postgraduate writing submitted for assessment, you’ll see that the University has only one criterion – and this is that it is ‘clearly written.’ At first glance, this seems both explicit and unequivocal as clarity in all its forms is surely the bedrock not only of postgraduate study, but of academia itself. Yet on further scrutiny, whilst there may be an instinctive consensus that this is a cardinal criterion for postgraduate writing, when it comes to defining what this actually means and how we are supposed to attain it, the matter is far less perspicuous. And indeed, clearly written is not simply an assessment criterion at Cambridge, as the vast majority of guides to academic writing rhapsodise about clarity as an assumed mutually acknowledged objective. Yet rarely is this criterion unpacked.

And so in this second session, we’ll be looking at doing just that – by considering what academics see as the central tenet of ‘clearly written’, namely, argument, and also in what ways the rhetorical expectations of ‘clearly written’ in English may differ from the expectations in other languages.

The other workshops in the series are:
Workshop 1: Why writing at postgraduate level is hard
Workshop 3: Reader empathy. It’s not just about the writing – it’s writing for your reader
Workshop 4: The true secret to clarity: multi-level editing
Workshop 5: Editing session (practical)

All PhD students and postdocs, all levels, all disciplines.
Further details regarding eligibility criteria are available here.

This course will facilitated via Zoom, please ensure you have access.

Number of sessions: 1

Online participative workshop (Zoom).

One 2 hour session.