XENB002 Academic Writing for Master's Students: Writing that Flows (2 cr)

Content

How do you get an academic text to flow, so that it not only communicates to the reader what you want to say, but also provides an enjoyable reading experience? This course provides you with useful writing strategies to make your Master's thesis more readable and increase the flow that characterizes a good piece of writing. You will learn how to:

• use certain expected rhetorical moves in your thesis writing so that it is academically acceptable
• create paragraphs which follow a predictable structure
• use pronouns and noun phrases more deliberately to link sentences and paragraphs
• use conjunctions and transitional words and phrases carefully to highlight the logic and sequence of ideas
• use sentences to preview and summarize the organization of a scientific text
• check that lists in your text are parallel

Completion methods

This course has a workshop format, with short lectures and in-class application and practice. Students will work individually, in pairs and in small groups. Homework will include writing assignments and practice tasks.

After completing the course students are expected to:

• Recognize and understand how the principles and strategies of cohesion and coherence affect the clarity, communicative effectiveness and social acceptability of an academic text
• Use metatext to guide the reader through their thesis
• Use expected rhetorical moves to deliberately highlight the logic and sequence of ideas in Master's thesis
• Connect ideas between sentences and paragraphs by using cohesive markers
• Create paragraphs that follow a predictable structure
• Use online tools to support the above.

XENB-courses are NOT intended for short-term exchange students or students in JYU's English-medium master’s degree programmes that have XENX009 Integrated Research Communication as a required course.

PROFICIENCY LEVEL: C1