Course AI for advanced scientific and academic writing

The course A337/13 AI for advanced scientific and academic writing is being offered by the Graduate School of Health, Aarhus University, 2027.

Criteria for participation:
University degree in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or Master’s degree in other fields and/or postgraduate research fellows (PhD students and research-year medical students).

Requirements for participation:
This course targets PhD students and researchers in the field of Medicine and closely related disciplines who already have a basic understanding of and working experience with AI-assisted writing tools, acquired through participation in the course “Articificial intelligence for scientific and academic writing” or similar,  and wish to improve their AI-assisted writing workflows to save time, become more productive and learn how to effectively synthesise previous papers into a comprehensive thesis or other academic output

Aim: 
To give students practical experience in using advanced AI methods for scientific writing tasks; the ability to respond efficiently to reviewer feedback using AI; skills to synthesise multiple scientific papers into a coherent PhD thesis or grant applications; the ability to challenge existing knowledge and develop new ideas using AI.

Learning outcomes: 

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Apply advanced AI prompting strategies, including well-structured multi-step prompts, to complex scientific writing tasks.
• Use AI to effectively respond to reviewer critiques and resubmit their papers.
• AI-assist the synthesis of 3-4 published papers and other context materials into a cohesive PhD thesis, larger scientific work or grant applications.
• Efficiently draft and edit larger scientific texts, such as scientific papers and funding proposals.
• Perfect their writing through personalised feedback on their scientific work.
• Maintain academic integrity while engaging extensively in AI-assisted writing.

Workload:
The full workload of the course is expected to be 16 hours

Content: 
This advanced online course is designed for PhD students and researchers familiar with basic AI tools and methods who seek to further enhance their academic writing, save time, and become more productive. It provides hands-on experience with advanced AI methods for responding to reviewer feedback, drafting papers, and synthesising multiple published papers into a thesis or funding proposal, among others. Participants will receive personalised feedback on their prompting and scientific writing, allowing them to perfect their AI and writing skills.

Participants will learn to integrate AI tools like ChatGPT and SciSpace to optimise their writing processes, from grant proposals to thesis composition, ensuring high-quality outputs aligned with academic standards.

The course is delivered online as two 4-hour online sessions with a mix of presentations, practical exercises, group discussions and personalised feedback on participants' prompting and writing. Participants will use AI tools to complete real-world writing tasks, focusing on improving writing quality, responding to reviewer critiques, rewriting paper sections for resubmission, preparing progress reports, and engaging in research communication tasks such as presentations and synthesising medical research into grant proposals, ensuring relevance to clinical and medical contexts.

The thesis-writing sections of the course are closely aligned with the Gradual School of Health’s thesis requirements and guidelines on content, structure and data safety.

Instructors: 
Morten Pilegaard and Peter Steffensen

Venue:
Online

Participation in the course is without cost for:

• PhD students, Health Research Year students from Aarhus University
• PhD students enrolled at partner universities of the Nordoc collaboration
• PhD students from other institutions in the open market agreement for PhD courses

Course dates:

• 01 March 2027 13:00 - 17:00
• 08 March 2027 13:00 - 17:00