Free Academic Writing Skills Course for Radboud University Students
You have to write a paper for a research course, or you will be starting your Bachelor’s or Master's thesis this academic year. But how will you make sure that your text is structured and legible and that your style, language use, and punctuation are correct? In short: how do you submit a writing assignment or thesis that you can be proud of?
Will you start writing soon, or have you started already? Register for this course soon: it’s free for all Radboud University students in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Enrolment Requirements
This course is only aimed at Radboud University students in their third year of a Bachelor’s programme or in a (pre-)Master's programme. This courses supports you during the writing process. During the course, you will hand parts of your text for teacher and peer feedback. That is why it is crucial that you are writing a text during the course period, such as your thesis, a research proposal, or an essay.
Content
- Genre and disciplines
- The writing process
- What type of writer are you?
- The ideal writing process
- Making an outline
- Structuring your text
- Writing the first draft
- Structure
- Text and paragraph structure
- Coherence
- Readability
- Conciseness
- Information flow
- Style
- Level of formality
- Explicit communication
- Use of jargon
- Well-written sentences
- Recognising and avoiding ill-formed sentences
- Linking
- Punctuation
What you will do and learn in this course and how you will do this
- Building and improving the academic text you are currently working on.
- Tasks on writing skills and writing process
- Regular deadlines for text parts
- Becoming aware of your own strengths and weaknesses in writing
- Peer and instructor feedback
- Becoming aware of academic and field-specific genre
- Homework tasks based on extracts from articles in different fields.
- Examining example texts from your own field
- Improving your academic English and Dutch
- Homework tasks and instructor feedback
During this course, you will receive personal instructor feedback on your text.
This course is taught according to the principles of the flipped classroom: you will study the topic of a session before it is discussed in that session. Before each session, you are expected to study online materials related to the topic of that session. Each online module will guide you through ‘readings’ (containing theory) which prepare you for subsequent ‘tasks’ (interactive exercises).
Dates and times
Number of meeting: 5 sessions of 1 hour and 45 minutes
Individual study: 2 to 3 hours per session
Location: on campus at Radboud University
This course will be presented by an Academic Writing Skills lecturer who has experience with the different professional fields that are represented at Radboud University.
This course will be given several times in the academic year 2023-2024.
- November 2023- Writing Skills English (spoken language English):
- Class on Monday from 13.30 - 15.15 hours
- Dates: 6 November, 13 November, 27 November, 4 December and 11 December
- Classes take place at Radboud University campus
- January 2024 - Writing Skills English (spoken language English):
- Class on Monday from 13.30 - 15.15 hours
- Dates: 29 January, 5 February, 19 February, 26 February and 4 March
- Classes take place at Radboud University campus
- April 2024 - Writing Skills English (spoken language English):
- Class on Tuesday from 10.30 - 12.15 hours
- Dates: 9 April, 16 April, 7 May, 14 May and 21 May
- Classes take place at Radboud University campus
- April 2024 - Writing Skills Dutch (spoken language Dutch):
- Class on Tuesday from 10.30 - 12.15 hours
- Dates: 9 April, 16 April, 7 May, 14 May and 21 May
- Classes take place at Radboud University campus
Fees and registration
Course fee: FREE *
* If you are a student at Radboud University, this course is free of charge provided you meet the 80% attendance requirement. Failure to meet this requirement will result in a charge of the course fee of 125 euro. This 80% rule is strictly adhered to and Radboud in'to Languages cannot make any exceptions in this respect. Only the event of a timetable change made by Radboud University, which results in the student's compulsory lectures overlapping with the course they are taking with us, can void the 80% attendance requirement. Please contact info@into.ru.nl if this is the case.