Institut Polytechnique de Paris

You most likely consider yourself a good writer. Maybe you got good grades in high-schoop literature classes, or during your undergraduate degree? Or maybe you write SciFi fan-fiction? And you're likely right - you probably are a good writer.

However scientific writing is a litterary discipline of its own - and one with which you, most likely, are not yet initmately familiar. And yet, during your studies you'll be asked to write numerous scientific texts - the most obvious of which is the internship reports, which will be both evaluated as and graded on their quality of "scientific writing".

This course introduces you to the art of scientific writing. This includes to:

• Illustrate the difference between scientific writing and other forms of litterature
• Describe and practice how to properly construct valid scientific arguments
• Master the usage of "related work" - not just as "filler" in a documnt, but to strengthen your arguments and amplify the novelty of your work.
  
  

This course also covers:

• The pitfalls of (intentional or accdential) academic misconduct so that you will be able to identify, and avoid them, in your work.
• How to present your work, orally - both when the audience has already read your accompanying paper/report, or when you're trying to present so as to make them want to do so.
  
  

This course will consist of a set activities, organised through "learning flows". These activities fall within two categories:

• Ungraded Activities:
  • Video Capsules, which introduce key technological concepts for conceiving network systems.
  • Discussion Seminars, where the professor will be challenging you on various topics - and where you'll be challenging each other.
• Graded activities:
  • Writing assignments, where you will be asked to write an essay on some topic while applying a specific "scientific writing concept".
  • Reviewing assignments, where you will be given a text and asked to evaluate it - according to some scientific writing criteria
  • Peer-Reviewing, of your classmates work, where you will be required to think about what advice - given your background and what has been studied throughout the course - you will give them to improve. 
  • Oral Presentations, where you will practice how to present a topic in a "convincing way" to a scientifically critical audience.
  • Case-studies, where you will be presented with a situation and asked to provide a scientifically critical evaluation of it.

Thus part of your grade will be the evaluation that your classmates give of your (written, oral) work - and you will also be graded on the quality and constructiveness of the reviews that you give your classmates. 

Course Grading:

• The different activities allows earning a max of 200 pt
• > 100 pt required for getting a C (validation)
• ≤ 100 pt will result in an F
  
  

Language:

• All course materials are in English
• All instructors speak English and French (and often also Danish and Spanish)

Prerequisites:

• A STEM Undergraduate degree
• Being a registered student in the MScT-IoT programme at Ecole Polytechnique
• Otherwise having received explicit autorisation to participate by the professor.