This course is designed to prepare graduate students rhetorically and linguistically for the kinds of academic writing they will be required to do during their MA program career. In the fall semester, students will become familiar with academic culture, products, and writing expectations, and then will learn how to execute specific academic writing tasks and skills that are used for their other courses’ writing assignments and for their own research. In the spring semester, students will revisit those tasks and skills and apply them in more complex ways to larger writing projects like a project proposal. The class sessions will consist of lectures, group discussions, and activities focused on each session’s topic.

In this course, for this semester, students will: 1) Become familiar with academic culture and academic products; 2) Learn how to find such products for their courses and research; 3) Become familiar with and use the rhetoric and language of expository English writing in general and academic English writing in particular; 4) Learn how to write definitions, data commentary, summaries, reaction papers, and annotated bibliographies; 5) Become familiar with the aspects of a research paper.

1) Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2004). 2nd ed. Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. 2) Swales, J. M., & Feak, C. B. (2004). 2nd ed. Commentary for Academic writing for graduate students: Essential tasks and skills. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press. 3) American Psychological Association. (2009). 6th ed. Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington DC: APA. You will also need additional handouts from Prof. Yin