This course aims to support you in your writing tasks by developing 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 hopefully 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. Note that the content of the lectures of the intermediate track and the advanced track differ.
Classes will contain a mix of interactive lecture elements and class exercises. There will be only a small amount of preparation during the two weeks of the course, but a lot of the work doesn’t start until the sessions are over.
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 2024
- End date: 21 March 2024
- Min. number of students: 5
- Max. number of students: 12
- Concluding assessment: yes
- Admission criteria: This course is open to PhD researchers of the Faculty of Social Sciences and its partners ABRI, GS HUM, AISSR and ZU. Minimum requirement Intermediate track: have completed or in the writing stage of the Re-search Proposal Minimum requirement Advanced track: one draft article completed. To gain most from this course, it is important that the text has not been language edited by others. After signing up, participants are asked to submit a text (proposal or other relevant text for track 1 and one draft article for track 2) that they have recently worked on, up to 2000 words in length. The texts will be used to help determine the appropriate course (intermediate or advanced) and the precise content of the course. Send your text to the course lecturer no later than two weeks before.
- 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
- Roster/schedule info:
6 sessions, 09.30-12.15
Monday 4 March
Thursday 7 March
Monday 11 March
Thursday 14 March
Monday 18 March
Thursday 21 March
- Registration deadline: 5 February 2024
- Available to: This course is open to GSSS PhD researchers and with a good fit also to others. Free of charge for VU-GSSS, AISSR and ZU PhD Candidates. A fee of € 540 applies for all other PhD candidates.
Name of teacher: Dr. Gea Dreschler (g.a.dreschler@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 hopefully 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. Note that the content of the lectures of the intermediate track and the advanced track differ.
Classes will contain a mix of interactive lecture elements and class exercises. There will be only a small amount of preparation during the two weeks of the course, but a lot of the work doesn’t start until the sessions are over.
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 2024
- End date: 21 March 2024
- Min. number of students: 5
- Max. number of students: 12
- Concluding assessment: yes
- Admission criteria: This course is open to PhD researchers of the Faculty of Social Sciences and its partners ABRI, GS HUM, AISSR and ZU. Minimum requirement Intermediate track: have completed or in the writing stage of the Re-search Proposal Minimum requirement Advanced track: one draft article completed. To gain most from this course, it is important that the text has not been language edited by others. After signing up, participants are asked to submit a text (proposal or other relevant text for track 1 and one draft article for track 2) that they have recently worked on, up to 2000 words in length. The texts will be used to help determine the appropriate course (intermediate or advanced) and the precise content of the course. Send your text to the course lecturer no later than two weeks before.
- 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
- Roster/schedule info:
6 sessions, 09.30-12.15
Monday 4 March
Thursday 7 March
Monday 11 March
Thursday 14 March
Monday 18 March
Thursday 21 March
- Registration deadline: 5 February 2024
- Available to: This course is open to GSSS PhD researchers and with a good fit also to others. Free of charge for VU-GSSS, AISSR and ZU PhD Candidates. A fee of € 540 applies for all other PhD candidates.
Name of teacher: Dr. Gea Dreschler (g.a.dreschler@vu.nl)