Academic Writing for Undergraduate Students (CIP)

Good academic writing is clear, precise, and persuasive. It engages critically with source material and communicates ideas effectively. Well-written texts contribute to conversations with peers both within and across disciplines.

This course, delivered through a series of interactive seminars, provides you with the opportunity to write in English within your own field of study, discuss your writing with international peers and receive constructive feedback. Through regular writing practice, you will strengthen both your research and communication skills.

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. Analyse 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 abstract/summary of your research question/problem, an extended definition of a key concept, a literature review and an argumentative synthesis. 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.