Academic Writing for Undergraduate Students (CIP)

Good academic writing is creative, informative and persuasive. It helps us to think through our research and communicate our thoughts effectively. Our texts encourage conversations with peers not only in our field of study, but also in related disciplines.

This course, designed as a series of interactive workshops, offers you an opportunity to write in English within your own discipline and to discuss your writing with international peers. It also invites you to reflect on your writing habits and writer identity.

• Choose a research problem to investigate (for example, a subject in your major courses). As the semester unfolds, follow the stages of researching and writing as two interlinked processes:
  - focus your research question,
  - find and review relevant literature,
  - collect the best evidence to argue for the importance of your research project.

• Read like a writer. Analyze model texts and sample texts written by your peers to better understand rhetorical strategies and stylistic conventions of selected academic text types.

   

• Practise writing and giving feedback. Draft four sections of your research paper: an extended definition of a key concept, annotated bibliography, argumentative synthesis and an introduction. You will discuss these drafts with your peers and receive comments from your tutor.

The semester of reading, writing and exchanging ideas with international peers from various disciplines will help you to become a better academic communicator. This course will assist you in your future writing, not only in English, but also in your other languages.

Testimonials

The hypothetical research paper we have been assigned to write has been an extremely useful practice; the importance of finding a ‘niche,’ when writing an introduction, has been a great eye-opener for me. I now find that the research topic I have settled on is incredibly interesting, so much so that I am considering using it for my bachelor project next semester.

Martin (BA, Denmark)

Since I had never experienced academic writing before, neither in French nor in English, this course helped me a lot. And I think that the methodology used in French academic writing is probably similar, so this course might also help me in my studies back in France.

Barthelemy (BA, France)

This course is really good for people who would like to improve their writing, not only academically, but also in general, to understand how efficient and communicative writing works! It gave me a clear idea how different sections in a research paper are written and organized, so that ideas are in place and easy for readers to understand. It helped a lot!

Fok Wai Ting (BA, China)

Questions regarding the course content can be emailed to AcademicEnglish@hum.ku.dk.