The English Writing Center (EWC) offers free one-to-one consulting in English writing to all members of the TUM community.
Please bring to your appointment up to 5 pages of a text. It might be a section of a thesis or article, an essay or homework assignment, a CV or cover letter, or any other English text.
The English lecturers and student Writing Fellows in the EWC help you develop long-term proficiency in English writing, while polishing your actual texts in the process.
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Appointment selection:
- You may book one appointment per day, three per week, and twelve per semester
- You can book appointments up to one month in advance.
- Please verify your email address before booking. Otherwise you will not receive a confirmation of the booking.
- If you are unable to find any available appointments at this time, we encourage you to check back at a later date. The EWC is constantly adding new appointments to the schedule, in order to accommodate as many clients as possible.
Confirmation of the booking:
- You will receive a confirmation e-mail upon making an appointment and an automatic meeting invitation two hours before your appointment. If you do not receive an e-mail, please let us know.
For the appointment
- If you are unable to attend, please cancel the appointment at least 24 hours in advance (see link in the confirmation email).
- Bring a printed, double-spaced copy of your text to the appointment to facilitate annotating.
- For virtual appointments, be prepared to share your text via screen sharing in Zoom.
- Locate the room at the appropriate campus beforehand.
REMARK: Our service is to teach you to improve your writing, not to proofread your texts. So please always do your best to implement what you’ve learned in your whole text before making another appointment. That way the lessons build on one another.
Garching-Forschungszentrum
Raum MW 0808
Boltzmannstr. 15,
85748 Garching b. München
Tel. +49 (0)89 289-15102
Weihenstephan
Next to Seminarraum 1.04
Weihenstephaner Berg 13
85354 Freising
Tel. +49 (0)8161 71-5336
Online appointments
We also offer appointments through Zoom for TUM affiliates not currently based in Munich.
If you have booked a Zoom appointment, you will receive an e-mail with a meeting invitation two hours before the appointment is scheduled to start. Please join the meeting on time and wait in the virtual waiting room, if necessary.
These handouts were diligently created by members of staff of the TUM English Writing Center to help writers improve their writing style, grammar, and application documents.
- Writing Style:
Clear Sentences
Cohesion
Concision
Paragraphing
Here you will find a collection of links to writing resources from TUM departments. You may find guidance on how to structure and write a thesis, seminar paper, or final report. If no resources for your department are listed, check back shortly since we're in the process of expanding this collection.
If you know about a resource that we've missed, please send us an email at writing@zv.tum.de with the link, so we can add it here.
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General Guidelines
TUM Library - Citation & Good Academic Practice:
TUM Citation Guide
TUM Zitierleitfaden
TUM Theses & Dissertations:
Information Literacy 2 Research Strategies for Seminar Papers and Theses
Informationskompetenz 2 – Recherchestrategie für Seminar- und Abschlussarbeiten
TUM Tips and Tricks für die Abschlussarbeit
TUM The Use of English in Titles at TUM (PDF, 40 KB)
TUM Verwendung des Englischen in Thesistiteln (PDF, 67 KB)
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TUM Departments
Architecture
Masterstudiengang Urbanistik: "Handreichung Masterthesis", Lehrstuhl für Raumentwicklung (223 KB)
"Leitfaden Literaturverzeichnis", Lehrstuhl für Raumentwicklung (239 KB)
Civil Geo and Environmental Engineering
"Guidelines for the Study Project", Master of Science in Environmental Engineering (75 KB)
"Guidelines for the Master’s Thesis", Master of Science in Transportation Systems (80 KB)
"Master's Thesis / Bachelor's Thesis" template, Chair of Traffic Engineering and Control (140 KB)
Electrical and Computer Engineering
"Writing Your Thesis", TUM Chair of Media Technology (LMT)
Mathematics
Leitfaden zur Vermeidung von Plagiarismus beim Zitieren (englisch)
Informatics
Guidelines for Student Theses", Chair of Network Architectures and Services (83 KB)
"Thesis - Guidelines and Topics", Department of Informatics
Mechanical Engineering
Schlüsselkompetenzen für die wissenschaftliche Praxis (Bachelor)
Schlüsselkompetenzen für die wissenschaftliche Praxis (Master)
School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan
"Guidelines on How to Write a Proposal", Chair of Economics of Horticulture and Landscaping (183 KB)
"Hinweise zum Erstellen eines Exposés für die Abschlussarbeit", Lehrstuhl Ökonomik des Gartenbaus und Landschaftsbaus (487 KB)
"Allgemeine Hinweise für das Verfassen wissenschaftlicher Arbeiten", Forschungsdepartment Agrarökonomie (159 KB)
"How to Write a Scientific Paper", Gabriele Weber-Blaschke, School of Forest Science and Resource Management (368 KB)
School of Management
"Lecture Scientific Writing", Entrepreneurship Research Institute (1.6 MB)
- General English Writing & Grammar:
Online Writing Lab - Purdue University
(This site is a comprehensive online database of English writing. Abounding with detailed explanations, samples, and exercises, it provides guidance in virtually every field—business, academia, the sciences, journalism, to name a few.)
- Application Writing:
North American style: Harvard Office of Career Services Templates, Guides and Examples
British Style: Oxford University Careers Service:
Writing a Cover Letter (instructions and samples)
Writing a CV (instructions and samples)
Application Forms
- Scientific Writing - Online Resources:
Duke University: Scientific Writing Resource
(A website with step-by-step lessons and worksheets on basic principles of style in scientific writing)
Scitable - Nature Education: English Communication for Scientists
(An excellent website from Nature with guidelines and examples for every facet of scientific communication)
- Books on Academic and Scientific Writing:
Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace - Joseph M. Williams
Writing for Science and Engineering - Heather Silyn-Roberts
Academic Writing for Graduate Students - John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak
Writing Science in Plain English - Anne E. Greene
The Sense of Style - Steven Pinker
These articles have been collected by the staff of the English Writing Center. Here you will find academic writing that presents complex scientific ideas clearly and concisely in vibrant and lively English. The papers have all been published in respectable, peer-reviewed journals and are meant to provide real-world examples of the principles of good writing that we teach at the English Writing Center. We also hope that the articles will serve as an inspiration to all who want to write about science and technology with clarity and elegance.
The links to the articles require you to have a TUM eAccess ID and password.
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Architecture and Design
The effects of physical prototyping and group work on the reduction of design fixation
Robert J. Youmans, Design Studies
Expertise in Engineering Design
Nigel Cross and Anita Clayburn Cross, Research in Engineering Design
Network Fever
Mark Wigley, Grey Room
Integrities: The Salvage of Abu Simbel
Lucia Allais, Grey Room
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Biology and Chemistry
As we wait: coping with an imperfect nomenclature for extracellular vesicles
Stephen J. Gould and Graça Raposo, Journal of Extracellular Vesicles
Parasites, desiderata lists and the paradox of the organism
Richard Dawkins, Parasitology
Detection of Specific Sequences Among DNA Fragments Separated by Gel Electrophoresis
E.M. Southern, Journal of Molecular Biology
Rethinking the Theoretical Foundation of Sociobiology
David Sloan Wilson & E.O. Wilson (2x Pulitzer Prize winner), The Quarterly Review of Biology
Notes on Neotropical Plebejinæ (Lycænidæ, Lepidoptera)
V. Nabokov, Psyche
Arms Races between and within Species
Dawkins and Krebs, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
The Sociogenesis of Insect Colonies
EO Wilson, Science
The organization of work in social insect colonies
Deborah Gordon, The Journal of Chemical Physics
Lithium hydroxide, LiOH, at elevated densities
Andreas Hermann, N. W. Ashcroft, and Roald Hoffman, The Journal of Chemical Physic
Lithium Amide (LiNH2) under Pressur
Dasari L. V. K. Prasad, N. W. Ashcroft, and Roald Hoffmann (Nobel Laureate), The Journal of Physical Chemistry
Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acid
James Watson and Francis Crick (Nobel Laureates), Nature
Small but Strong Lessons from Chemistry for Nanoscience
Roald Hoffmann (Nobel Laureate), Angewandte Chemie
The Magnetic Properties and Structures of Hemoglobin
Linus Pauling (Nobel Laureate), Chemistry: Pauling and Coryell
Man-made antibodies
Greg Winter and Cesar Milstein (Nobel Laureates), Nature
- Civil, Geo, and Environmental Engineering
Crusing for Parking
Donald C. Shoup, ACCESS Magazine
Turning Small Change into Big Changes
Douglas Kolozsvari and Donald Shoup, ACCESS Magazine
Which Came First, the Telecommuting or the Residential Relocation?
David T. Ory and Patricia L. Mokhtarian, UC Berkeley
Bicycling for Transportation and Health: The Role of Infrastructure
Jennifer Dill, Journal of Public Health Policy
Local Government Efforts to Promote the “Three Es” of Sustainable Development
Devashree Saha & Robert G. Paterson, Journal of Planning Education and Research
How science makes environmental controversies worse
Daniel Sarewitz, Environmental Science & Policy
Green Cities, Growing Cities, Just Cities?: Urban Planning and the Contradictions of Sustainable Development
Scott Campbell, Journal of the American Planning Association
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Computer Science
The Arrow Calculus
Sam Lindley, Philip Wadler and Jeremy Yallop, Journal of Functional Programming
Propositions as Sessions
Philip Wadler, Journal of Functional Programming
A Practical Theory of Language-Integrated Query
James Cheney, Sam Lindley and Philip Wadler, ACM SIGPLAN Notices
The Byzantine Generals Problem
Leslie Lamport (Turing Award recipient), Robert Shostak, and Marshall Pease, SRI International
No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering
Frederick P. Brooks, Jr. (Turing Award recipient), Computer
Do Deep Nets Really Need to be Deep?
Lei Jimmy Ba and Rich Caruana
Literate Programming
Donald Knuth (Turing Award recipient), The Computer Journal
Ultimate physical limits to computation
Seth Lloyd, Nature
On Computable Numbers, With An Application To The Entscheidungsproblem
Alan Turing
- Electrical and Mechanical Engineering
Communication in Presence of Noise
Claude E. Shannon, Proceedings of the IEEE
Graphene transistors
Frank Schwierz, Nature Nanotechnology
Visible Light-Emitting Diodes: Past, Present, and Very Bright Future
M. George Craford, Cambridge University Press
The Infostations Challenge: Balancing Cost and Ubiquity in Delivering Wireless Data
Richard H. Frenkiel, B. R. Badrinath, Joan Borràs and Roy D. Yates, Proceedings of the IEEE
The Rise of Graphene
A. K. Geim and K. S. Novoselov, Nature
Applications – Some Influences of Engineering Ideas on Biology
Julian F. V. Vincent, Journal of Bionic Engineering
A Modal Approach to Hyper-Redundant Manipulator Kinematics
Gregory S. Chirikjian and Joel W. Burdick, IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation
A Study of Design Fixation, Its Mitigation and Perception in Engineering Design Faculty
J. S. Linsey, I. Tseng, K. Fu, J. Cagan, K. L. Wood, and C. Schunn, Journal of Mechanical Design
A Blend of Different Tastes: The Language of Coffeemakers
M Agarwal, J Cagan, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Advanced structural ceramics in aerospace propulsion
Nitin P. Padture, Nature Materials
Writing Well
Richard Mateosian, IEEE Micro
- Law
Policy Levers in Patent Law
Dan L. Burk and Mark A. Lemley, Virginia Law Review
National Security Leaks and Constitutional Duty
Alexander J. Kasner, Stanford Law Review
Guardians of Your Galaxy S7: Encryption Backdoors and the First Amendment
Allen Cook Barr, Minnesota Law Review
Why Legal Writers Should Think like Teachers
Laura A. Webb, Journal of Legal Education
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Management, Economics, and Psychology
Technology Brokering and Innovation in a Product Development Firm
Andrew Hargadon and Robert I. Sutton, Administrative Science Quarterly
Do Interviewers Sell Themselves Short?
Jennifer Carson Marr and Dan M. Cable, Academy of Management Journal
Before You Make That Big Decision...
Daniel Kahneman, Dan Lovallo and Olivier Sibony, Harvard Business Review
Microlending in emerging economies: Building a new line of inquiry from the ground up
Garry D Bruton, Susanna Khavul, and Helmuth Chavez, Journal of International Business Studies
Customer Power, Strategic Investment, and the Failure of Leading Firms
Clayton M. Christensen and Joseph L. Bower, Strategic Management Journal
Creating Shared Value
Michael E. Porter and Mark R. Kramer, Harvard Business Review
Toward a Positive Theory of Consumer Choice
Richard H. Thaler, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization
The Ultimatum Game
Richard H. Thaler, Journal of Economic Perspectives
From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens
Richard H. Thaler, Journal of Economic Perspectives
It’s All about Me: Narcissistic Chief Executive Officers and Their Effects on Company Strategy and Performance
Arijit Chatterjee and Donald C. Hambrick, Administrative Science Quarterly
Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth
Paul M. Romer, American Economic Review
Developments in the Measurement of Subjective Well-Being
Daniel Kahnemann and Alan B. Krueger, Journal of Economic Perspectives
The Empirical Case for Two Systems of Reasoning
Steven A. Sloman, Psychological Bulletin
Open for Innovation: The Role of Openness in Explaining Innovation Performance
Keld Laursen and Ammon Salter, Strategic Management Journal
From Common to Uncommon Knowledge: Foundations of Firm-Specific Use of Knowledge as a Resource
Rajiv Nag and Dennis A. Gioia, Academy of Management Journal
Origin of Alliance Portfolios: Entrepreneurs, Network Strategies, and Firm Performance
Pinar Ozcan and Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Academy of Management Journal
- Medicine
Road-traffic injuries: confronting disparities to address a global-health problemShanthi Ameratunga, Martha Hijar and Robyn Norton, The Lancet
Developmental origins of noncommunicable disease: population and public health implications
Mark Hanson and Peter Gluckman, The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
What worries parents when their preschool children are acutely ill, and why: a qualitative study
Joe Kai, BMJ
Collusion in doctor-patient communication about imminent death: an ethnographic study
Anne-Mei The, Tony Hak, Gerard Koëter, and Gerrit van der Wal, BMJ
SREBPs: activators of the complete program of cholesterol and fatty acid synthesis in the liver
Jay D. Horton, Joseph L. Goldstein, and Michael S. Brown, The Journal of Clinical Investigation - Neuroscience
Investigating the biology of consciousness
Antonio R. Damasio, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences
Functional diversity of astrocytes in neural circuit regulation
Lucile Ben Haim and David H. Rowitch, Nature Reviews Neuroscience
The Return of Phineas Gage: Clues About the Brain from the Skull of a Famous Patient
Hanna Damaslo, Thomas Grabowski, Randall Frank, Albert M. Galaburda, Antonio R. Damasio, Science
Place Navigation Impaired in Rats with Hippocampal Lesions
Richard G. M. Morris, Paul Garrud, John N. R. Rawlins, and J. O'Keefe, Nature
Neuroscience Needs Behavior: Correcting a Reductionist Bias
John W. Krakauer, Asif A. Ghazanfar, Alex Gomez-Marin, Malcolm A. MacIver, and David Poeppel, Neuron
Predictive coding: an account of the mirror neuron system
JM Kilner, KJ Friston, and CD Frith, Cognitive Processing
- Physics and Mathematics
The Cosmological Constant [and Discussion]
Stephen Hawking, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Structure of the Proton
Richard P. Feynman, Science
Black Hole Models for Active Galactic Nuclei
Martin J. Rees, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics
A search for life on Earth from the Galileo spacecraft
Carl Sagan, W. Reid Thompson, Robert Carlson, Donald Gurnett, and Charles Hord, Nature
Quantum Cryptography without Bell's Theorem
Charles H. Bennett, Gilles Brassard, and N. David Mermin, Physical Review Letters
Wormholes, Time Machines, and the Weak Energy Condition
Michael S. Morris, Kip S. Thorne, and Ulvi Yurtsever, Physical Review Letters
KRETSCHMANN SCALAR FOR A KERR-NEWMAN BLACK HOLE
Richard Conn Henry, The Astrophysical Journal
On Random and Hard-to-Describe Numbers
Charles H. Bennett, Randomness and Complexity, From Leibniz to Chaitin
STATISTICAL ERRORS
Regina Nuzzo, Nature

Rose Jacobs
English Lecturer
Coordination EWC

Natasha Wellershausen
English Lecturer
Coordination EWC
Contact
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