This course aims to support you in your writing tasks by improving your English academic writing skills. The course content focuses on topics that will help you achieve more clarity and coherence in your text. Another important aspect of the course is individual feedback on your texts, helping you identify your personal strengths and weaknesses as an academic writer.
FSS – Writing Academic English
Dr. Gea Dreschler (g.a.dreschler@vu.nl)
Course description
Course objectives
This course is mainly geared towards helping you to develop your confidence about your written academic English. It shows you what you can do to improve your confidence in the short term, helps you to eradicate mistakes, and gives you new options for expressing complex ideas in well-structured English sentences. At the end of the course, you will have a clear idea of your strengths and weaknesses concerning written academic English. You will also be a better manager of your own text, and you will be equipped with a set of personalized criteria for editing your text. An additional aim is to give you support in approaching writing tasks.
Course content
Before the course you submit a text which the instructor will give feedback on before the first session. The actual course consists of six sessions. Session 1 is an introductory session: the lecturer will provide a presentation of participants’ skills profiles, quick fixes, remedial grammar issues; and there is room for Q and A over matters arising from the individual feedback you received on your submitted text. The remaining sessions cover both a fixed set of topics related to clarity and coherence, and topics based on the specific needs of the participants. One session will focus on the writing process, helping you to work through the more difficult stages.
Classes will contain a mix of interactive lecture elements and class exercises. There will be a small amount of preparation between the sessions, and there’s a more substantial assignment in the two weeks after the final session.
Study Characteristics
- Discipline: Academic Writing
- Language: English
- ECTS: 3
- Type of education: in class
- Academic skill: Generic
- Graduate School: Graduate School of Social Sciences
- Start date: 4 March 2025
- End date: 20 March 2025
- Min. number of students: 5
- Max. number of students: 15
- Concluding assessment: yes
- Admission criteria: This course is most useful for PhD students who have already had to write texts as part of their PhD. You will need at least two texts, or 2,500 words in total, to work with in the course.
- Assessment type: To obtain credits for the course, participants are required to be present at all sessions and to actively participate during class. Also, participants are required to successfully complete two separate writing and editing assignments.
- With certificate: yes, upon request
- Roster/schedule info:
Tuesday 4 March, 09.30-12.15
Thursday 6 March, 09.30-12.15
Tuesday 11 March, 09.30-12.15
Thursday 13 March, 09.30-12.15
Tuesday 18 March, 13.30-16.15 (note: afternoon)
Thursday 20 March, 09.30-12.15
- Registration deadline: 4 weeks before the start of the course
- Available for: GSSS PhD candidates and to others if there’s a good fit. Free of charge for VU-GSSS, AISSR, and ZU PhD candidates. A fee of €540 applies for other PhD candidates
Name of teacher: Dr. Gea Dreschler (g.a.dreschler@vu.nl)
Link tot profile: Gea Dreschler — Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (vu.nl)
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FSS – Writing Academic English (Intermediate and Advanced)
Course description
Course objectives
This course is mainly geared towards helping you to develop your confidence about your written academic English. It shows you what you can do to improve your confidence in the short term, helps you to eradicate mistakes, and gives you new options for expressing complex ideas in well-structured English sentences. At the end of the course, you will have a clear idea of your strengths and weaknesses concerning written academic English. You will also be a better manager of your own text, and you will be equipped with a set of personalized criteria for editing your text. An additional aim is to give you support in approaching writing tasks.
Course content
Before the course you submit a text which the instructor will give feedback on before the first session. The actual course consists of six sessions. Session 1 is an introductory session: the lecturer will provide a presentation of participants’ skills profiles, quick fixes, remedial grammar issues; and there is room for Q and A over matters arising from the individual feedback you received on your submitted text. The remaining sessions cover both a fixed set of topics related to clarity and coherence, and topics based on the specific needs of the participants. One session will focus on the writing process, helping you to work through the more difficult stages.
Classes will contain a mix of interactive lecture elements and class exercises. There will be a small amount of preparation between the sessions, and there’s a more substantial assignment in the two weeks after the final session.
Study Characteristics
- Discipline: Academic Writing
- Language: English
- ECTS: 3
- Type of education: in class
- Academic skill: Generic
- Graduate School: Graduate School of Social Sciences
- Start date: 4 March 2025
- End date: 20 March 2025
- Min. number of students: 5
- Max. number of students: 15
- Concluding assessment: yes
- Admission criteria: This course is most useful for PhD students who have already had to write texts as part of their PhD. You will need at least two texts, or 2,500 words in total, to work with in the course.
- Assessment type: To obtain credits for the course, participants are required to be present at all sessions and to actively participate during class. Also, participants are required to successfully complete two separate writing and editing assignments.
- With certificate: yes, upon request
- Roster/schedule info:
Tuesday 4 March, 09.30-12.15
Thursday 6 March, 09.30-12.15
Tuesday 11 March, 09.30-12.15
Thursday 13 March, 09.30-12.15
Tuesday 18 March, 13.30-16.15 (note: afternoon)
Thursday 20 March, 09.30-12.15
- Registration deadline: 4 weeks before the start of the course
- Available for: GSSS PhD candidates and to others if there’s a good fit. Free of charge for VU-GSSS, AISSR, and ZU PhD candidates. A fee of €540 applies for other PhD candidates
Name of teacher: Dr. Gea Dreschler (g.a.dreschler@vu.nl)
Link tot profile: Gea Dreschler — Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (vu.nl)