NJ_AA30 Exercises in writing a final thesis in German

Faculty of Education
Spring 2025
Extent and Intensity
0/1/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
In-person direct teaching
Teacher(s)
Roland Anton Wagner, M.A., Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Roland Anton Wagner, M.A., Ph.D.
Department of German Language and Literature – Faculty of Education
Contact Person: Helena Rytířová
Supplier department: Department of German Language and Literature – Faculty of Education
Prerequisites
Receptive competence in German (usually corresponding to stage C1 of the CEFR) facilitating the understanding of complex texts; productive skills (at least completed stage B2 of the CEFR) which allow the student to produce longer, connected texts in German.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
The aim of the course is to provide students working on a thesis in German language with assistance concerning the linguistic features of academic texts in German. Grammatical, stylistic and lexical peculiarities of academic writing in German will be addressed, illustrated through authentic texts and trained in suitable productive tasks during the meetings. In addition, the course gives students the opportunity to consult concrete writing problems with the lecturer.
Learning outcomes
After completing the course, students should be able to
- identify the typical features of academic texts in authentic material,
- recall the structural vocabulary used in academic texts to accomplish objectives such as cross referring within texts, emphasising important points, confronting different positions, arguing a point of view etc.,
- use appropriate vocabulary and grammatical constructions while writing an academic text in their respective discipline.
Syllabus
  • - Structuring academic texts, specialized vocabulary for signalling text structure;
  • - Cross referring within the text;
  • - Opening a new topic, subsuming new points under a given topic, shifting topics; functional sentence perspective;
  • - Arguing a point;
  • - Confronting different points of view, expressing one’s own point of view;
  • - The author and the addressee within the text;
  • - Passive constructions;
  • - Nominalizations and limits of their use in contemporary German academic writing;
  • - Describing figures and tables;
  • - Specific writing problems of the participants of the course;
Literature
    required literature
  • GRAEFEN, Gabriele and Melanie MOLL. Wissenschaftssprache Deutsch: lesen - verstehen - schreiben : ein Lehr- und Arbeitsbuch. Edited by Angelika Steets. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011, 181 s. ISBN 9783631609484. info
Teaching methods
reading and analysing authentic academic texts in German, doing exercises from the textbook (viz compulsory literature), class discussion, writing samples of academic texts as homework
Assessment methods
Credit points for successfully completing the course will be assigned on the basis of a short paper (e. g. a chapter from a real or fictive thesis) giving arguments for and against a certain solution at hand.
Language of instruction
German
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course is taught annually.
The course is taught: every other week.
Note related to how often the course is taught: každý druhý týden v kombinované formě.
Information on the extent and intensity of the course: 6 hodin v kombinované formě.
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2024.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2025, recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/ped/spring2025/NJ_AA30