Course Description

This course is designed to help graduate students with academic writing by developing the skills necessary to produce high quality work in term-papers and the end-of-year dissertation. The lectures, tasks and activities are richly varied, ranging from small-scale language points to studying the discourse of journalism, media, and communication. Topics to be dealt with include: writing expository and argumentative texts, writing summaries, introductions and conclusions, discussion of data, citing and attributing sources, researching and creating bibliographies. Students receive feedback on their writing and are expected to engage in self-editing and peer-reviewing. The course is highly recommended for students with little experience in writing academic papers and for those who need to brush up their skills in academic writing.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Understand the features of academic writing
2. Understand the basics of sentence, paragraph, and argument structure
3. Use and evaluate sources, and compile a bibliography
4. Use punctuation, in-text references, quotations, and footnotes
5. Avoid plagiarism
6. Write summaries/introductions/conclusions
7. Write academic essays and their end-of-year dissertation
8. Understand and participate in the processes of self-editing and peer-reviewing.

Workload

 Assessment