Academic Writing: Lesson 1

Hi everyone,

It was really great to meet everyone in today’s class.  I really appreciated your attention and participation during our class activities.

Academic Writing is one of the most difficult skills in English to master.  Please remember that Academic Writing is even difficult for native-speakers.   Although this course will be challenging, you will be able to improve your writing and critical thinking skills. However, it will be very important to complete the weekly tasks. Remember to manage your time and give yourself enough time to complete your writing tasks.

Course Syllabus and Schedule:
At the start of class, we went through the grading criteria and requirements for our course. We also looked at the schedule. Please make sure to submit your writing tasks on time every week. We will be writing our research paper step-by-step, so you will be writing every week.

Essay Structure:
After, we reviewed essay structure. If you would like ot review the slide presentation from today's lesson, you can find it in the Academic Writing --> Lesson Materials section of the website.

For homework, you need to read the sample essay and identify all the parts of an essay.

Topic Selection
For the last part of class, we looked at the different categories you can choose your research paper topic from:
1.  American and British Literature
2.  Applied Linguistics
3.  Communications

When you choose your topic, make sure it is specific. Key words to use in your title include:
a. the effects of ...
b. the process of ...
c. the differences between ... and ...

Homework:

1. Blog Post #1
2. Bring a B5 notebook and pocket file (40 pages) to class next week.
   
3. Read Sample Essay. Underline/highlight the different parts of the essay and write the names of them in the left-hand margin.
   
4. Download and print out the Sample Research Paper.  Underline/highlight the different parts and write the names of them in the left-hand margin. Bring this to class next week.

Blog Question #1: 

1. Read the sample essay and the sample research paper. What is the difference between an essay and a research essay? 
   
   
2. What is your research paper topic?  (You must give your specific topic - similar to one of the sample topics on the handout from class.)

* Write 10-12 sentences.
* Use capitalization, punctuation & spelling correctly.
* Submit by Wed., Sept. 23 by 6:00pm.

Research Paper Sample
File Size:	101 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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