The Initiators Programme (TIP) 2021 

Theme: The session will begin with a recap of the previous day’s learning including the take-home exercises. Two central topics will be covered: how to write a research paper and how to present your academic work. This will engage with the steps students can take to prepare a manuscript, with attention to journal rankings, types, scope, and writing style. Information about citation and reference management systems (like Zotero, Mendeley, Citavi) will also be shared. This will be followed by a discussion on how students can present their academic work at varying academic events. Along with introduction to different kinds of academic events, students will explore the variety of methods to present their work as well as common mistakes which are made during presentations and Q-A sessions. 

Takeaways: Students will learn to offer reasonable hypotheses through structured and easy to understand writing, suited for philosophical argumentation and discussions. Information about journals and their quality as well as peer review will be shared. They will also be instructed on the importance of acknowledging contribution of others’ works and feedback for their papers, by using citation and referencing. After learning about preparation of manuscript, students will explore ways in which they can share their academic work in the philosophy community. A range of opportunities are available to students to communicate their research, including reading groups, work-in-progress groups, seminars, stand-alone talks, lectures, conferences, workshops. During the session, students will find ways to discover these opportunities and methods to approach such events. More importantly, styles of presenting research work will be canvassed with focus on common oversights during presentations and Q-A sessions. By the end of the session, students will learn to plan to write a research paper and to present it at varying academic events.