Course description

N.B. You should participate in this course about 6 months into your PhD project or longer, preferably when you are writing the pilot study. Don't register for this course right at the start of your PhD project, it is important that you have started writing as you will work with your own texts.

The course focuses on writing effective, well-structured and coherent academic texts in English. It introduces strategies to improve the overall writing process, such as planning, outlining and becoming aware of disciplinary requirements. Other important course themes include writing effective and varied sentences, using punctuation marks effectively, improving text coherence and working with different techniques to improve the overall style of the text. Because the course participants typically use English as a second language (ESL), the course also pays attention to certain language issues that might arise at the level of vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation and grammar. Throughout the course, the participants will work towards laying the foundation of one of the chapters of their dissertation (or an academic article/pilot study) and will write a considerable part of this text. They will receive detailed and extensive feedback on their writing from the course instructor, who will also use the participants’ texts as a basis for the course material.

Course details

Attendance & assignments

To be able to complete the course successfully, the participants have to attend all classes. They should also submit at least two writing samples for feedback (1000-1200 words & 2500 words).

Important information about the course

Native speaker of English?

Although this is very much a writing course and most classes focus on different aspects of the writing process, improving style, different writing practices and so on, many participants write in English as a second language, so certain themes or questions that are particularly relevant for non-native speakers of English are also addressed. If English is your native language, then a quick Zoom intake meeting can be scheduled to discuss whether you would like to attend all classes or perhaps only a selection. Please note that the group does usually consist of a mix of native and non-native speakers and that, on the whole, the native speakers typically do attend all/most classes.

Have you started with the writing process?

Because this is a writing course, it is strongly recommend that you join the course once you've actually started with the writing process (chapter, article, pilot study). If you've just started with your PhD project, it might be better to join the course a bit later (this course is offered once in the fall semester and twice in the spring semester). Throughout the course you can submit various writing samples for feedback and participants find the combination of the group sessions and individual feedback particularly valuable.

Lecturer

The course will be taught by Lotte Tavecchio. Lotte holds a PhD in English Linguistics and has a special interest in sentence structure, punctuation, matters of style and contrastive linguistics. She works as a lecturer at Amsterdam University College (AUC) and is the owner of b-eloquent (www.b-eloquent.nl).