autumn 2025
ELE-3615 Scientific Writing - 5 ECTS

Type of course

The course can be taken as a single course. Students belonging to Master in Electrical Engineering are prioritised, while other students can sign up provided available supervision capacity.

Admission requirements

A relevant undergraduate Bachelor Engineering program with minimum 25 credits mathematics, 5 credits statistics, 7,5 credits physics.

Application code: 9371


Course content

This course will introduce scientific writing skills, as a preparatory course for writing a master thesis. Scientific writing as communication form to peers will be introduced and put into historical context together with ethics, plagiarism, proper use of references, and methods to perform a literature study. Relevant writing tools like Word, LaTeX, Endnote and artificial intelligence assisted tools will be introduced and discussed. Popular science writing has a different target audience, but still important for communicating science to the public and will be addressed as well.

The course output will be a pre-project report with a literature study and a plan for a master thesis within the same topic. Methods for organizing and planning research projects is therefore included in the course and will be a part of the pre-project report.


Objectives of the course

After passing this course, the student shall have the following learning outcome:

Knowledge:

The candidate will have:

  • The candidate has knowledge about the historical background and current practice of scientific publishing and writing.
  • The candidate will have insight to the ethics of science.
  • The candidate have insight into the use of scientific databases and proper use of references.

Skills:

  • The candidate can perform a scientific literature review on a defined topic.
  • The candidate can search for and critically assess scientific literature.
  • The candidate can individually write a scientific text and present results according to scientific standards in the field.
  • The candidate can from research questions and hypotheses based on a defined problem description and a literature study.
  • The candidate can define and plan a research project in the form of a master thesis within a defined topic and scope.
  • The candidate can describe their scientific work in a simplified popular science text

General competence:

  • The candidate will have an overview of relevant tools and software for scientific writing.
  • The candidate will have an overview of the possibility and challenges in using artificial intelligence.

Language of instruction and examination

English

Teaching methods

Teaching methods will be lectures, short online courses on defined topics and supervision. Individual self study under supervision is expected within a defined topic.

Schedule

Examination

Examination: Date: Grade scale:
Assignment 11.12.2025 14:00 (Hand in) Passed / Not Passed

Coursework requirements:

To take an examination, the student must have passed the following coursework requirements:

Report draft Approved – not approved
Online courses Approved – not approved
UiT Exams homepage

More info about the coursework requirements

A draft for a pre-project will be submitted at a defined deadline, where feedback can be used to improve the final pre-project report.

The student is required to attend a number of short online courses related to scientific writing, which will be announced at course start.


More info about the assignment

The assignment in this course will be a pre-project report for a master thesis. This includes a literature study for a given topic, formulation of research scope, questions and hypotheses, and a time schedule. The assignment is individual.

Re-sit examination

A re-sit exam will be provided for those that did not pass the last ordinary examination, where an improved report can be submitted.
  • About the course
  • Campus: Narvik |
  • ECTS: 5
  • Course code: ELE-3615
  • Earlier years and semesters for this topic