The course Academic Paper-Writing Workshop for Cultural and Social Psychological Journals 2019 was held as one course for Hokkaido Summer Institute (HSI) 2019 for 3 days from July 8th to July 10th.
The course lecturers were Professor Takahiko Masuda of the University of Alberta (Canada), Dr. Sawa Senzaki of the University of Wisconsin, Green-bay (United States), and Professor Masaki Yuki (Hokkaido University Faculty of Humanities and Human Sciences, Behavioral Studies Department). Furthermore, 2 teaching assistants working under Professor Masuda at the University of Alberta also participated.
In class, Professor Masuda, Dr. Senzaki, and the students from the University of Alberta corrected and commented on cultural psychology papers from doctoral students participating in the class. Using these corrections as examples, lecturers were able to gain material to use to discuss mistakes that Japanese authors often make when writing in class and how one could write their papers with a logically sound structure that could easily be understood by North American readers.
As this course progressed, students learned more than just skills for writing in English or new expressions to use in their papers. There was also plenty of discussion concerning research goals, research plans, the interpretation of results, and other aspects of the research content presented in these papers. These discussions thus helped students learn the importance of planning when trying to write an academic paper.
Participants stated that: “I was very satisfied with the lecture on how to give presentations,” “I was grateful for the clear comments on my paper,” “The comments I received on not only my paper, but also my research itself, were very helpful,” “I was able to experience a Canadian-American style seminar. Now I would like to keep improving my discussion skills in the future,” “I’ve become more motivated to continue my research.”
