Analytic Storytelling - ONLINE (2023-I)

Target audience

This course is appropriate for PhD candidates at any point in their PhD process. It's only necessary that you know your research question.

Course description

How do you engage your audience with your story about your research? How do you make sure they’re able to understand the details of your work? And how do you make your – often abstract – topic palpable for others, so they have a vivid image of the challenges and benefits of your project? Analytic Storytelling offers you techniques to tackle these difficulties. Through examples, theory, and hands-on exercises, you learn to communicate about the complexities of your research in a clear and compelling way that connects your story to your audience.

Typical questions that we help our participants with:

1. I want different audiences to understand my work and relate to it. I work in an interdisciplinary team, or with companies, other stakeholders, or patients. How do I make sure we understand each other?
2. I find it difficult to structure my story. I provide too much detail, I make my story too long, people don´t understand me, or I get lost in my own story and don’t know what to put where.
3. I want to create more engaging stories. I want people to pay attention and get enthusiastic. And I don´t want to tell dry or boring stories!

Learning objectives

 You will learn how to:

• Tailor your stories to your audience’s interests, goals, and knowledge level
• Give your stories a clear goal, which helps you determine what should be included in your story, and what can be left out
• Explain non-familiar concepts in a way that is easy to understand for your audience
• Build a clear structure
• Apply storytelling techniques to bring your topic to life for your audience

Learn more about the Analytic Storytelling method on their website.

Instructional method

The course consists of four meetings of 3 hours each. You will work on the opening of a presentation about your work. Not because this course is necessarily about presenting, but because it’s a form that  allows you to practice every tool we discuss during the course.

During the meetings we mix plenary discussions with break-out rooms in which you apply what you learn to your own storyline. You give and receive feedback to and from your fellow participants. There is always time to discuss your case or questions with the trainer.

Each meeting requires preparation: watching online modules, reading preparatory articles, and applying what you’ve learned to your own storyline about your research. You’ll receive plenty of guiding material for this.

Two weeks before the first meeting you will receive the first, preparatory homework assignment, with a deadline of a week in advance of the 1st course day.

Trainers

Stijn Cornelissen, Priscilla Brandon, Arnaud Bom, Evert-Jan Kamerbeek. All team members of Analytic Storytelling combine sharp analytic skills with storytelling expertise. They bring their own personal background and expertise to the course, from scientific research, creative writing, analytic philosophy, science journalism and theatre.

Group Size

10 to 12 participants

Number of credits

1.0 EC

Course schedule

Study load

In addition to the scheduled sessions, you should take into account an extra study load of approximately 12 hours in total. This study load generally consists of homework assignments in preparation for the next session.

Course certificate

You will receive a certificate of completion if you attend both sessions of the course and complete all the course requirements (i.e. assignments).

Cancellation and No-show policy

This course is free for GSLS PhD candidates. However: free of charge does not mean free of responsibility. Once you have signed up for a course, we expect you to attend. For every late cancellation or no-show we have had to disappoint others who would have liked to attend. This is our policy:

• You may cancel free of charge up to 4 weeks before the start of the course. After this date you can only cancel if you have a GSLS PhD candidate to replace you in the course. Send the name and contact information of your replacement to pcc@uu.nl, at least 2 working days before the start of the course;
• We expect that you actively attend the full course, but at least 80%. It is mandatory to attend the first session. If you are absent the first session you cannot follow the remaining of the course;
• Not meeting the above requirements means you will be charged a no-show fee (€ 200). We will send the invoice after the course has ended. We are unable to make any exceptions, unless you have a valid reason (i.e., illness or death in the family 1^st/2^nd degree or partner). Your supervisor has to send an e-mail to pcc@uu.nl indicating the reason.

Unfortunately we don’t offer this course for participants not part of the GSLS. Our courses tend to be fully booked by GSLS PhD candidates.

Very good training material, and really helpful for future presentations and article writing.

I will definitely use this when writing papers, doing presentations and teaching related activities, because this is just so widespread. It would be harder not to apply it

I will apply these skills in every paper and presentation I will have in the 4 years of my PhD.