Introduction to Academic Writing (Coursera)

In this course, you will learn to effectively communicate your research questions and findings to an interested audience using reading and writing skills. With writing being an important method of thinking, you will learn how the practice of writing allows you to arrive at complex insights about your research area and develop your arguments systematically. This course focuses on the process of developing an argument through the examination of claims and evidence. It also familiarizes you with the structure of academic writing, which will help you better grasp the process of reading academic articles and writing your research. Through a mix of presentations and practice questions, this course provides you with a solid foundation for approaching the process of critical reading and writing in your respective disciplines. It will also cover other writing genres that are relevant to you, including writing for popular media and policy briefs, allowing you to explain how the writing process differs in these areas.

What You Will Learn

- Identify the structural parts of an academic paper.

- Construct evidence-based arguments and articulate them within conventions of academic writing.

- Describe basic skills of writing policy briefs and writing for popular media.

- Explain how to structure a dissertation or journal article.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Introduction to Academic Reading and Writing

This module introduces you to the genre of academic writing and its distinction from other writing genres by focusing on the structure of an academic paper. You will learn how to develop your arguments based on claims and evidence. Through a detailed annotation of a sample academic paper, you will learn the basic building blocks of making an evidence-based argument.

WEEK 2

Literature Review and Referencing

Literature review and referencing are two fundamental aspects of research writing. In this module, you will learn how literature review can help you assimilate insights from multiple texts into clear insights. You will discover that referencing is a technical requirement in academic writing and a crucial way to show the credibility of the evidence. This module focuses on the logic and place of literature review and citation in an academic text.

WEEK 3

Writing Policy Briefs and Writing for Popular Media

This module introduces you to a different writing genre, which will enable you to communicate with a wider audience. You will learn about writing policy briefs and writing for popular media in the form of op-eds and blogs. You will gain insights into the useful guidelines for formulating arguments and thinking about diverse audiences.

WEEK 4

Dissertation Writing

In this module, you will learn about the process of writing a dissertation. You will build upon the skills learned in the earlier modules and focus on the stages of dissertation development. You will learn how to arrive at a research question. This module discusses some writing guidelines for publication in peer-reviewed academic journals.