Building academic writing skills

The courses I teach on have a number of older people enrolling who are interested in adding to their knowledge kete. However, a long time may have passed between drinks of the academic pool. Their writing skills are likely to be rusty, or may never have been particularly well honed.

They are experts in their fields, but may arrive back into a learning environment needing reminders or rehabilitation to be able to learn well. While they also need to learn APA skills to be able to show their evidence, I would also advise these learners to rebuild their paragraphing skills.

To begin this learning, the following clips from Academic English Now may assist:

1. "Why your academic writing is a MESS" walks the reader through creating a coherent story with flow, with well-organised paragraphs. This is a tutorial explaining how to structure research ideas logically, illustrating the main reasons that academic writing lacks coherence, and how to fix it (2022a).
2. How to write a PERFECT paragraph in English: this tutorial explains starting a paragraph; the most important question each paragraph needs to 'answer'; developing a paragraph; and connecting ideas within one paragraph and then bridging to the next. (2022b)

Secondly, there is a MOOC platform made up of a consortium of learning providers called FutureLearn (read more here). I would recommend that we sign up with "Limited access", which is free. Later we might want to consider whether signing up will add any value: but I should add that I have never felt the need to pay for access. I have audited courses, interacted, and enjoyed the learning.

Once signed up, if someone was feeling entirely at sea in the learning environment, then I would recommend undertaking the University of Leeds (2024) course here, with an anticipated workload of two hours per week, for two weeks. That should remind older learners of what they already know from their undergraduate study, regardless of how many years ago that was.

Then there are some courses which focus on writing, and could be picked off, one by one, in the order I have suggested them below:

1. University of East Anglia (here). Developing writing, critical thinking, and analytical skills for university study
2. University of Reading (here).  An introduction to academic writing at university level
3. National Tsing Hua University (here). Critical analysis of research papers
4. University of Reading (here). The next level up on academic writing at university level

All of these will lift our writing skills, and the hours, nor length of courses are not onerous. There will be a lot of people on them, but the range and experience of students will add value.

I would advise only beginning another course once we have completed the previous one. Some people may find that only need one or two of these resources are sufficient for getting their academic writing up to speed. Others may find they need all of these, and are still seeking more.

I hope these are useful :-)

Sam

References:

Academic English Now. (2022a, May 17). Why your academic writing is a MESS (and how to fix it today) [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/yWy7-AyrgwQ

Academic English Now. (2022b, June 28). How to write a PERFECT paragraph in English (for academic texts) [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/1llwBW8BLi0

National Tsing Hua University. (2024). Deconstructing Research Articles: How to Read and Write a Research Paper [course]. FutureLearn. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/deconstructing-research-articles

University of East Anglia. (2024). Preparing for University [course]. FutureLearn. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/preparing-for-uni

University of Leeds. (2024). Skills to Succeed at University [course]. FutureLearn. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/skills-to-succeed-at-university

University of Reading. (2024). A Beginner's Guide to Writing in English for University Study. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/english-for-study

University of Reading. (2024). An Intermediate Guide to Writing in English for University Study [course]. FutureLearn. https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/english-for-study-intermediate