Conference 2020
Ever thought of running a course on scientific writing?
Ann Bless, Switzerland
Young researchers often lack writing skills. Their supervisors or professors tell them ‘you learn by doing’ and this results in their struggling alone. They would profit from a course on scientific writing.
Attendees will come away with a basic lesson plan and guidance on how to approach teaching researchers/PhD students to write a clear and well-structured article or thesis. We will discuss how to write a catchy title, a well-structured and clear abstract and a convincing conclusion. I have chosen these elements because I hear that most scientists first read these sections of the article before deciding whether to read the rest. If required, we could also talk about the introduction and discussion sections.
This will be an interactive workshop. Attendees will be able to ask questions and I shall share with them my years of experience, my mistakes, the scientists' problems I have tried to solve. Their professors are very often too busy or away travelling so they come to me. Some researchers, from non-European cultures, do not dare ask their professors for advice for fear of losing face; they come to me for advice instead. I do not solve all their problems but at least they have a listening ear.
About the presenter
For more than 30 years Ann Bless has been running courses on scientific writing and giving workshops at various universities in Europe. She has written a book, Reader friendly scientific articles. Be clear, be readable and has co-authored with Lee Ann Weeks The elements of English editing. A guideline to clear writing.
An iPad workout for language professionals*
Alexander Drechsel, Belgium
Have you ever wondered whether your tablet could be used for professional purposes, rather than just for reading, online shopping, or watching movies? Join an experienced conference interpreter and technology trainer and find out how your iPad can help you get things done faster and better – from reading, writing and reviewing documents to managing projects or knocking tasks off your to-do list while on the go.
We’ll start by discussing how language professionals can set up their devices for multilingual use and how it works seamlessly with your existing hardware. Next, we’ll discuss research and writing – from outlining and mind-mapping to finding the information or turn-of-phrase you’re looking for to writing whenever you want, wherever you are.
After that, participants will tackle collaborative writing and editing on a tablet. You’ll learn how to draft and review text with faraway colleagues, wrangle “track changes” in Microsoft Word or Apple Pages, and up your proofreading game by using audio or a stylus.
Finally, we’ll explore tips and apps that will help you to run your business from your tablet, including to-do lists, reminders, invoicing, and more. We’ll also check out some helpful accessories that are the perfect companion for your tablet.
At the end of this workshop, you’ll feel much more confident using your tablet and be inspired to make the most of it for your work.
* This workshop focuses on iPads, but can be adapted to accommodate both iPad and Android tablet users.
About the presenter
Alexander Drechsel is a senior European Union staff interpreter, working from English, French and Romanian into his native German. He has also translated several non-fiction books, he blogs on interpreting and technology, and produces two podcasts (The Troublesome Terps and LangFM). Alexander is an experienced technology trainer with many online and offline workshops under his belt, and has given several talks and presentations on technology topics at industry conferences (including ITI, CIOL, BDÜ, ATA, AIIC, and eCPD Webinars). His workshops are insightful, fun and friendly; and they focus on the participants, their skills and expectations.
SENSE Terms and Conditions Online Events
- SENSE online events are open to members and non-members of SENSE.
- SENSE members should log in before registering to obtain the discounted member price. Discounts are also available for members of SENSE’s sister organizations*. The discount code, obtainable from your society, should be entered on the registration page before clicking the ‘Register and pay now’ button.
- If you require an attendance certificate for registering PE points you must make this known at the time of registration.
- A place at an online event is guaranteed on receipt of payment in full.
- SENSE reserves the right to cancel events that have insufficient attendees. Those already registered will receive a full refund.
- You may cancel your registration to an online event; cancellations received:
- prior to two weeks before the event = 100% refund
- prior to one week before the event = 50% refund
- within three days of the event = no refund**
- Access codes to online events are distributed by mail shortly before the event is due to commence.
- Attendance is at your own risk. SENSE is not liable for any technical problems attendees may experience with the online platform. We recommend you test your webcam and microphone before the online event commences.
- We will do everything within our capabilities to send you all the information you require prior to the event. In the unlikely event that you don’t receive an email or the access codes you are expecting, please at contact us at CPD@sense-online.nl.
- Please read all emails and delegate information carefully when it arrives and check that the details are correct. We’re human too and we do also (unfortunately) sometimes make mistakes.
- If you have any questions regarding a booking you have made or would like to make, please contact us at CPD@sense-online.nl.
* MET, NEaT, SfEP, APTRAD, EASE
** If you are unable to attend an event, you may arrange for someone to take your place.
The SENSE 2020 Online Conference features an engaging schedule of presentations and short talks aimed at English-language professionals.
The conference will open on Zoom just after lunch on Wednesday 3 June with a welcome. Then, a series of sessions presented by SENSE members and other language professionals from around the globe will fill the afternoon, interspersed with a networking break. The rest of the conference, taking place on the afternoons of Thursday 4 and Friday 5 June, will proceed in a similar way.
Naturally, the nuts and bolts of translation, editing and language will be a common strand running through the programme, but more diverse topics addressing current and developing trends, such as ‘near-peer’ learning, digital nomadism and networking, are also on the cards. There's also a session on Plain English and language interference, plus – for the first time – a panel bringing together experienced SENSE members and young language professionals from Maastricht University to discuss client acquisition.
Let’s not forget the more practical sides of our business either, with a panel presentation on maintaining productivity as a parent of young children on Friday afternoon.
What is more, Brian Mossop, author of the classic Editing and Revising for Translators, now in its fourth edition, will be joining us as a special guest speaker on Wednesday, marking the celebration of SENSE’s 30th anniversary as a society serving language practitioners in the Netherlands.
Click here to register for the online conference
Conference workshops
The SENSE 2020 Conference offers a solid programme of conference workshops. A prime opportunity to sink your teeth into some hardcore CPD during May and June.
You have seven workshops to choose from, covering a wide range of fields: from writing, editing and training, to technology, productivity and business. All workshops last 3½ hours and will be held on line, either 10:00 to 13:30 and from 13:30 to 17:00.
So, join us online in May and June for workshop or two to hone your writing or editing skills, get into the nitty-gritty of terms and conditions for your business, boost your proficiency in Microsoft Word, turn your workstation into a mobile office, and even develop a training plan.
Paul Beverley starts the series with Macros for writers, editors and translators. During the webinar, Paul will provide you with a whole range of macros to use in your work and will also give you a chance to try them out while he’s on hand to help you if you have queries.
‘Troublesome Terp’ and senior European Union staff interpreter Alexander Dreschel will seek to make a technophile out of you in An iPad workout for language professionals. Find out how your tablet computer can help you work productively and run your business on the move – whether it’s editing a text for a colleague or sending an invoice to a client.
Former chair of SENSE Jenny Zonneveld will be running her tried-and-tested Word skills for translators workshop, where you can delve into the advanced features of this tool that editors and translators could simply not do without. Why not discover how it can improve your productivity and how you can use certain features to improve the documents you deliver? Your clients will love you for it.
Something that language entrepreneurs may forget is that, since we are running a business, we need to have certain legal protections in place. Lawyer-linguist Sue Leschen will join us to present Terms and conditions for freelancers. Sue’s session will take delegates through drafting their own T&Cs and negotiating with clients, putting them in a stronger commercial position.
Word nerds might find themselves drawn to copy-editor John Linnegar’s workshop Getting to grips with connectors in English texts, which will examine the lexical items that editors and translators into English can employ to craft a seamless link between sentences and between their components. By working on texts that could do with improvement, delegates will look at ways of making them flow more smoothly.
Ann Bless will be bringing her interactive workshop on Ever thought of running a course on scientific writing? to Limburg. Drawing on her three decades of experience in running such courses, Ann will reveal her tactics for concocting a training plan to impart scientific writing skills for academia. These courses help researchers and PhD students ensure their article or thesis structure is in shipshape order.
Researcher and editor Jennifer de Beyer will run Using reporting guidelines for biomedical research, aiding delegates in understanding what reporting guidelines are and how to use them. By the end of this session, you will be able to identify a manuscript’s study design, recommend an appropriate reporting guideline, and highlight missing information to guide the author.
Click on the name or on a workshop block to find out more about the session and speaker.
SENSE 2020 Conference
(3-5 June)
SENSE Jubilee Conference goes online; conference workshops now in series
Click here to register for the online conference
Many of you will be pleased to learn that the Jubilee Conference team – with the sterling support of a group of die-hard and innovative presenters and workshop facilitators – have converted the in-person conference into a meeting of true minds. The opportunity to learn, to network and to share online couldn’t be better timed during these times of general gloom and social distancing. And the good news is that the SENSE Online Jubilee Conference continues to feature something for everyone – and at seriously keen prices too!
The online conference will be presented on the afternoons of 3, 4 and 5 June 2020; the workshops are no longer parallel but in series so you can attend as many as you like. The series kicks off on 16 May and will run through to 26 June – with one workshop to attend nearly each week during this period: there’s no doubt that you’ll be spoilt for choice, given the wide range of topics on offer. Head over to the programme page for all the details.
We are pleased to announce that Paul Beverley’s Macros workshop on 16 May has been added to the conference workshop line-up. Consequently, its price has been reduced in line with the others in the series – check it out on the conference workshops page!
Registering, refunds and cancellations policy
If you have previously registered and paid for the conference and/or a workshop, and wish to attend one or more of the online events, when you register, select ‘Bank transfer’ as the payment method. We will then deduct your online workshops and conference from what you previously and refund you as appropriate.
If you do not wish to attend any of the re-programmed online workshops and conference sessions and would like a full refund, less the € 50 non-refundable deposit, please contact Theresa Truax-Gischler at media@sense-online.nl.
Fees for online conference and workshops
In line with the reduced scale of the conference programme and because both the conference and the workshops are being presented online (thanks to Zoom), the pricing for both has been simplified and considerably reduced: to attend all three half-days of the conference will now cost only € 60 for members of SENSE and € 75 for non-members. The fee for attending an online workshop is now € 30 for members and € 60 for non-members. Unfortunately, it will not be possible to book separate tickets for just one or two conference days.
What's in store for you?
This being an online event, you will be able to register for either the whole conference (not the individual afternoons) and the workshops up to 16:00 on the day before the event.
In these virus-disrupted days, practitioners are more keenly aware than ever of the risks and opportunities inherent in freelancing, and some innovative solutions, so topics related to this theme will feature strongly in the online programme. For instance:
- the panel discussion, featuring a group of emerging freelance translators, on how to acquire and retain clients, which will be of particular relevance to the would-be’s and newbies out there;
- the EC’s Emma Hartkamp sharing the EU’s take on ‘Future competence profiles of EU translators’;
- from Finland, Tiina Kinunnen will be broaching a touchy side of freelancing familiar to us all in her presentation titled ‘From whining to shining: time to change the freelancer’s image’;
- SENSE members Wendy Baldwin (‘Honing skills through near-peer exchange’) and Marieke Krijnen (‘Editing in the era of digital nomadism’) will share their solutions to the loneliness of the long-distance editor;
- as will Sally Hill and Daphne Visser-Lees, who are out to share with us the positive outcomes ‘When editors share notes’;
- and when time is money for most of us, Brian Mossop’s answers to the question ‘How much time does quality require?’ should have us all sitting on the edge of our seats in expectation!
So, what’s standing in your way of attending SENSE Online Jubilee Conference 2020 from the comfort of your own home?
See you there, on 3, 4 and 5 June – or in the front row at a workshop!
The SENSE Online Jubilee Conference planning team
Ashley, Jenny, John, Ken, Liz, Lloyd, Marieke, Matthew and Theresa
2018 Conference
Englishes now!
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