In late January 2023, the Center on Religion and the Global East offered a writing workshop for junior scholars working on the study of religion in Chinese, Japanese, and/or Korean communities. It was led by Dr. Carsten Vala, professor of Political Science at Loyola University Maryland. The workshop was designed for advanced graduate students, lecturers, and junior faculty members who are preparing English manuscripts for publication. During the week-long sessions, Dr. Vala talked through the process of writing, revising, and resubmitting papers in academic journals. He combined lectures with hands-on activities in which participants refined thesis statements in order to communicate with a larger scholarly audience. Below are testimonials from some of the participants. CRGE plans to offer a similar workshop in December 2023. Please contact us if you are interested in participating.
 
Testimonials
This workshop efficiently helped me to improve how to condense my research questions and specify my arguments on the anthropological trichotomy of Chinese Christianity.  And the discussions with scholars and peers from different disciplines and religious fields have also helped me to gain multi-perspective thinking.  – Songzan Xu
 
I truly appreciate Prof. Carsten's instructions in the writing workshop. My research and way of thinking were both greatly influenced by this workshop. For my research, I learned the significance of a thesis statement and gained knowledge on how to broaden the scope of our research, both of which are very helpful and essential for my future writing. This workshop improved my ability to reason logically and creatively. More importantly, Prof. Carsten advised me to "live in hope," at the end of the session, which completely altered the way I viewed my work, my life, and the whole world. Moreover, I also got a chance to communicate with other scholars in the religion study field and feel connected to each other. – Vicky Wang
 
The workshop helped me to understand how to use the academic concepts more clearly in my field. And after the workshop, I also understood clearly how I could explain to other researchers the concepts I used in my research. Additionally,  the workshop helps me to understand deeply for writing a good thesis statement. Lastly, the workshop also provides me the wonderful opportunity for meeting with young scholars in our field. – Haocheng Chen
 
Thanks to the CRGE for organizing this fantastic writing workshop for those of us who are struggling with academic writing in English. I benefited greatly from Professor Carsten Vala’s well-structured and question-target presentations. During the lectures, he reminded us of some significant aspects of academic writing which I was not aware of before, such as what a good thesis statement should be, how to use concepts well, and how to relate our topic to a large context. I am grateful for such a wonderful opportunity to improve my writing. I am looking forward to more exciting workshops from the Center! – Liying Xu
 
Through Prof. Carsten Vala’s lectures at the workshop, I have learned how to think about the thesis statement of my research in generic terms so that it can be compared with similar studies in various research areas other than mine. This line of thinking has broadened my analogical imagination while I am working on my current book project on Wu Yaozong (Y. T. Wu). Prof. Vala also generously provided valuable suggestions on my draft book proposal by advising me to highlight the part of research significance. Furthermore, I found it highly insightful when Prof. Jonathan Pettit joined our conversation by raising to-the-point questions and offering perceptive comments based on his expertise. – Zhixi Wang
 
I’m very thankful for joining this workshop to learn from professor Vala and all these good scholars. As a student, I find it very useful for me to propose a good thesis statement and link it to a larger context in my research. Also, students in this workshop are very active and I am motivated by their suggestions. Last but not the least, I benefited from one-on-one discussions where I got many personal and wonderful instructions.– Grace Yang
 
(draft contributed by Jonathan EE Pettit, Research Associate)