What we offer doctoral candidates
The Writing Center offers individual consultations for graduate students who are working on their dissertations as well as a variety of workshops aimed at this target group.
Please contact Dr Nora Hoffmann (n.hoffmann[at]em.uni-frankfurt.de) for individual writing consultations if you are interested in advice on efficient reading techniques and excerpts, conclusive reasoning, and more.
Furthermore, the program “Goethe Graduate Center (GRADE)” provides doctoral candidates especially in the humanities and social sciences with specific courses.
Graduate students in the humanities may also register for our workshops and courses about final theses or for any other course, for example about journalistic and creative writing. Please be aware that these are conducted in German. The same applies to our cooperation with the Center for Humanities: If you are fluent in German, you may consider the program “Starker Start in Forschung und Lehre” for junior staff members.
Writing Consultations
If you are looking for advice on efficient reading techniques, conclusive reasoning, time management, the writing process or motivation strategies while working on your dissertation, please send an e-mail to our directors:
Dr. Stephanie Dreyfürst | dreyfuerst[at]lingua.uni-frankfurt.de
Dr. Nadja Sennewald | sennewald[at]em.uni-frankfurt.de
Dr. Daniel Spielmann | Spielmann[at]em.uni-frankfurt.de
Dr. Florian Durst (Life Sciences) | durst[at]em.uni-frankfurt.de
It is very helpful to us if you state your concerns about your writing project in your e-mail. You may also attach passages of your text that you want to focus on, but please send texts no later than two days before the session. Our consultations are free of charge.
We cannot and are not allowed to give you feedback on discipline-specific content. Rather, we focus on your writing process, your arguments, and the structure of your text. If you have concerns about the content of your writing project, please talk to your doctoral advisors.
We approach your text as careful and experienced readers. For instance, we consider:
- Is there a thesis or a research question?
- How do you organize your arguments and present evidence for them?
- Can the reader trace the logic of your text?
- Do you express your thoughts concisely and suitably for those you address?
We will not proofread or edit your work, but we can point out if you repeatedly make the same mistake. Ultimately, you are responsible for your spelling and punctuation.
Dialogue is at the heart of Writing Center pedagogy and work. Accordingly, we do not give feedback via e-mail or by written annotations in the text.
