Academic Writing Reference

Dear all,

I am sharing a link to a reference folder I have made on Google Drive. I will keep uploading useful resources there so please keep visiting it and making use of it. If you come across something useful share it with me and I will add it to the folder. Let's make a rich reference resource for this course.

Here's the link -

Academic Writing Reference

Bridges to Academic Writing

Dear all,

This is the book that we are going to use as a course book for Academic Writing.

I am attaching a link to its soft copy here so you can access it from anywhere - Bridges to Academic Writing.

Please make sure you attend the lectures as we go through it together. It will be very helpful for your exams as well as for your general academic writing skills. Those of you who want to pursue further research should attend this sessions without fail.

See you in class..

Academic Writing Plan

Here's a link to the Academic Writing Plan that we discussed in class today in case you missed it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxKHBzmgzTpbWmV4d3hDX3dURDQ/view?usp=sharing

Its subject to change according to your needs. So, please don't consider it finalized. Confirm with me before going ahead with any task.

Task 1: Academic Writing Guide links

Here are some of the links as promised...

Massey University Academic Writing Guide

UEA academic writing and Study Skills resources

You need not use everything you find there. Pick and choose according to your need. You can also use of the resources for your personal remedial work.

Welcome Batch of 2014-15!!

Dear scholars,

Welcome to a brand new semester! In the last semester, you explored research methodology and in this semester, we will explore how to put your research into writing. That is our goal for the course 'Academic Writing'.

We will do lots of reading and writing and I expect all of you to participate actively and respect deadlines :). I am sure it will be challenging as well as achievable.

So, let's begin. If you have any comments, expectations, queries, feel free to post them as a comment here.

All the best!!

Academic Writing: Mechanics

Dear all,

Here's another site that we will use for learning and practising academic writing skills.

Click here

We will be using this site in subsequent classes.

Summary: Reading material

Dear scholars,

I am adding two links here Summary Writing and Writing a Summary

These webpages clearly explain summary writing. This will help you to consolidate all that you have learnt by doing till now in Summary as genre.

This will also help you in your exams.

If you have any questions please contact me.

Reworked Summaries

Dear academics,

I am very pleased that we were able to work on the summaries you had posted. Now post your reworked summaries here.

Let's continue this work successfully...

A summary of the Stephen Krashen talk.

Dear all, 

Here is a summary of the youtube video - Stephen Krashen's Talk 1 - Please read it and compare it to the responses you have posted above. This will give you an idea of where you are going wrong and where you need to improve. If you have any doubts, please contact me or post a comment here.

A summary of "Stephen Krashen's talk 1"

Stephen Krashen in his talk posted on youtube (retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqukbEigUtk ) takes a stance against the commonly held belief amongst academics in USA that phonemic awareness is a key requirement for a child in acquiring the reading skill. Instead, he claims the opposite that phonemic awareness is a result of being able to read, not the cause of being able to read.  He refutes this belief by claiming the National Reading Panel that stated this did not base its claim on adequate number of studies. The studies that claim to have proved the importance of phonemic awareness are flawed in their methodology and hence, their results are not reliable. 

I hope this exercise helps you.

Summary Assignment

Dear all,

We have talked about summary as a genre of academic writing in class. Your task for this week is to prepare a summary of the essay "What's the Big Idea?" and post it as a comment to this post. Your deadline for this task is 15th February, Saturday. 

You can access the essay online here What's the Big Idea?

Please take note that this assignment will also be considered as part of the 'Academic Writing Portfolio' that you are compiling for final internals.

PS: PLEASE TAKE NOTE THAT ASSIGNMENTS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AFTER THE DEADLINE. IF YOU HAVE ANY GENUINE ISSUES IN MEETING THE DEADLINE, MAKE SURE YOU SHARE THEM WITH ME WELL IN ADVANCE.

Your new idea!!

Dear students,

I recently came across this talk given by Krashen. It is a very good example of what we have been discussing in class i.e. any piece of academic writing is about "your new idea" that you contribute to the wider academia.

Here is a task - Watch the video below and post below what is the new "claim" that Krashen is making. He is responding to a concept that has been talked about quite a lot in the academia.

You have this weekend to figure it out and post your replies. We will discuss your responses in class on monday.

You can watch it by clicking here - Stephen krashen talk 1

Waiting for your responses!! Enjoy your weekend!

Till now....

Here's a rough outline of what we have covered till date -

1. What is Academic Writing?

• Features of Academic Writing
• Academic Writing vs. General Writing

2. Academic Writing: Mechanics

• Academic Vocabulary Self Study Assignments
• Using Sources - Quoting and Paraphrasing

3. Academic Writing: Genres

• Summary (in process)

If you have any doubts, queries  please post them as a comment here..

Right now, all of you are in the process of writing a summary assignment. 

Welcome academics!

We are aware of how much you enjoy working on the net!! So, I thought it would a great medium for us to begin an out of class discussion / forum. If you have any questions in class that you dont get an opportunity to ask, simply post them here. We will deal with them in detail.

I will post summaries of what we did in a certain lecture and you can post your responses. We can also have online submissions. Please post your comments and suggestions as to how we can make an optimum use of this blog.

All suggestions are welcomed!!

This is our blog - our academic blog and let's make the best use of it.

anna ma'am