One-on-one sessions

Are you working on a specific presentation or text and would like to get feedback on it? Schedule a one-on-one session with us. You can come at any stage of your work – with a final draft or an early draft of your paper, or even with no draft at all if you are stuck or struggling with the writer’s block. We are ready to help with any text-type whether it is a research article, abstract, grant proposal, dissertation, as well as an e-mail, letter of interest, or a CV. Please, note that we will not fix your paper for you. WE ARE NOT A PROOFREADING/EDITING service. Instead we talk to you about your research, thoroughly analyze the meaning you want to convey, and guide you in your revisions. We are committed to teaching you how to write your text more effectively next time around so that it is clear, reader-friendly and your audiences can easily follow.

What happens in a session

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The consultation is conducted as a conversation about your paper. We meet with you in person or over Skype to discuss the message you intend to convey. Subsequently, we analyze the text to see how effectively these intentions were met. In analyzing the text, we keep in mind your target audience and their expectations (e.g. Anglo-American readers may expect different sequencing of information than European readers). We move from the global level (thoughts, logic, text organization and structure) to stylistic and grammar issues. We do not typically start with the language problems because we find it pointless to fine-tune parts of the text that might be completely deleted or rewritten after the consultation.

An outline of steps in a one-on-one session:

  • we ask about your specific needs and expectations
  • you give us the context of the given text (e.g. the text’s target audience, formal requirements, deadlines, etc.)
  • you read the text or a part of othe text out loud while we listen and note down our first impressions
  • we talk about the text and ask questions about the sections of the text that were not clear to us as your reader. Clearly, in highly technical texts, we may not understand all the content or the science in the text, but we can still gauge whether the text logically progresses from one idea to the next and whether the words convey the meaning you intended.
  • we point out and explain the language issues we notice. We then explain the issues and show you how to solve them.
  • you take your own notes
  • you leave the session with specific steps to take in revising you text before we meet the second time

How long is the session?

Our sessions last
from 30 to 90 minutes.

  • We limit sessions to a maximum of 90 min. Longer sessions tend to be less productive because the work is quite intense and both, you and your consultant can feel overwhelmed.
  • Please, do not expect that we will get through your entire paper in one session.  If you come with a full research article, we typically manage to discuss the abstract and introduction, leaving the rest of the paper to the subsequent session(s).

What to bring

  • A copy of your text or a flashdrive with your presentation slides
  • Any other relevant information (e.g. the name of your target jounral, guidelines to authors, etc.)

Price

1 hour

600 CZK

For those who prefer hourly payments per instructor’s time.

1800 CZK/ 4 hours

Discounted package for employees of CAS

A package including a face-to-face meeting and the instructor’s preparation time (in total, 4 hours of the instructor’s time)

Clients who are not employed by the Czech Academy of Sciences pay 2200 CZK per consultation package (4 hours in total).

Non-standard requests

Individual arrangements

Dissertations, longer-term use of our services, or urgent request for express services.

Schedule an appointment

Please, sign up for a consultation via this website:

http://registrace.langdpt.avcr.cz/?lang=en

We will contact you upon your registration.