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Academic
Writing for Graduate Students
The
aim of this course is to help you develop as a writer within the
English speaking academic community by raising awareness of, practicing,
and reflecting upon the conventions of written texts. In addition
to addressing issues related to academic writing, the course will
also focus on the other language skills you will need to complete
your graduate level work in English.
During
the course, you will:
- Acquire
an awareness of and ability to use effectively the discourse
patterns of academic English
- Improve
your critical reading skills, enabling you to think and write
more clearly and incisively
- Become
familiar with and practice the genres of the argumentative essay,
critique and research paper
- Have
the opportunity to develop your writing process through generating
ideas, drafting, peer evaluation and individual writing consultations
- Learn
to take into consideration the expectations of your readership
with regard to academic English discourse conventions
- Reflect
on your approach to reading in light of the demands of a graduate
program
- Learn
to incorporate the work of other authors into your own writing
within the requirements of English academic practice
- Expand
and improve your ability to work independently by exploring
new strategies for learning
- Develop
your proof-reading and editing skills so as to be able to polish,
edit and refine your own written work without the help of others
- Gain
confidence in expressing yourself in both spoken and written
English, through extensive in-class writing and speaking, homework
and consultations.
Most
of the materials needed on the course are included in the Course
Study Pack. Other program-specific materials will be distributed
on a class-by-class basis. Your writing instructor will tell you
about assignments and deadlines at the end of each class. In many
cases, pre-reading assignments will be given. It is important that
you complete the assigned readings before each class because
they contain essential information that will be needed in class,
and if some students do not have this information, a great deal
of time will be wasted. These readings are now also accessible electronically
from this webpage in case you have left your Study Pack at home.
Critical
Reading - Evaluating Arguments
Micro-level
Argumentation - Paragraphing
Making
Decisions about Style
The
Nature of Research Writing
Using
the Work of other Authors in your Writing
Course
Outline
Section
A - Critical Reading
Aims:
This
section will introduce you to critical reading as a process of
evaluating the context and purpose of written texts, and enable
you to apply the insights gained from this process to the production
of a written critique, as an example of such a text.
Task
: The Critique (700 words)
A
critique is an essay that evaluates a text written by another
person. In your department, the terms "position paper", "review"
or "critical essay" may be used, but basically, all these types
of writing (genres) are similar. We ask you to write a critique
not only because it is excellent practice for the kind of writing
most of you will have to do in your department but also as a first
step on the path to positioning yourself in relation to the ideas
of others, one of the most important aspects of academic writing.
We will return to this important skill in the third section of
the course - research paper writing. Another reason why we start
with critical reading and critique writing, is because analysing
and criticising the arguments of others will help you to develop
strong arguments in your own writing, an aspect we will look at
in the second section of the course - essay writing.
1.
Introduction to Academic Writing
2.
Critical Reading I (Pre-Reading)
3.
Critical Reading II
4.
Summarizing Ideas from an Academic Text, Writing a Critique
5.
Micro-Level Argumentation - Paragraphing (Pre-Reading)
Section
B - Research-based Writing
Aims:
In
this part of the course you will develop an awareness of features
of the genre of research-based academic writing, notably in the
areas of organization of academic papers. You will also become
familiar with the conventions of using the work of other authors
in English academic discourse, and reflect on how these influence
the development of your own voice.
Task:
The Research Paper
The
research paper is one of the core genres in academic writing,
and involves valuable skills that you will also later be able
to carry over into thesis writing. What is important here is the
combination of the skills of argumentation from the second section
of the course with those of positioning yourself in relation to
other writers that we looked at in the first section. In writing
a research paper we ask you to develop or explore an idea, using
as support or criticising the works of other writers in your discipline
that you have read in preparation for the task.
6.
Making Decisions about Style (Pre-reading)
7.
The Nature of Research Writing (Pre-reading)
8.
Using Sources I: Voice and Authority (Pre-reading)
9.
Using Sources II: Techniques for Incorporating Sources in your Work
10.
Introductions: Analysis and Practice in an Academic Environment
11.
Looking at the Structure of Academic Texts: Genre Analysis Research
12.
Conclusions: Analysis and Practice in an Academic Environment
Creative
Writing
In
past years, a number of students at CEU who write poetry or fiction
(or who just love literature) have taken part in creative writing
workshops held throughout the academic year by a writing center
instructor. Members met one evening a week to share and discuss
their work in English or their translations of writers from their
home countries. At the end of each year, the best of this original
student writing, together with contributions from other interested
student writers, as well as art and photography has been published
in Undercurrents, an independent literary journal established in
2001 with the financial support of the Student Welfare Office. You
can view the two annual editions of Undercurrents in PDF format
by clicking on the links below.
Undercurrents
2001
Undercurrents
2002
If
you are a CEU student and are interested in reviving the group this
year, please contact John or
Eszter at the Writing Center.
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Last
revised:
17 March, 2005
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