CAPS Skill Development Session: Importance of Academic Writing for Students?

The Department of International Studies, Political Science and History organized a skill development session on "Academic Writing" for the students of 3MAIS on 31st July 2021. The session conducted by the speaker Samiksha Bajpai, Senior Mentor, CAPS, aimed towards emphasizing the importance of Academic writing was indeed fruitful, especially for the students of International Studies, who at one or the other point of time in their studies and career will need to undertake Academic writing as an inherent part of their academia. The session began with a welcome address by the class representative, Jeshil Samuel. The speaker began with highlighting the learning objectives of the session, which chiefly entailed the do's and don'ts of journal writing, techniques of journal writing, and ethics of writing an article. The session started with context setting as the speaker talked about the need for planning before writing, she underlined the importance of determining the scope of journal and connecting it with our area of research; she encouraged students to decide early on the target journal as it will aid them in furthering their work with more clarity. The session provided insights on various types of journal articles, distinguishing original/full articles from short/rapid communications and review papers/perspectives from follow up research papers. While explaining various useful techniques for a journal writer at length, the speaker addressed the importance of knowing one’s audience, retaining our flow and tone, answering the 5Ws and 1H and above all, having an clear understanding of our purpose. Shifting the focus towards the 'style of writing', she hinted to the students that good academic writing is not an innate ability; although some individuals are admittedly better than other at it, it's a skill that one builds over time as they learn to be expressive yet concise. It is through constant analysis of style, diction and rhetoric associated with various writers — a student learns to grasp the art of academic writing. In the second half of the session, she came up with various explanations regarding the editing of the journal article and formulating an abstract before settling on what’s ideal and acceptable in terms of a good manuscript. Based on the complexity and objectivity of the subject, she said that evaluation of some work might also require high order thinking skills which a student develops over the time. Speaking on the revision of the work, she laid emphasis on understanding the work of a well-read individual which demands of students' a systematic analysis based in sound reasoning. She suggested that in order to maintain the consistency of content along with statistical and theoretical compliance, students must come to terms with a rigorous thinking process. Her reflections on the components of a paper were particularly salient as she concluded while touching upon the importance of accuracy, hedging, precision, co-authoring and punctuations. The new academic year has proven to be a remarkable start for the Christities who are making sure that 2021 is no longer memorable for all the wrong reasons. Contrary to how it might seem, we are delighted with it all as we mark the inclusion of timely scheduled skill development sessions, which remain essential — perhaps now more than ever. These skill development sessions, find us all in a weird place — maybe not in the mood for a face-to-face encounter but as in need of education and their reorienting power as we all have ever been. At the end of the session, it was a delight that when the speaker looked into the sea of young, impressionable faces, filled with immeasurable vigor for learning during her Q&A session, she was well received with an active participation. The session was cordially concluded with a vote of thanks by the Skill development committee.