Resources
Useful resources for you to develop your skills for communicating your research effectively.
Useful resources for you to develop your skills for communicating your research effectively.
Two excellent comprehensive guides on writing research papers for Engineering students
Excellent book on writing research papers
Helpful advice for replying to journal reviewers’ comments
Helpful advice for all students
The first step in writing a good review paper is to read some advice from the experts about how to write such a paper. The next step is to analyse a good sample review paper and to examine in detail (1) the structure of the paper; and (2) the writing particularly in the Abstract, in the Introduction, in the beginning and end of sections, and in the Conclusions. Here are two writing guides and two well-written clear review papers for you to use.
Two excellent guides for writing a review are:
Two excellent sample review papers are:
Other useful tips on writing a literature review:
Go to: Quick tips for PhD students on James Heyton’s PhD Advice Website and search under ‘literature’. You will find helpful tips on many aspects of writing a review including: How to start your reading, How to read a journal article, How to write a PhD literature review, How to write a compelling review, How much literature is enough?, and An easy way to update your literature review quickly.
Evans, D and Gruba, P (2014). How to write a Better Thesis, Melbourne University Press, 3rd edition. (Monash University Library ebook)
Pronunciation: Excellent materials produced by the University of Technology Sydney for improving your fluency and pronunciation in Australian English, particularly for academic presentations. There is also a list of excellent books, audio and internet resources for you to use to improve your pronunciation.
Producing the sounds of English: BBC Learning English: Pronunciation tips.
Tim's Pronunciation Workshop: BBC English Pronunciation programs for tips on how to improve your pronunciation.
Talk about English: Better speaking: BBC Learning English shows you how to become a fluent, confident speaker of English.
Pronouncing dictionary: Look up words in the Cambridge Dictionary to check the stress pattern and sounds.
Another talking dictionary of English Pronunciation http://www.howjsay.com/index.php
ABC Radio National programs with interviews of researchers and scientists speaking about the latest scientific research (The Science Show) and medical research (The Health Report). There are recordings and transcripts from interviews on many interesting topics. The online interactive transcripts give you the opportunity to 'read along' with the speaker and imitate their sounds, pausing, stress and intonation. The audio can be stopped and repeated giving you an excellent opportunity to practise the pronunciation and speech techniques used by each speaker.
TED videos: The TED video site has a wide range of excellent presentations. It is particularly useful for non-native speakers of English as interactive transcripts are provided. The presentations are drawn from the fields of Technology, Entertainment and Design, Business, Science and Global Issues. Again, the online interactive transcripts give you the opportunity to 'read along' with the speaker and imitate their sounds, pausing, stress and intonation.
There are many excellent Engineering TED talks available for you to watch. Here’s one good example:
Self-healing concrete and asphalt, Erik Schlangen, Professor of Experimental Micromechanics and Director of the Microlab at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences
There are many good resources to help you devise successful posters that communicate your research effectively.
This seminar presentation gives lots of helpful advice about the content, format and design of good posters: Devising a winning poster (PDF, 2.76 MB), a seminar presentation by Jane Moodie, Graduate Research Academic Support, Engineering Faculty, Monash University.
This book gives an excellent concise overview of designing eye-catching effective posters: Lindsay, D 2020 Scientific Writing = Thinking in Words, 2nd edition, Chapter 14 Posters pp 119-125, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, ebook available Monash University Library
In 2020 Erin Brody from Materials Engineering won both the Engineering Faculty competition and then the Monash University 3MT competition. To help you devise your own 3MT presentation, you can learn about what is expected in an excellent 3MT presentation from Erin.
Here are 1. the recording of her presentation; 2. an interview with Erin where she talks to Jane Moodie from GRAS about how Erin devised and gave her presentation; and 3. Some key tips for your own presentation.
Here are three seminar presentations to help you devise your own 3MT presentation. Two are by Inger Mewburn, Professor and Director of Research Training at the Australian National University, Canberra, and the third is by Sean McGraw, a PhD student in Astrophysics at Ohio University.