ACADEMIC ENGLISH IS NOBODY’S FIRST LANGUAGE: ACADEMIC WRITING AND SPEAKING

Course Objectives:

1. Introduce students to the research prospectus and academic writing process with the focus on both the rhetorical framework and grammatical patterns germane to these tasks and the purpose of the research project.
2. Provide training in regularly occurring rhetorical tasks and patterns associated with writing up research. This course includes but is not limited to: producing literature reviews and/or annotated bibliographies with the concentration on conventions of style and format of specific academic disciplines; synthesizing and relating verbal and nonverbal materials; analyzing research data and drawing conclusions.
3. Provide training for the development of self-editing and proofreading skills.
4. Provide individualized assistance with the drafting phase of documents.
5. Facilitate by the end of the course the students should understand and have demonstrated their ability to:
   • Produce coherent and cohesive academic papers of the following types . . . general-specific, problemprocess solution, data commentary, summary, critiques and reviews, arguments, and research . . . of up to 700+ words, which fully address the question at hand by developing the main ideas and using supporting details which provide full reasoning and/or exemplification and taking the audience, purpose, organization, style, flow, and register into consideration.
   • Follow advanced punctuation rules when writing academic papers.
   • Summarize texts by extracting the main ideas.
   • Describe/respond to visual data/input in written form by selecting and summarizing the main features of the visual data.
   • Effectively paraphrase texts by using academic resources.
   • Effectively write by following the APA citation and formatting guidelines in content and style (http://www.apastyle. org/styletips.html)
   • Understand plagiarism and how and why plagiarism must be avoided.
   • Be exposed to other forms of academic communication, such as letters and e-mails as well as oral presentations and defence.

Course Content:

KHAS 1504 guides students through the process of writing an academic essay following the guidelines/practices of their field. The course topics include: idea organization and development, structure and organization of texts, audience, claims, summaries, critiques, argumentation, word choice, grammar, and revising their own writing. Plagiarism and APA documentation and citation of sources are also covered. Individualized attention is an integral part of the course. Oral presentation skills will be explored. The course is designed to assist students in taking charge of communicating their ideas and thoughts in academic English.

Teacher Lead: David Reed Albachten, seven years founder and head of The Academic Writing Center at Istanbul Sehir University, graduate writing teacher and Master’s and PhD thesis advisor, writing researcher and published author and international speaker on L2 English Academic Writing.

Centered on: Non-native speaker academic writing and presentations, with weekly tasks and group and comprehensive individual feedback and revision.

Resources: Academic Writing for Graduate Students, 3rd Edition (J.M. Swales & C.B. Feak, 2012) and Academic Writing: A handbook for international students, (S. Bailey, 2011)