NIGB13015U English for BSc Natural Science Students (EngBSc)

Volume 2013/2014
Content

The aim of the course is to give students an all-round training in spoken and written English suitable for natural science B.Sc. students and in preparation for writing their bachelor projects and potentially future M.Sc. projects.

The course involves discussion of basic grammar and sentence structure in scientific English, in particular its differences from standard spoken and written English, with a focus on the common mistakes of Danish students. Language and communication skills used for scientific talks, both formal and popular, will be discussed. The standard structure for organizing a B.Sc. or M.Sc. project or scientific paper will be presented, and the purpose of each component will be discussed.

Learning Outcome

Knowledge:

  • Scientific English style and rules
  • Writing of Bachelor project
  • Writing of Scientific reports
  • Writing of Literature reviews
  • The IMRaD structure of reports
  • Reference lists and plagiarism
  • Abstracts
  • Grammar
  • Oral presentations
  • PowerPoint

Skills:

At the end of the course students should be able to:

  • prepare a well-structured oral presentation aimed at the correct audience,
  • be able to provide correct source acknowledgements for information and images,
  • understand the unique features of scientific English
  • correctly use scientific numbers and symbols
  • use active and passive verbs
  • use non-personal language
  • avoid everyday language and personified verbs, rhetoric, clichés, idioms and superfluous or imprecise phrases
  • understand and apply the general structure of a Bachelor project in comparison to other scientific reports and publications, and the differences in style between an experimentally-based project and a literature-based study

Competences:

At the end of the course students should be able to:

  • prepare and construct an abstract
  • compare and construct a reference list
  • avoid plagiarism and reformulate other workers text into their own words
  • recognize the important distinctions between English and Danish, word order, use of third person singular, punctuation, and words only slightly different from Danish
  • create scientific texts aimed at a certain type of reader, so that he/she can understand a text quickly and easily
  • write using clear, unambiguous scientific style
  • improve sentences and paragraphs, and correct and rewrite a draft text
Lectures, oral presentations and writing of reports by participants
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Lectures
  • 21
  • Preparation
  • 101
  • Theory exercises
  • 84
  • Total
  • 206
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Continuous assessment
Oral examination, 20 min
The evaluation is based on two compulsory parts: '
(1) 50% on at least 6 out of 8 written scientific reports given as homework exercises during the course;
(2) 50% on a final presentation consisting of a short (2-3 pages text plus figures) written text in English (on a subject given 1 week in advance by lottery within the student’s chosen field) together with an oral presentation of the text and subsequent discussion.

If only one of the two compulsory parts is handed in for evaluation, the grade -3 is given for the whole course.
Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
Re-exam
Re-examination renewed hand in of reports and an oral exam as described for the ordinary exam.
Criteria for exam assesment
An oral presentations of the reports are a pre-requisite for evaluation.