ACADEMIC WRITING

SEMESTER 1

1. Introduction to the course. What is academic writing? What makes a good writer? Academic
diction and style.

2. What is an argumentative essay? Paragraph structure: The topic sentence, supporting

sentences and the concluding sentence.

3. Unity and Coherence. Strategies for achieving coherence.

4. Using parallel structures and fixing sentence problems. Parallelism, sentence fragments,
choppy sentences, run-on sentences, comma splices and stringy sentences.

5. Being concise and powerful. Strategies for developing conciseness.

6. Confusing words and expressions best avoided.

7. Composition: writing an effective introductory paragraph. Generating and supporting a

thesis.

8. Composition: writing the body of the essay. The art of argumentation. Selecting relevant
arguments and data to support an argument. A review of argumentative strategies
(anticipating counterarguments, refutation and concession)

9. Logical errors and how to avoid them.

10. Effective arrangement of essay material. Transitions between paragraphs. Composition,

middles and endings

11. Composition: writing an effective concluding paragraph.

12. Getting to Draft One: getting ideas and starting to write, preparing for a draft, writing a first
draft.

13. Working with a draft: Focusing on main ideas, developing and shaping ideas, beginning and
ending drafts.

14. Analysing a model essay

15. Feedback session on first essay. Summary of the first semester.

SEMESTER 2

1. Using outside sources: Summarising – revision and practice

2. Using outside sources: Paraphrasing – revision and practice

3. Using outside sources: Quoting – when and how to quote, short vs block quotations.
Formatting, modifying quotations. Quoting online resources
4. Reading: Graff/ Birkenstein, They Say/I Say, 28-38
5. Recognising and avoiding plagiarism. Types of plagiarism.

6. Documenting sources – the MLA style guidelines

7. Graded group work with the MLA format.

8. The research process – accumulating sources, note-taking, devising the thesis, outlining

9. The structure of a research essay. Final tips for the final paper.

10. Introduction to the rules of English punctuation. The comma.

11. The semi-colon, the colon, the apostrophe and quotation marks.

12. The period and other punctuation marks. Punctuation exercises.

13. Test on punctuation. Spelling and hyphenation.

14. Capitals and italics. Abbreviations, acronyms and numbers.

15. Feedback session on second essay. Summary of the second semester.