Academic writing for Publication

Academic writing for Publication I. and II. (AWP I and II)

Introduction, course rationale

The axiom ‘publish or perish’ is a well-established reality in academia. An added challenge, however, is the requirement to publish in internationally acknowledged publications, which are most often in English. Unfortunately, many academics at European universities lack the writing skills required by such publications as the development of academic writing skills is often neglected in European graduate and postgraduate programmes. As a result, not only are university teachers hindered in their own career growth, but meaningful research is unable to reach the wider scientific and academic community.

Aims of the course

To address these challenges, the intensive, five-day Academic Writing for Publication course prepared under the IMPACT project seeks to facilitate the acquiring and development of academic writing skills among participating university instructors in order to improve each's existing draft article in English for submission for publication. The course also aims to prepare participants to incorporate a writing component into their courses.

Expected learning outcomes

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

Summarize the principles and process of writing scholarly articles in English, including the recognition of various concepts, components, and stages of the writing process in English from draft to submission
Apply the principles and processes of academic writing to their own writing
Critically evaluate English-language scholarly articles written by others
Design writing activities for their students that incorporate the concepts and principles of academic writing learnt in this course

Academic Writing for Publication I. and II. (AWP I and II) are PhD-level courses, the first offered in winter semester, the second in summer. AWP I in autumn covers the basics of academic writing: doing research, using sources, research questions and thesis statements, paragraphing, and argumentation.

AWP II in spring covers the details of writing a full paper for submission. Prerequisite: AWP I or the approval of the instructors based on a paper you submit to them in advance.

Class size: 12 students, admitted based on applications submitted two weeks before the course begins.

Participants must have B2 level English or higher. This is not an English course.

Academic Writing for Publication I

The course consists of 180-minute workshops (with a break) meeting roughly every other week, primarily online in MS TEAMS and occasionally face-to-face at the Faculty. Participants are required to actively participate in 80% of workshops. All assignments must be successfully completed and submitted in MS TEAMS by the deadline. Facilitators assess if the submitted work meets the requirements.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, participants shall be able to:

Understand and recognize the requirements of scholarly research and a well-written academic paper.
Recognize, evaluate, and produce effective research questions and thesis statements.
Produce an acceptable argumentative paper, ethically integrating relevant sources, with the proper use of citations and cohesive devices, according to academic norms.
Provide relevant and appropriate feedback

In the academic year 2022/2023, the schedule is following:

Friday	9am-12.15pm	Hrs	Instructor	Location
23.9	Introductions; Cultural, disciplinary, and interdisciplinary differences and requirements of academic writing in English compared to Czech/Slovak; Briefly on argumentative essays	1.5	Lyn Steyne	Teams
30.9	Understanding genre, purpose, audience, and the writing process	3	Lucia Grauzľová	Teams
	Recognizing and employing good practices in creating research questions and formulating thesis statements
14.10	Finding and evaluating sources for reliability and relevance	3	Lucia Grauzľová	G104
	Organizing and saving your sources, citations, and work
21.10	Plagiarism and its consequences	2	Ágnes Simon	Teams
	Recognizing and implementing academic norms in citing others' work ethically
28.10	Recognizing and producing an effective academic paragraph using a topic sentence and appropriate paragraph development	3	Lyn Steyne	Teams
	Summarizing and paraphrasing skills
4.11	Effective use of discourse markers	3	Lyn Steyne	G104
	Applying effective organisational, and coherence and cohesion strategies to academic texts; writing lab
25.11	Structure of an argumentative essay + intros+ conclusions	3	Ágnes Simon	Teams
	Developing valid arguments effectively in a short paper (academic argumentative essay)
9.12	Feedback session/tutoring	1.5	All	G104

Students will be assessed on the following:

Active participation
Submission of all weekly/bi-weekly assignments (successfully completed)
Submission of final paper (1500-word argumentative essay with effective reasoning and argumentation, appropriate formatting, and proper citations)

How to apply

Applications must be entirely in English and include the following:

Motivation letter (no more than one page in English)—please be sure to include the answers to the following questions:
What training have you had in academic writing (where and when with whom)?
What motivated you to apply for this course?
What do you expect to get out of this course?

2. a. For AWP I

ONE of the following:
An article (in English) that you’ve already published.
A short description (no more than one page in English) on your research and where you're at in the process.

b. For AWP II

A draft of a paper (in English) you are already working on.

These documents need to be submitted via: https://forms.gle/b1qaJ3UYMJeDmJj57.

Deadline for applications:

a. AWP I

Tuesday, the week before the semester (September)

Notification of acceptance: Thursday, first week of the semester

Initial meeting: Friday, first week of the semester

b. AWP II

Tuesday, the week before the semester (February)

Notification of acceptance, Thursday, first week of the semester

Initial meeting: Friday, first week of the semester

Criteria for selecting participants

Applications will be evaluated on the following:

The applicant’s level of interest in and motivation for taking the course
Prior experience in academic writing

Selected bibliography for instructors

Bean, John: Engaging Ideas: The Professor's Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom, 2nd Edition. Jossey-Bass: 2011.

Belcher, Wendy Laura: Writing Your Journal Article in Twelve Weeks, Second Edition: A Guide to Academic Publishing Success. Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing, 2019.

Birkenstein, Cathy, and Gerald Graff. They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, 3rd edition. Norton, 2016.

McCarthy Michael and Felicity O’Dell: Academic Vocabulary in Use with Answers. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

Swales, John and Christine Feak: Academic Writing for Graduate Students, 3rd Ed. Michigan, 2012.

Swales, John and Christine Feak: Creating Contexts: Writing Introductions Across Genres. Michigan: 2011

Swales, John: Research Genres: Explorations and Applications. Cambridge, 2004.

Acknowledgement

This course is supported by a generous grant from the European Union’s Erasmus+ program Improving academic teaching and internationalisation through enhanced competences of university teachers (IMPACT) No. 2019-1-SK01-KA203-060671.