BIOMG 7941

Preparing for the A-exam: Skills Development for Scientific Proposal Writing

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

This seven-week course will provide graduate students in the life sciences with training in advanced science writing skills, preparing written scientific arguments, and providing constructive review of written material. At course completion, students will have completed a draft of the written portion of the A exam and will have received feedback on this draft from their classmates, senior graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers in related fields. Enrolled students are expected to be in their second year of the Ph.D. program or higher and in the process of preparing for their A-exams. We highly encourage students to have performed a thorough literature review of their research topic prior to the course beginning. This course will be focused on the writing of an A-exam proposal, so prior completion of a literature review will give students the best chance of success at completing a full proposal draft by the end of the course.

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025SP, 2024SP, 2023SP, 2022SP

Learning Outcomes

• Describe the role of each component of an A exam proposal.
• Choose appropriate tools including figures and tables to communicate scientific ideas.
• Assemble and structure background information necessary to support a scientific argument.
• Constructively evaluate peer writing samples.
• Apply science writing skills to assemble a complete draft A exam proposal in their own words.

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