Academic Language Skills: Writing

obligatory courses

Course description:

The course in academic writing is addressed to students who finalise composing their MA theses. Its main aim is to support students in refining their MA theses as far as formal aspects of academic writing are concerned. The course is highly individualised

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total hour 30

total ECTS 2

1 ECTS: 30 - class attendance

1 ECTS: 15 hours - homework + 15 hours - consultations

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contact:

teacher - maadtu@gmail.com

coordinator of the study programme - m.tukiendorf@uni.opole.pl

Course objectives:

The Academic Language Skills: writing course is focused on further development of academic writing in the context of MA thesis writing. The students receive mentoring and tutoring regarding graphic formating of their MA thesis according to University regulations, organisation of content, referencing, bibliography accoring to MLA or APA standard formats. Attention is drawn to quotations, paraphrases, proper introduction to the MA as a whole but also to particular chapters, effective conclusion and suitable summary of the MA both in Polish and in English.

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Course content includes:

• coherence-oriented text analysis techniques

• cohesion-oriented text analysis techniques

• text-editing techniques

• error correction

• covering students' individual needs

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Methods of teaching: tutoring, mentoring, text analysis, writing tasks

Reading list

American Psychological Association. (2015). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. 6th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Gibaldi, J. (2009). MLA handbook for writers of research papers. 7th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America

used for self-study

Hinkel, E. (2004). Teaching academic ESL writing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Swales, J.M., & Feak Ch.B. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Wilson, J. & J. Newbrook. (2004). New proficiency gold. London: Longman.

supplementary reading

Fisher, A. (2011). Critical thinking: An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leki, I. (1998). Academic writing: Exploring processes and strategies (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Learning outcomes acc to PRK 2017

Knowledge

The student knows:

1. in an advanced degree terminology of linguistics, literature and culture studies (k-W-3/P7S_WG)

2. rules of the protection of intellectual and industrial copyright, intellectual property management, and the form of development of individual entrepreneurship (k-W-7/P7S_WK)

Skills

The student can:

3. use their philological knowledge - formulate and solve complex and unusual problems concerning the use of language as well as linguistic, literature and cultural knowledge, innovatively perform academic writing tasks including a proper selection of sources and information drawn from them, evaluation, critical analysis, synthesis, and creative interpretation of that information - using ICT (k-U-1/P7S_UW)

4. use a foreign language at the level of C2 of the Common European Framework for Languages and in the scope of specialist terminology in their academic writing (k-U-6/P7S_UK)

Social competences

The student is ready to:

5. function competently, responsibly and ethically within the area defined by the selected philological speciality that results in their writing of well-constructed MA thesis (k-K-5)

Forms of evaluation of learning outcomes acc to PRK 2017:

attendance 50% (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

writing tasks 50% (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

The individual writing tasks include:

1. progress report on own MA research project including a front page

2. samples of long and short quotations and paraphrases with references to sources

3. samples of bibliography in MLA or APA style

4. a summary of MA thesis together with key words – English and Polish versions