This course, English Writing for Academic Purposes, aims to improve your writing skills. Good writing requires both knowledge and practice. The knowledge component is built into the lectures. The practical component is built into the tutorials. It is therefore important to attend both.

The content for the paper is divided into 3 parts.

Part I, Basic Academic Writing Skills, covers basic skills essential to all types of academic writing. Lectures include writing paragraphs, peer review, editing, revising and proofreading, generating ideas, writing outlines and other organising techniques, writing introductions & conclusions, summaries, using secondary sources, in-text citations, avoiding plagiarism, and bibliographies.

The writing skills you learn in this part of the paper will help you write better essays.

Part II of the course focuses on Different Types of Writing. Here we focus on the different types of essays students are required to produce in a university setting. We teach you how to vary your writing style so that you can write your assignments in different ways.

In this part of the course, we focus on arguments, narratives, and several types of description. Arguments are the fundamental writing task for students in Philosophy courses. They are also important in other fields.

Narratives are common in case studies and in laboratory reports, however, there are many pitfalls to using narrative, and these are covered in class. Descriptive writing is common in all fields of study. Descriptive writing includes summaries, critiques, comparison and contrast, classifications, definitions and exemplification.

Part III deals with Special Topics. We focus on the differences between writing papers for different departments and different faculties. Although the basic structure of the essay and the types of texts are similar, there are some differences between writing a paper in Linguistics and one in Literature. There are also some differences between writing a paper in History and one in Psychology. Students often do well in their major but sometimes when they decide to take a one-off paper for interest in another discipline, they find that they are suddenly getting C's instead of A's. This part of the course attempts to explain why.

We look at three extremes in academic writing: writing reports, writing about quantitative research, and writing for examinations. Some of these are common writing types in some fields (Economics, Mathematics, Computer Science) but not others (Literature). Even if you don't have to write a report, it is often interesting and informative to know how your writing differs from others. You may also find the lecture on report writing useful in your future employment. Many businesses ask their employees to analyse data and write it up in the form of a report.

Purpose of course

When you finish this course you should be able to write a well-written and well-organized essay that addresses the question being asked and does so in an appropriate way. This course does not guarantee ‘A’ grades in your other courses. It is not a "quick fix". However, most students who take this course comment that they now find writing essays easier and that their marks on essays have improved. This course will assist you greatly in all other papers that require you to write essays.

An ‘A’ paper has three essential ingredients: it is well-written, the essay is on the topic (it answers the question), and the topic is well-researched. This paper will help you learn how to write a well-written essay. It will outline how to write a research paper and how to address the question being asked. It will not teach you the technical terms and concepts that are needed to write a good paper in your particular field nor does it do the research for you. You will still have to set time aside to plan, write and edit your essay.

The content for this paper is provided in the lecture, so attendance is vital. If you cannot attend a lecture, get notes from a colleague (establish a contact asap). The readings are secondary, and a lot of the information in the lectures are not repeated in your readings. Lectures start at 10:05 and end at 10:55. There are two lectures per week Monday and Wednesday.

It is okay to tape the lecture. Some of the lectures are available in the Language Labs (location to be announced). They are labeled under Linguistics.

Most of the powerpoints and overheads used in class are there and then you need only make notes alongside the overheads. Here is the url:  http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/online/index.cfm?S=OL_ENGWRIT101

If you lose this Course book another copy is available from the secretary at the Dept of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics, Fisher Bldg 8^th Floor.

The tutorials contain the practical component of the course. In order to learn how to write, you must practise writing at home, and in tutorials. Because you need to practise writing, the tutorials are obligatory. You must sign up for and attend 1 tutorial per week. Tutorials start Monday, February 28.

I expect you to read the lecture outlines and accompanying readings before the class. This is sometimes essential if you want to follow the lecture, and will help you gain a better understanding of the sample texts when they are analysed.

It is important to purchase a writer's handbook. These are listed on page 3. You will need a writer's handbook for this course (and hopefully in all the other courses you take at university). You will use it for the rest of your life. Buy a writer's handbook as an investment in your academic life.

Most writers’ handbooks have three parts: basic writing, referencing, and grammar. The writing sections are useful, as they complement information from the lectures, but the referencing and grammar sections are even more so.

You will not have to read the grammar section for this course. However you will be using the grammar section in your assignments. I do not teach grammar in this course, but I will point out the nature of your problem (parallel sentences, sentence fragments, commas etc), and note it next to your assignment mark. I will expect that you NOT make the same mistake again.

I don't teach grammar for several reasons: (1) a lot of the research shows that teaching grammar does not improve your sentence structure. Neither does correcting your errors. (2) Everyone has a different type of mistake, and it is not particularly useful to learn about other peoples' mistakes.  (3) The Dept of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics offers courses on English grammar; you may take one if you want to learn more about nouns, sentence types etc. Research has shown, however, that increasing your awareness of grammatical errors does help, so that is what we attempt to do in your assignments.

Library

As part of the requirements for this paper, I want you to know your way around the library. If you haven't seen the General Library, visit it this week. One of your assignments for this course will require you to find a wide range of library resources (electronic materials, articles in journals etc). If you do not know how to use the library, you will not be able to do the assignment.

You will be introduced to the library resources in this course (Library tutorials April 11 & 12 ), but the more you know, the better off you will be for your last assignment.

DELNA Testing

• DELNA is a diagnostic procedure intended as a mechanism for delivering effective English language support to those most in need of it.
• It is not a selection tool and will not be used to exclude students from a particular programme.
• The diagnostic component takes about two hours and gives a thorough assessment of English strengths and weaknesses and, for our purposes, especially written English.
• Students receive feedback about their performance in the form of a written profile of their ability in the different skill areas.
• Should students need assistance in particular areas, the profile is accompanied by advice about ways of getting help with their English.
• It is an additional resource that the ENGWRIT 101 course provides for its students, an opportunity for further self-development.