Testimonials

Before this course, I had extensive experience with scientific writing (papers, research proposals, applications, etc.) and yet struggled every single time with the whole writing process, from the fear of a clean slate at the beginning to a frustrating feeling that everything should be rewritten right before submission. I wanted to learn ready-to-use recipes on how to write an interesting, easy-to-read text and, simultaneously, to enjoy this process. If you have similar challenges and expectations, then this course is exactly what you are looking for.
During the course, I have found answers to all of my questions about scientific writing and learned many new techniques on how to improve the quality of a text and organize the writing process efficiently. This course is unique in terms of the balance between lectures and tutorials that is indispensable for successfully mastering writing skills.
The biggest achievement for me is that I felt surprisingly fast in love with the writing process and since then it even became an entertaining process, after many years of struggles. In addition to my internal satisfaction, the acquired writing skills have also helped me reach my research goals: within half a year after the course, I published two papers in reputable journals belonging to the top ten in my research field!
I strongly recommend this course for beginning researchers, who can learn how to write appealing scientific texts, and also for experienced researchers, who can solidify their knowledge on writing and, most probably, bring it to the next level of maturity. This course will show you a path to successful writing, and it is up to you how far you can go along this path.

I’m feeling very grateful for your course, it revolutionised my writing method and brought back all the joy about writing that was lost along the way in science education. Now I know how to get to the text quality I want.

Teresa
PhD student in neuroscience

The course was one of the best things that happened to me this year 🙂 I would recommend it to all my colleagues. Right now one of my articles is after a positive revision. I have to make some changes, but actually most of the work is done. In the meanwhile I am starting the next one, so I am really satisfied with the progress I’ve made. Of course it’s not perfect and I’m still learning, but I don’t have this feeling of fear when thinking about it.

Monika
PhD student in geology

The drafting sessions helped to establish a routine. The course materials also give really great points on how to break down writing an introduction into smaller tasks like answering questions. The instructor is also really positive and this energy translates! Thanks for everything!

Catherine
PhD student in mathematics

Thank you one more time for the excellent course on scientific writing you gave at the end of 2020. It was an eye-opening experience for me, and after following your suggestions my writing has improved significantly.

I am very happy to let you know that one of my papers that we analyzed at a peer-review session has recently been accepted by a high-level journal, and every one of the four referees emphasized that the text is very well written and structured (thanks to you!). Fantastic and very important for my career!

If I can name one thing that I took from the scientific writing course, then it is the structure of the paragraph – start with stating the message of the paragraph, then elaborated on it and at the end again, re-state the message. I think that this approach helps me to structure the text more comprehensively. Another important lesson I learned from the course is that effective scientific writing should be fast and preferably after one has the main results and conclusions. Then the article can be designed around the single main message, not wasting time with text-wandering. At another hand the daily writing practices (freewriting) seems to be a good tool to learn fast writing if not anything else. So, overall, the Scientific writing course helped me to master more effective, faster production of scientific texts.

Andis
PostDoc in geology

I learned so many useful things about writing, reading, drafting. I was blown away by the level of expertise and commitment to the course. The video-format and the option to click a „finish“ button after every lesson was very satisfying. The advice on reading by only looking at the figures is super useful.

I am a bit appalled by how much time I have to spend on things that are not drafting or generating results (this is not your fault of course). But I was a little unprepared for the fact that both preparing for the draft and revising the draft took me at least as much if not more time each than writing the draft.

Overall I am certain that my manuscript is much better now than it would have otherwise turned out. So thank you very much for this great course 🙂

You did a very impressive job with the course, I really like it!

These last two weeks have been very productive, and I want to thank you for providing the structure and positive environment to get my first draft done. Still can’t quite believe it, my last two scientific texts dragged out forever.

For me it has been especially helpfull that the drafting was blocked in the two weeks and followed the same pattern every day. I benefitted from the intention-setting and then coming back to the intention at the end of the day. Starting with the freewriting already put me in the mindset of being able to write, which was a relief.

The yoga was surprisingly refreshing, I shall remember that for my breaks the upcoming weeks.

I am trying to think of anything that would have improved my personal experience and I am having trouble coming up with something 🙂 I briefly considered more accountability, but actually the positive, no-pressure environment of the calls made it easier to overcome my blocks than having stricter accountability.

Teresa
PhD student in neuroscience

I always have time to write – I just have to commit. The group writing sessions helped me to keep my commitment.

Khushbu
PhD student in engineering

Drafting in group gives you the impression of being in a classroom and this motivates you to write and to respect the timing. It forces you to respect the appointment and to give more importance to the task of writing (that very often comes after the other things to do).

Free writing really helped me to set up my mind for writing. Also, through writing I have discovered some ideas or some objectives. Working in group helped me to focus only on my writing.

The drafting session I attended was encouraging and motivating. I coould concentrate well, being together was bringing a bit of joy 😉

It worked well; the fact of doing it continuously every morning for two weeks allowed me to better enter in a sort of routine.

I also really enjoyed your Yoga sessions! They are short and effective to keep me energized while writing, and I feel a big difference at the end of the day without the usual backpain from long sitting in front of the computer 🙂

The atmosphere was perfect for focused writing. The motivation from the teacher, the peer pressure, and the regular breaks helped me focus on just writing. I could get so much more done than I usually would! The teacher also provided very useful tips about how to get into that flow state for writing, which really helped me to get into it motivated from the first moment. I am very happy to have attended this course!

Thank you so, so much for this week. I have been incredibly impressed by the progress, and though it was slow and my brain is absolute mush by now, I have a solid thesis structure and 7000 words where before there was nothing except a few „Post-Its“ flying around my desk and lab book. The peer-feedback session with Sofia was also super helpful to guide me (and my thesis) to an even better, smoother train of thought that I can hang on to when writing gets hard again. Thank you Martina, for guiding us so skillfully and always joyfully this week. :)”

Great balanced program of writing, short lectures and breaks. Individual coaching session was super helpful as well.

Nice atmosphere, very focused environment. Great balance between information and practical application.

I really liked your way of teaching. You are very kind, understanding, approachable and enthusiastic about writing. It was very helpful that you wrote tasks and breaks in the chat, so I could get back to them if wondering what to do/until when to do sth. The course material is very valuable to me and I will go through it again. Thank you for your time and effort and for trying to help PhDs, like me, to get into a writing habit! =)

Thank you for that course. I liked it so much and it was a lot of fun. Before I started the course, I didn’t like to write and also thought I am not talented for it. Now I think, that I can create a way to like writing and that I am able to be good at it. The course taught me that writing is so much more than just struggling to get words on paper. And as a person who haven’t liked writing since I was a child this is amazing. Thanks.

I have never attended a course that used the online format so well. Normally, I hate courses via Zoom, but this was just so well structured. Also I liked that you should watch the videos before and then just discuss in the meetings.

I would like to thank you very much for this course. It was by far the best writing course I have taken and probably one of the very few occasions where I could see so clearly the beneficial effects of what I learned during the course on my own routine and work.

It hasn’t been long since I took a course with you at the University of Göttingen. After submitting two papers following that course, I have seen significant improvement in my writing, confirmed by my professor and the acceptance of the papers.

The detailed insights I gained in the course helped me greatly with my writing, allowing me to enjoy it more. Two key things contributed to this improvement:

1. I have gained enough confidence to allow myself the luxury of separating preparation from writing. This approach has enabled me to develop a strong narrative of what I want to convey before I begin the final drafting process.
2. Separating writing from drafting has relieved a burden from my shoulders, making the entire writing journey feel much smoother and giving me a sense of autonomy.

The „Scientific Writing and Publishing“ workshop with Martina Michalikova was one of the most useful courses I attended during my PhD. I highly recommend it to others: its contents are most helpful for students at any stage of higher education. Martina did a really great job in distributing high-quality learning material, and in organizing the course in a way that would allow all participants to immediately put into practice what she teaches during the course. I especially appreciated her suggestions on how to deal with writer’s block, which are carefully tailored to the participant’s stile of writing; in my case they were definitely effective.

I love this workshop. It is so knowledgeable and full of case studies, which is very helpful for understanding the topic.

The scientific writing and publishing workshop was very helpful and fundamentally improved my approach to writing. I thoroughly recommend it to all PhD students.

The workshop on scientific writing outperformed my expectations. The teacher is great and really engaging, the online sessions are never boring but quite interactive. The material really helped to improve my writing by increasing my writing productivity through habits and understanding the theory behind a „good sentence“, a „good paragraph“ and text flow in general.

Great and passionate teacher who inspires and imparts a lot on the topic of scientific writing. Highly recommended workshop!!

I think the resources, links and videos offered by the course is the result of extensive study and curation. I will definitely be able to make use of what I have learnt and the material in my future scientific writing.

Very useful for 3rd year / final year PhDs that have to write a manuscript or thesis!

This workshop helped me a lot with organizing my ideas in general. The tools showed will be so helpful during my PhD!

It really helps to structure the day and the writing process.

I really like that the course is not based on only theory and slides but actually we did something hands-on which helped me a lot to start my first draft. I also like the atmosphere of the course in which everyone can share their own experiences freely. The instructor is really open-minded, kind and helpful.

I was expecting the content of the course to be important but not necessarily interesting/engaging. But Martina did a great job and had a lot of energy from the first lesson on, which made the workshop a lot better than I had anticipated! I did not expect the part on productivity, and I must say it came at the time where I needed it the most. Other than that, the resources of the course are clear and well organized. I’m very happy with the workshop overall!

Thanks a lot for the well-structured and insightful workshop I will directly use the techniques learned to push forward the paper I am currently working on!

This workshop in practice helped me improve my writing.

The workshop allowed me to realize that I’m not the only one struggling with writing problems. Martina is a great teacher and she has given me tools that are already very useful.

A fantastic course that will undoubtedly help me with thesis writing and paper publishing. Thanks!

I want to say that the workshop was much better than I expected and very useful! Was in the perfect time to apply everything in the paper I’m writing! Thanks!

This workshop is very useful to learn how to write papers in a good style so that it is easy to understand for the reader. It introduces some concepts I personally did not know before but which are very helpful to structure your texts. I can definitely recommend this workshop.

This course really helps to improve the scientific writing skills. It also change the way to read a publication and give good advices at topics like writing habits.

I fully enjoyed the course and was surprised that you got me motivated about writing. Thank you for this!

Martina, thank you for this great workshop! 🙂 You helped me a lot to overcome some of the obstacles I was struggling with. This workshop helped me to make the writing process more understandable and most importantly more enjoyable! 🙂

Thanks a lot for the course. It was very very useful and I really changed my mind for writing and I’m really building a writing habit thanks to your advice.

I actually didn’t expect too much because I considered myself a hopeless case, but the presented techniqes changed my approach to writing!

The atmosphere was constructive but relaxed and the undertone of positive jump-into-the-deep-end-and-you-will-float made it accessible to everyone. Really, a wonderful workshop. Martina’s approach to teaching by having writers realize issues, strengths, habits of writing at their own, allows for continued work and growth after the workshop.

Martina’s writing workshop was inspirational, mind-opening, and personal! It was nothing like a dry and conventional writing workshop, it was about productivity and creativity. In a way, it managed to induce some really high-level changes on the first day right away. Another helpful aspect was the active exchange between peers. I would definitely continue improving my writing skills with an accountability partner.

I liked that the course was very well structured and covered very different aspects of the writing process. I also liked that the course was practice-oriented and based on material that was relevant for my current work.

Martina is so passionate about writing and about how to improve writing skills!!!

Best workshop for PhD students – now I feel prepared to write my first manuscript.

The content was highly relevant, well explained and easy to follow. Thanks!

It is good to know that having problems in understanding a paper is not always my fault. It can be that the paper is just written in a complicated and badly structured way. And it is really worth improving writing so that my papers are not so hard to read!

I liked the interactive nature of the seminar, the exercises and discussions within a group.

This workshop wasn’t about writing advice that you can read up on the internet, but it was actively improving our productivity and providing ideas for our personal issues.

Great structure! Dedicated opportunities to address every participants individual questions.

You really did a great job in convincing me that writing is super important and that I should practice daily.

I liked the refreshing style of the workshop and that it was based on material relevant for my current work.

There was enough time to think about own strategies and what could be useful specifically *for me*.

This workshop wasn’t about writing advice that you can read up on the internet, but it was actively improving our productivity and providing ideas for our personal issues.

Dear Martina, thank you for this! I achieved more in this couple hours than I normally would the whole day 😅! I must say goodbye now, hope you guys keep enjoying the shared space!! Keep up the great work!!

I enjoyed this co-writing session a lot. I am typically bad at taking breaks so it was really helpful to have „an alarm“ reminding you of a break. Also, having other people around even though only virtually really helped me to concentrate and I managed to write 1.5 pages during the session. Q&A session was also very good. We shared our progress and experience. I will definitely try to make time to join next sessions.

Despite being a researcher and writer for twenty years, this was a groundbreaking session for me! I tried various methods to persuade myself to start to work on revisions of my book, and this session was the first time I stopped planning for it and actually did it! I wrote almost three pages. Yes, they will need more attention later, but hey, it was from zero to three pages in half a day, and that really feels like a miracle. Thank you!

Sharing a writing session, I feel like there is someone around with me while I’m studying. It is good for encouragement. I used to study, write, and read in my lab. So I find the co-writing very helpful.

Thank you all very much for the motivation to write 🙂 I finished the part i intended to 🙂

Thank you so much again, Martina, for giving us the time and space to work on our projects. Always helping me a lot to stay focused!

This is such a helpful, succinct course. Thank you so much. I also love your blog and I recommend it to many people.

Thank you so much for this talk, it was really helpful for me on how exactly to break down the process and actually motivating and encouraging. There were a lot of excellent tips and I have learned a lot. I wish academia talked more about how to write instead of the regular just-sit-and-write attitude.

Hey Martina,
I´m in the social sciences field (education research). I took your masterclass a couple of years ago and wrote a paper in 1 week, using your framework. Of course, I had results, and it was in fact the third paper in my doctoral thesis, so I had previous experience in writing a scientific paper.

But indeed, I wrote it up in 1 week and published in a Q1 journal.

It was accepted after a minor revision, and can be found here.

Really nice webinar! It was useful also for me with 15 years of experience in writing papers.

Your webinars, your slides and your blog helped me more than my supervisor!

It’s not the first time I join, and every time I feel that I get new insights in your ideas 🙂

Great masterclass, I am so happy that I decided to participate 🙂

This was so motivating, thanks!

Thank you very much for this webinar. It helped me a lot to get motivated to start writing my first paper.

A fabulous presentation. Very informative. Thanks for sharing lots of knowledge.

Thank you for your webinar! I have started to apply your tips and already see an increase in my scientific writing capacity.