Research Seminar I

In this course, the student develops the following competencies:
• ability to read professional literature and its critical appraisal,
• the ability of presenting research findings,
• the ability to communicate with the scholarly audiences,
• the ability of polemical discussion of the results obtained,
• the ability of active participation in the research community.

To help students develop the knowledge and professional skills required to understand and write English academic texts in the field of humanities, and effectively communicate in academic settings.
Students will be able to understand and summarize, as well as independently write academic texts in the field of humanities. They will be able to participate in debates and discussions and deliver public presentations in English.

Students must be enrolled in the first year of the study program Humanities.

The structure and organization of academic writing:

• organization of thought;
• the developmentof the thesis;
• argumentation in favor of the thesis;
• selection of the appropriate language depending on the purpose and audience;
• narrative and descriptive writing;
• analytical and deductive / inductive modes of writing;
• illustration meanings and arguments with examples;
• comparison;
• selection of titles and keywords;
• summary, introduction and conclusion;
• the structure of paragraphs and their integration;
• sources and quotations;
• plagiarism.

Writing academic texts:

• writing as a process;
• writing strategies;
• relevance and intelligibility / clarity of writing;
• sketching, correcting, updating and editing of texts;
• revision of the texts;
• writing research projects, reports syllabi;
• writing articles and essays;
• writing a doctoral dissertation.

• Study of academic (and semi-academic) genres, typical of academic written communication (academic article, report, essays etc.);
• Reading and an analysis of authentic academic texts in the field of humanities (excerpts from monographs, academic papers, etc.);
• Study of language functions in formal written and oral communication;
• Exercises in the use of functional structures typical of academic discourse;
• Exercises in coherent summarising and paraphrasing of written and oral messages.

Students on the basis of the acquired knowledge present individual research work done in the first year of doctoral studies. It is expected adequate quantity and originality of the obtained results.

Presentation is a preparation for the defense of the doctoral dissertation, it must therefore contain similar elements; presentation of the research a problem and review the achievements in the field, presentation of methods, presentation of the intended results, guidelines for further work.

The presentation of the research work is followed by a discussion with a the seminar teacher and other students.

The student is able to successfully present the results of their research work to other students in the seminar, which includes effective communication and a critical scientific debate.

Students will also be able to:
produce academic texts (academic article, report, essay etc.);
understand and critically evaluate authentic academic texts;
use functional structures typical of academic discourse in the filed of humanities;
use language functions common in formal academic communication - both written and oral;
actively participate in debates and discussions and deliver public presentations in English.

• Relevant literature in the field.
• Writing Academic English, Fourth Edition; The Longman Academic Writing Series, Level 4.Catalogue E-version
• Writing Science: How to Write Papers That Get Cited and Proposals That Get Funded, Joshua Schimel, Oxford University Press, 2012. Catalogue
• Swales, John M. and Christine B. Feak. 2004. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills, 2nd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Catalogue
• Howe, Stephen. Phrasebook for Writing Papers and Research in English. The Whole World Company, Cambridge, 4th edition, 2013. Catalogue
• Turabian, L. Kate, A Manual for Writers of Research papers, Theses and Dissertations. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2018. E-version
• Hewings M., Cambridge Academic English. CUP, Cambridge, 2012.Catalogue
• Glasman-Deal H., Science Research Writing (For Non-Native Speakers of English). Imperial College Press, London, 2010. Catalogue

Oral presentation of research work: • quality of the oral presentation (introduction, methodology, results, future work) • the ability of the relevant scientific discussions, • communication skills.

Prof. dr. Ana Toroš is employed at the Faculty of Humanities and at the Research Center for the Humanities of the University of Nova Gorica (UNG). In addition to pedagogical and research work, she is the director of the study program Humanities III. degree, which operates within the Faculty of Postgraduate Studies of UNG. Her research is focused on the field of regional comparative literature and literary imagology, and she is interested in multilingual literature in the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (Italy) and in the Goriška and Obalno-kraška regions. In this context, she dealt with the literary work of Alojz Gradnik and Trieste poetry of the first half of the 20th century. Recently, she has been conducting a research on authors of the 20th and 21st centuries in the Goriška and Udine regions, writing in Slovene, Friulian, Italian and German. She also researches minority literature in Trieste and Slovenian Istria from a comparative point of view.