Thinking, Speaking, and Writing Like an

This course is designed as an advanced seminar/workshop for 2nd year master’s students in epidemiology who are seeking to strengthen their critical thinking skills and hone their abilities to effectively communicate public health content to varied audiences, for varied purposes, through scientific writing and oral communication. This course will provide practical experiences that reinforce core epidemiology skills, including data interpretation, data synthesis, and critical analysis of epidemiologic research, with an emphasis on logic and reasoning, scientific argumentation, and effective communication. By the end of the course, students will be able to develop well-reasoned arguments that can be supported by existing epidemiology evidence, synthesize extant epidemiologic literature and draw conclusions about current gaps in knowledge and/or barriers to advancing the field, and design presentations and visuals aids for disseminating public health content to specific audiences. Didactic lectures/presentations and course discussions will focus on identifying and appropriately citing scientific sources; making logical scientific arguments; effective argumentation; effective writing and oral presentation skills development/enhancement; identifying challenges to effective written and oral communication and strategies to address them; skills development in the peer-review process, and tailoring scientific presentations to various types of audiences and for various purposes. Students will be required to actively participate in course activities (online and in-person) and will be evaluated on the progress made on a semester's long project (on their topic of choice), which will culminate in a portfolio of deliverables.