HOW TO DEVELOP AND WRITE AN ACADEMIC PAPER
Syllabus
EN
IT
Learning Objectives
Course: 'How to Write and Develop an Acadmic Essay'
The course contributes to the achievement of the objectives of the degree course, in line
with the professional profiles and employment outlets envisaged, providing students with
notions useful for an in-depth and critical understanding of essay writing.
This course is designed to introduce the students to academic writing and basic research essay writing. The course outlines the fundamental principles, rhetorical modes, and structures of canonical essays along with the characteristics of proper paragraphing. Throughout the contact hours, students will be able to further engage with each step of academic writing from pre-writing and outlining to principles of research methodologies and argumentative strategies. Finally, the course will cover different types of academic essays, showing how to write each, using, and challenging the fixed models of essay writing to the advantage of the essay topic.
At the end of the course, students will understand the fundamentals of essay writing from prewriting to research and source differentiation.
The course provides tools to broaden research questions, encouraging them to explore their intended thesis statement and driving research questions coherently within their academic career. Furthermore, the course will cover systems of bibliographical annotation and citation methods with a focus on APA, primarily and minorily MLA or Chicago.
Students will be able to draw independent and critical claims about essay writing and reserach, stimulated by highlighting the connections between the concepts developed
during the course, the notions acquired throughout other courses and the links between these notions and the major contemporary economic, social, cultural issues.
By attending the course and interacting with the professor during the lectures, students will develop their communication skills and their ability to organise and share
articulate reasoning, combining notions of critical thought and reserach in an academic essay.
Through the study of essay writing, students will acquire the ability to
independently analyse and investigate specific topics related to the course contents.
Main objectives
Course objectives are articulated for each student to:
- Understand the principles of an academic essay in all its forms.
- Acquire the knowledge to expose and present their paper according to grammatical properness.
- Exemplify collective and individual research through practical and effective paragraphs.
- Focus on the development of logical division within a written academic text.
- Plan, pre-write and outline larger topics controversial and/ambivalent topics.
- Filter and (un)filter research bias in writing.
- Gain a clear and well-rounded knowledge of the necessary coherence of research writing.
- Understand the ethical and moral implications of research.
- Be able to focus on argumentative rhetoric.
- Be able to recognize where to polish, edit and refine writing.
- Be able to distinguish types of essays within canonical forms.
- Be able to evaluate sources.
- Consider the relationship within pieces of scholarship and reporting them into an essay.
- Write an annotated bibliography.
- Write a complete academic paper.
The course contributes to the achievement of the objectives of the degree course, in line
with the professional profiles and employment outlets envisaged, providing students with
notions useful for an in-depth and critical understanding of essay writing.
This course is designed to introduce the students to academic writing and basic research essay writing. The course outlines the fundamental principles, rhetorical modes, and structures of canonical essays along with the characteristics of proper paragraphing. Throughout the contact hours, students will be able to further engage with each step of academic writing from pre-writing and outlining to principles of research methodologies and argumentative strategies. Finally, the course will cover different types of academic essays, showing how to write each, using, and challenging the fixed models of essay writing to the advantage of the essay topic.
At the end of the course, students will understand the fundamentals of essay writing from prewriting to research and source differentiation.
The course provides tools to broaden research questions, encouraging them to explore their intended thesis statement and driving research questions coherently within their academic career. Furthermore, the course will cover systems of bibliographical annotation and citation methods with a focus on APA, primarily and minorily MLA or Chicago.
Students will be able to draw independent and critical claims about essay writing and reserach, stimulated by highlighting the connections between the concepts developed
during the course, the notions acquired throughout other courses and the links between these notions and the major contemporary economic, social, cultural issues.
By attending the course and interacting with the professor during the lectures, students will develop their communication skills and their ability to organise and share
articulate reasoning, combining notions of critical thought and reserach in an academic essay.
Through the study of essay writing, students will acquire the ability to
independently analyse and investigate specific topics related to the course contents.
Main objectives
Course objectives are articulated for each student to:
- Understand the principles of an academic essay in all its forms.
- Acquire the knowledge to expose and present their paper according to grammatical properness.
- Exemplify collective and individual research through practical and effective paragraphs.
- Focus on the development of logical division within a written academic text.
- Plan, pre-write and outline larger topics controversial and/ambivalent topics.
- Filter and (un)filter research bias in writing.
- Gain a clear and well-rounded knowledge of the necessary coherence of research writing.
- Understand the ethical and moral implications of research.
- Be able to focus on argumentative rhetoric.
- Be able to recognize where to polish, edit and refine writing.
- Be able to distinguish types of essays within canonical forms.
- Be able to evaluate sources.
- Consider the relationship within pieces of scholarship and reporting them into an essay.
- Write an annotated bibliography.
- Write a complete academic paper.
Prerequisites
No formal pre-requisites
Program
The course programme is divided into four inter-related parts as follows:
1)Pre Writing
2)Essay Writing, Theory, and Structure
3)Essay Types
4)Research Databases, Resources and Citation.
During each lecture, the lecturer presents the planned content with the aid of power point
presentations and invites students to critical reflection and dialogue.
Topics
WEEK 1
• Course introduction. The academic context of the essay. What is an essay?
• The art of the essay: Basic form and historical development. Why is it important?
• Orality vs writing research.
• Power of language + words as sings.
• Research question and thesis and intro to structure.
WEEK 2
• Rules, structure, and form of the academic paragraph.
• The act of prewriting and the writing process.
• Unity and coherence: the five body and the five body by extension.
• Ethics.
WEEK 3
• Research methods: from personal narrative to process essays and taxonomies and the ‘economics of an essay’.
WEEK 4
• Dilemma and ambivalence. Compare and contrast and cause-effect relationships.
• Addressing continuity within research.
WEEK 5
• Writing research, bibliographies, annotations styles and citation.
WEEK 6
• Argumentative strategies, editing and polishing.
WEEK 7
• Argumentative strategies, editing and polishing (continued). Re-establishing the controlling idea.
• Dissecting the essays of others.
WEEK 8, 9, 10
• Dissecting the essays of others (continued). + Annotated bibliography vs literature review.
1)Pre Writing
2)Essay Writing, Theory, and Structure
3)Essay Types
4)Research Databases, Resources and Citation.
During each lecture, the lecturer presents the planned content with the aid of power point
presentations and invites students to critical reflection and dialogue.
Topics
WEEK 1
• Course introduction. The academic context of the essay. What is an essay?
• The art of the essay: Basic form and historical development. Why is it important?
• Orality vs writing research.
• Power of language + words as sings.
• Research question and thesis and intro to structure.
WEEK 2
• Rules, structure, and form of the academic paragraph.
• The act of prewriting and the writing process.
• Unity and coherence: the five body and the five body by extension.
• Ethics.
WEEK 3
• Research methods: from personal narrative to process essays and taxonomies and the ‘economics of an essay’.
WEEK 4
• Dilemma and ambivalence. Compare and contrast and cause-effect relationships.
• Addressing continuity within research.
WEEK 5
• Writing research, bibliographies, annotations styles and citation.
WEEK 6
• Argumentative strategies, editing and polishing.
WEEK 7
• Argumentative strategies, editing and polishing (continued). Re-establishing the controlling idea.
• Dissecting the essays of others.
WEEK 8, 9, 10
• Dissecting the essays of others (continued). + Annotated bibliography vs literature review.
Books
Attending students:
1. Slides of the course.
2. Reading material distributed by the lecturers
Non attending students (below 80% attendance): will study ONE of the following textbooks for the oral exam:
They Say, I Say (Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein) WW Norton
Writing Academic English (Ann Hogue, Oshima A.) Longman/Pearson
1. Slides of the course.
2. Reading material distributed by the lecturers
Non attending students (below 80% attendance): will study ONE of the following textbooks for the oral exam:
They Say, I Say (Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein) WW Norton
Writing Academic English (Ann Hogue, Oshima A.) Longman/Pearson
Bibliography
Major textbooks:
They Say, I Say (Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein) WW Norton
Writing Academic English (Ann Hogue, Oshima A.) Longman/Pearson
Models for Writers (Alfred Rosa, Paul Eschholz) Bedford
How to Write a Thesis (Umberto Eco) MIT Press
They Say, I Say (Gerald Graff, Cathy Birkenstein) WW Norton
Writing Academic English (Ann Hogue, Oshima A.) Longman/Pearson
Models for Writers (Alfred Rosa, Paul Eschholz) Bedford
How to Write a Thesis (Umberto Eco) MIT Press
Teaching methods
The course combines different teaching methods: lectures and, where possible, writing labs. Lectures will provide students with the necessary information and
theoretical and practical guidance on the subject matter; segments of each class will be dedicated to critically engaging students with the knowledge they have acquired through discussions and presentations. Students are required to attend each class, come prepared, and participate in discussions.
Essay prompts will be discussed during the course.
theoretical and practical guidance on the subject matter; segments of each class will be dedicated to critically engaging students with the knowledge they have acquired through discussions and presentations. Students are required to attend each class, come prepared, and participate in discussions.
Essay prompts will be discussed during the course.
Exam Rules
Course assessment
The (default )verification of learning is achieved through two exams. A written midterm essay and a final oral examination.
In particular, the examination assesses the student's overall preparation, ability to integrate
knowledge of the different parts of the programme, consequentiality of reasoning, analytical
ability and autonomy of judgement. In addition, ownership of language and clarity of
exposition are assessed, in adherence with the Dublin descriptors.
After listening to the presentations, the lecturers communicate the results to the students
registered for the examination via the Delphi system.
Students must take the examination on all available dates.
The examination will be assessed according to the following criteria:
•
FAIL: important deficiencies and/or inaccuracies in the knowledge and understanding of
the topics; limited ability to analyse and synthesise, frequent generalisations and limited
critical and judgemental skills, the topics are set out inconsistently and with inappropriate
language;
•
PASS:
Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the topics; considerable capacity
for analysis and synthesis. Good autonomy of judgement. Arguments presented in a
rigorous manner and with appropriate/technical language
Excellent level of knowledge and thorough understanding of topics. Excellent
analytical and synthetic skills and independent judgement. Arguments expressed in an
original manner and with appropriate technical language.
Course evaluation for attending students:
Essay 50%; Final Oral Exam 50%.
The final exam is an oral test with questions from slides.
Course evaluation for non-attending students:
Essay 50%; Final Oral Exam 50%
The final exam is an oral test with questions from the textboook assigned for the course.
The (default )verification of learning is achieved through two exams. A written midterm essay and a final oral examination.
In particular, the examination assesses the student's overall preparation, ability to integrate
knowledge of the different parts of the programme, consequentiality of reasoning, analytical
ability and autonomy of judgement. In addition, ownership of language and clarity of
exposition are assessed, in adherence with the Dublin descriptors.
After listening to the presentations, the lecturers communicate the results to the students
registered for the examination via the Delphi system.
Students must take the examination on all available dates.
The examination will be assessed according to the following criteria:
•
FAIL: important deficiencies and/or inaccuracies in the knowledge and understanding of
the topics; limited ability to analyse and synthesise, frequent generalisations and limited
critical and judgemental skills, the topics are set out inconsistently and with inappropriate
language;
•
PASS:
Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the topics; considerable capacity
for analysis and synthesis. Good autonomy of judgement. Arguments presented in a
rigorous manner and with appropriate/technical language
Excellent level of knowledge and thorough understanding of topics. Excellent
analytical and synthetic skills and independent judgement. Arguments expressed in an
original manner and with appropriate technical language.
Course evaluation for attending students:
Essay 50%; Final Oral Exam 50%.
The final exam is an oral test with questions from slides.
Course evaluation for non-attending students:
Essay 50%; Final Oral Exam 50%
The final exam is an oral test with questions from the textboook assigned for the course.