ACADEMIC WRITING AUTUMN 2014

Instructors:    Radomíra Bednářová (rbednar@med.muni.cz)

                        Robert Helán (18899@mail.muni.cz)

Meeting times: Fridays (13:00 – 14:30; 14:40 – 16:10)

Dates:  6x per semester (10. 10., 17. 10., 31.10., 21. 11., 28. 11., 12. 12. 2014)


E-learning: Our course has its own e-learning materials on the Information System of Masaryk
University: https://is.muni.cz/auth/el/1411/podzim2014/DSAJz01/index.qwarp?prejit=3210273

Course description: This course is designed to help students improve their academic writing,
looking the issue from three different perspectives when a text is viewed as (1) a language object,
(2) a result of a creative writer´s process and (3) as an object written for a particular group of
readers. Students will become acquainted with these, meanwhile practicing writing their abstracts
and research article introductions.



                                               DATE

                                               TIME

                                            CLASS TOPIC

                                            ASSIGNMENTS

10 Oct

13.00 – 16.10

Introduction to the course

Basic principles for abstracts and research article introductions

Continuous reading tasks

Start writing abstracts

Find 10 research articles for corpus building for next lesson


17 Oct

13.00 – 16.10


Guest speaker on (1) building a body of texts (= corpus),

(2) writing abstracts

Continuous reading tasks

Start writing introductions

31 Oct

13.00 – 16.10


Guest speaker on creative techniques in research writing

Continuous reading tasks

Write a reflection of today´s seminar tasks

21 Nov

13.00 – 16.10

Methods section of RA

Results section of RA

word-sentence -paragraph structure: cohesion

Continuous reading tasks

Second drafts of abstracts and RAs


28 Nov


13.00 – 16.10

Results section of RA Discussion section of RA

Continuous reading tasks

Second drafts of abstracts and RAs



12 Dec

13.00 – 16.10

Course evaluation

Continue working on RAs





Instructional Resources:

·    Glasman-Deal, H. (2009) Science Research Writing for Non-Native Speakers of English. London:
Imperial College Press.

·    McCarthy, M. and F. O’Dell (2008) Academic Vocabulary in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

·    Paltridge, B. and S. Starfield (2007) Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language: A
Handbook for Supervisors. Oxon and New York: Routledge.

·    Paltridge, B. et al. (2009) Teaching Academic Writing. An Introduction for Teachers of Second
Language Writers. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press

·    Swales, J. (2009) Academic Writing for Graduate Students. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

·    Aitchinson, C., Kammler, B., Lee A. (2010)  Publishing Pedagogies for the Doctorate and
Beyond. New and London: Routledge.

·    Kamler, B and Thomson, P (2006) Helping Doctoral Students Write: Pedagogies for Supervision.
New York and London: Routledge.

·    Belcher, L (2009) Writing Your  Journal Article in Twelve Weeks: A Guide to Academic
Publishing Success. New York: Sage.

·    Fišer, Zbyněk: Deset let Ateliéru tvůrčího psaní na Filozofické fakultě Masarykovy univerzity
v Brně. In Tvůrčí psaní – klíčová kompetence na vysoké škole. Sborník příspěvků z mezinárodní
conference uskutečněné ve dnech 21. až 23. října 2004 na Filozofické fakultě Masarykovy univerzity
v Brně. 1. vydání. Brno

·    Elbow, P. (1973) Writing Without Teachers. New York: Oxford University Press

·    Hyland, K. (2009) Teaching and Researching Writing. Harlow Pearson Education.