How to read and write a scientific paper is a soft skill course at the University of Bologna guiding students to their first approaches to the scientific literature. Scientific papers are the means to discovery and advance of human knowledge, but for many students and early-career researchers, they can look intimidating, opaque, or even incomprehensible.
This course is designed to make a step change that. "How to Read and Write a Scientific Paper" is an exciting and illuminating journey into the heart of scientific communication, empowering students to move confidently from readership to authorship.
Learning objectives are:
- Gain the capability of identifying the value of a scientific paper, its take home message and its innovative implications.
- Improve one’s ability to recognise scientific innovation, breadth of the findings and what contributes to advance of human knowledge.
- Improve one’s skills to explore the scientific literature through modern technologies and tools.
- Setting the basis for gaining the capability to conceive innovation scientific ideas and present them in a scientific paper.
The course is given online and is articulated in 6 hours of synchronous lectures and 3 hours of asynchronous teaching through videos. Video recordings of the asynchronous and synchronous lectures will be made available on YouTube and Virtuale soon after their delivery.
Calendar of the lectures
The synchronous lectures will be given on:
- April 13, 17-19
(After the first lecture above students are kindly suggested to watch the video of the first asynchronous lecture, available at the link below); - April 27, 17-19
(After the second lecture above students are kindly suggested to watch the video of the second asynchronous lecture, which will be made available later on); - May 11, 14-16.
The virtual classroom is accessible by clicking here.
The course is multidisciplinary and directed to a wide audience with the aim to expand beyond engineering with an innovative vision. The approach is both narrative and quantitative, with some reference to mathematical modelling.
Let's start this exciting journey through the communication of science!
Tutorial documents
The tutorials for the course will be delivered in the form of open web pages, open media and freely accessible videos of all the lectures, for the sake of developing academic education through fully open information. Tutorial web pages for the lectures (please note: links highlighted in red were not presented in lectures and therefore will not be tested at the exam):
- Introduction: scientific papers and their structure (slides);
- Opening questions (questionnaire accessible to students only);
- Motivation to read and trust in scientific papers (questionnaire accessible to students only);
- Asynchronous lecture: Reading a scientific paper - Example 1 (YouTube Video);
- How to read a scientific paper (slides);
- How to write a scientific paper (to be made available).
The above lectures will be linked in the web page of the course in Virtuale, that is accessible with student's credentials. Please contact the teacher if you do not have access to this page.
Final verification
Learning outcome will be assessed through a online quiz that will be made available to students from June 12 to July 24, 2026. The quiz will count 15 questions with close answer. The quiz may be repeated several times. There is no penalty for wrong answers and the quiz will have a duration of 30 minutes.
Questions in the quiz are related to the topics that are taught during the lectures and are explained in the supporting documents.
Contact details of the teacher and individual clarifications
Teacher can be contacted by email to fix appointments.
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