Instructional goals
This four-week course aims to equip students with essential skills in reading and writing academic texts.
Prerequisites
None
Intended learning outcomes
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
Critically engage with academic literature.
Develop and refine research problems and questions.
Collect, assess, and utilize primary and secondary data sources effectively.
Structure and write different sections of an academic paper, including the introduction, literature review, data and methods, results, discussion, and conclusion.
Apply appropriate citation styles and practices to ensure academic integrity.
Critically revise their work to enhance clarity, coherence, and academic rigor.
Course Contents
This course will cover topics related to reading, researching, and writing academic texts, with a focus on expanding students' skills and self-confidence as academic readers, researchers, and writers.
Reference Books
.
Teaching Methods
Classes will combine lectures, discussions, and individual and group exercises
Assessment Method
This is a pass/fail course, without grades.
Assessment will be based on active participation during classes.
Thesis assignment criteria
Week 1
Comprehending academic texts: definition and features
Identifying different types of academic texts
Understanding the structure of academic texts: content and organization of abstracts, introductions, literature reviews, hypotheses, data and methods, results, discussion/conclusion, and references
Adopting different reading strategies: skimming, scanning, and deep reading.
Week 2
Overview of the research process
Defining research topics, problems, and questions
Optimizing research choices
How to broaden, narrow, and increase the relevance of a research idea
Week 3
Writing the introduction: key questions, guidelines and common pitfalls
Writing the literature review: searching for relevant literature, evaluating and selecting sources, analyzing and synthesizing information
Writing the data and methods section: choosing primary and secondary sources, selecting quantitative or qualitative methods
Writing the results section: essential content, integrating visual elements
Writing the discussion and conclusion sections: key elements and considerations
Crafting effective titles and abstracts: structure and essential content
Understanding citation: beyond plagiarism, methods, styles, and best practices.
Week 4
Workshop