Keywords
General description
This course aims to provide students following international Master's degree programmes with the knowledge and skills required to write a clear and well-structured academic text (including a research proposal and master's degree thesis) following general academic as well as more field specific conventions. The course comprises two modules: Module A (3 ECTS) and Module B (2 ECTS).
Learning outcomes
Module A - Writing Clinic:
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to
- identify and refine those areas in the mechanics of writing they need to improve, especially points of grammar and punctuation
- increase the flow of their text from paragraph to section level by using appropriate cohesive devices
- employ a formal academic style
- express their own voice in their writing
- express a topic for research in a concise and clear fashion
- structure a research proposal
Module B - Thesis Writing:
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to
- identify the structure, moves and linguistic features of a master's degree thesis and apply this knowledge to their own thesis
- review a thesis critically
- express clearly the aims, background, methods and conclusions of their research
Contents
Module A - Writing Clinic:
This module will introduce the students to the importance of flow in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of academic tradition and will familiarize them with the linguistic devices necessary to achieve such cohesion in their own writing. In addition, the module will consider the differences between academic and non-academic style conventions, citing sources and avoiding plagiarism, as well as expressing their own voice. The module will also allow students to identify areas of written language they still need to work on, and will provide them with tools and exercises to help them refine their command of the mechanics of writing. We will finally cover the writing of a research proposal and ways to formulate clearly a topic for research.
Module B - Thesis Writing:
The course will cover the thesis writing process from formulating research questions to writing the thesis itself, the common structures and linguistic features of a Master's thesis and its constituent parts (including the introduction, literature review, methods and conclusion sections), as well as ways of synthesizing and evaluating previous research to support one's own study
Teaching methods
The average student workload for a 5 credit course is 135 hours (5 x 27). The distribution of hours between classwork, online work and other independent work will vary according to the module.
Teaching language
EnglishModes of study
- Degree Programme Students
- Other Students
- Open University Students
- Doctoral Students
- Exchange Students
Will be distributed by the teacher and/or through Moodle.
- Active participation
- Satisfactory completion of all group evaluation tasks
- A clearly written and well-structured research proposal (minimum B2 level) following accepted academic conventions
This module is made up of class sessions including group work (20 hours), as well as independent out of class tasks (61 hours). The module will be two periods long and will take place in the autumn semester of the first year of the master’s degree programme.
Will be available through Moodle.
- Active participation
- Satisfactory completion of all group evaluation tasks
- A clearly written and well-structured thesis extract of 6 pages of text (minimum B2 level) following accepted academic conventions
This module (54 hours) is two periods long and is online apart from individual teacher-student tutorials for discussion of the submitted thesis extract. The work consists of readings, group analysis tasks and thesis writing work. Students should take the module after their research proposal has been accepted by their programme and they are about to embark upon the writing of their thesis.
Evaluation and evaluation criteria
Pass/fail.The final grade is awarded on the basis of the completion of all the necessary tasks to a minimum of a B2 level on the CEFR scale as well as active participation.
Belongs to following study modules
2018–2019
