The Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft Winter School

Photo: Christine Hudetz

The LBG Winter School is a world-class program for training PhD students and postdocs in how to present their research, write more-effective peer-reviewed journal articles and funding proposals, and balance their work and personal lives. A week-long retreat in the hills just outside Vienna, the annual Winter School is one of the many programs that the LBG Career Center provides for early-career researchers, and it's one that I have gladly been a part of from its inception.

My Winter School program

Fireside Chat

During the 2024 Winter School Fireside Chat, I discussed with trainer Katie Caves and participants why I think writers should start by writing the Discussion section.

Katie Caves, me, and the Winter School 2024 participants (Photo: Christine Hudetz)

Realistic planning & goal-setting (Photo: Joanna Pianka)

Realistic planning & goal-setting

In this session, I show participants how to align their goals with concrete approaches, such as using templates, analyzing article structures, and identifying their article "genre type."

On the same page: Giving & receiving feedback effectively

Good peer reviewers become better writers, because they start to recognize effective and ineffective patterns in writing. In this session, I give participants specific advice on what to look for and how to help themselves and their peers and co-authors become better writers.

On the same page: Giving & receiving feedback effectively (Photo: Joanna Pianka)

1:1 Writing coaching (Photo: Joanna Pianka)

1:1 Writing coaching

I held 1:1 writing-coaching sessions with all 14 participants, to give them individual feedback on their abstracts and paper and proposal drafts. During these sessions, I helped participants develop and improve the structure of their writing, clarify their arguments, and articulate the contribution of their research to the field.

Galleries of Winter Schools past