Academic writing workshops

ACADEMIC WRITING WORKSHOP SERIES

“The ABCs of Academic Writing” Series comprises two 4-hour workshop sessions (described below). The first session will address the "macro" elements of writing an academic research report (learning about the different parts of the academic research report), while the latter will deal with the "micro" elements (practising the thinking and writing skills).

These two sessions can also be paired with a guided writing workshop in which participants apply what they have learnt during the workshop to their own research writing projects.

Targeted Audience

• Students Doing Research Writings: Graduate & Undergraduate Students; 
• Junior College Students; and 
• Polytechnic students

Course Overview

Through the use of excerpts of completed theses and published research articles, this workshop will adopt an activity-oriented approach to enable participants to: 

• Understand what goes under the specific components of an academic research report; 
• Study the content and the writing style;
• Engage directly in the critical thinking processes and practise formal writing skills involved in writing a good academic report; and 
• Revise sample pages of academic research writings done by themselves or their peers (depending on availability).

Session 1. Key Sections of an Academic Research Report 

By utilising excerpts of completed theses and published research articles from the participants' subject discipline as learning tools, participants will learn about the key sections of a thesis and their significance, as well as how to approach the coverage of the content for each section.

A.   Introduction: Background to the Problem; Theoretical Framework; Statement of Problem; Purpose of Study; Research Questions/Hypotheses; Significance of Study; Limitations/Delimitations; Assumptions; and Definitions of Terms

B.   Literature Review: Research and evaluation of sources for relevance; integration of sources within the writing

C.   Research Method: Research design; selection of your sample; data collection and data analysis methods

D.   Results/Findings: Description of results/findings; interpretation of results/findings

E.    Summary and Conclusion: Comparison and evaluation of your results/findings with previous research on this topic.

F.    Planning an Outline: Adopting a “reverse engineering” approach, we will break down the research article to determine its outline.

Session 2. Critical Reading Skills and the Writing Craft

In Session 2, participants will acquire and practise the specific skills to read and analyse academic texts critically. Moreover, we will delve into the writing skills needed to compose a readable text with ideas that flow logically from one to another. Finally, we will examine the attributes of the academic writing style and the diverse writing tones to learn how to convey our writing intent accurately.

A. Critical Reading Skills for Academic Texts

1.    Step 1 — Getting Acquainted: Annotation and Reading Log

2.    Step 2 — Delving into the Sources: Paraphrasing and Summarising

3.    Step 3 — Critical Response: Evaluation, Interpretation, and Integration

B. Writing Craft:

1.  Textual Unity: Logical flow of argument — development of ideas from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph

2.    Formulation of Sentences: Functional Purpose of Grammar

3.    Conveying Writing Intent: Word Choice and Syntax to produce the Desired Writing Voice, Writing Tone, Active vs. Passive Voice, & Word Play (Verbal Wit)

C. Revision: For this segment, participants will apply what they have learnt to samples of their own writings or their peers' writings (depending on preferences and availability)

Course Delivery and Costs

Workshops 1–2: 4 hours per workshop

·      Course Preparation (per workshop): Dependent on amount of preparation (ranging from SGD1,000–1,500)

·      Course Delivery (per workshop): SGD650 + transport costs (back-and-forth by taxi) + handout costs (if workshop is not organised by an institution: typically, the institution will bear the costs of printing the handouts)

·      Close reading of participant writings: SGD0.03/word (original wordcount)

Training Resources

PowerPoint Slideshow & Handouts

Materials Needed

Pen & Paper AND Laptop

Contact

Ms. Choo Kah Ying, kchoo7@gmail.com