Academic Writing Course

Abstract

This course for MTEC MSc students focuses on developing and refining students' English writing skills and their understanding of the requirements and conventions of academic writing. The course is particularly designed to support students during the writing process, so participants are expected to bring work in progress (reports, semester papers, etc.) to the workshops.

Objective

The aim of this course is to improve the academic writing skills needed to complete academic texts successfully and efficiently. The course provides theoretical input, practical writing exercises, and detailed individual feedback organised into one group lecture and four workshops in smaller tutorial groups. Initially, the lecture provides an overview of the range of demands on writers of reports, papers, and MSc theses and outlines the academic expectations that students must meet. Guidance is then provided in the workshops on planning the writing process effectively, and individual feedback is provided to enhance writing ability. The course develops a range of practical and transferrable writing skills. Students can use these skills to improve the overall quality of their academic writing and to produce their reports, papers, and theses more rapidly and efficiently. The writing skills developed here can be used beyond the MSc, whether students go on to complete a PhD or to produce reports and other documents in industry.

Content

Group lecture: an introduction to writing at MSc level in D-MTEC anglophone expectations of academic writing avoiding plagiarism Workshop 1: the writing process overview of common academic text structures building academic vocabulary Workshop 2: writing methods sections embedding figures and tables structuring sentences and paragraphs noun phrases and articles Workshop 3: introductions; results and discussion sections analysis v description writing critically relative clauses Workshop 4: abstracts and conclusions editing your own text punctuation, spelling, and grammar

Resources