SUBJECT
Academic English reading and writing
seminar
master
5
Semester 1
Autumn semester
This course will provide students with the opportunity to practice English writing on a regular basis. Students are asked to write weekly assignments (minimum one page) and to submit them to me (printed out) at the beginning of each class. Every week we will make use of one participant’s assignment as the basis of a critical and developmental exercise and discussion of challenges. In this sense, the seminar will be run as a writing workshop. I will read all assignments for the next week. The classes will be driven by our discussions, and I thus encourage you to come to class with queries and points for debate in hand. We will use the seminar to develop papers you are working on this semester, with the goal of producing quality work that is fit for publication. I encourage everyone to write a paper that is topically related to her/his dissertation topic, or that they may eventually wish to submit for publication or presentation. Students missing more than two seminar sessions should consult me and hand in extra work to make up for absences.
While we will utilize several online pieces to improve our writing, we will make use of two basic texts:
- Becker, Howard S., Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article (Chicago, University of Chicago: 1986).
- Soles, Derek, The Essentials of Academic Writing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005)