Academic skills writing for beginners

Course Description

Academic writing is an important part of being a researcher. In particular, when researchers seek to develop a sophisticated awareness of the conventions of academic writing, and how they vary between different disciplines. However, many are not formally trained in this skill. Here you will receive guidance and practice in making language and structure choices that improve clarity and readability in your academic publications and candidature documents.

This course is purposely designed for postgraduate students, young scholars and independent researchers who would like to improve their academic writing and research skills in order to succeed in their studies and career. The course presents participants with the opportunity to refine their academic writing skills in an interactive, practical way and to receive answers about academic writing in general. The course is organised to provide maximum hands-on practice for participants. Each session will include explanations, examples, exercises, and texts to help the participants develop techniques for working productively at different stages of the scholarly writing process.

Target Audience

The course is aimed at postgraduate (master and doctoral) students; and earlier career academics and researchers who intend to improve their academic writing skills.

Importance of the Course

Upon completion of this course, you should be able to:

• use a writing method and style which is appropriate for scientific articles, master’s, and PhD theses
• account for how a text is structured with respect to a selected theory, genre, language use and argumentation
• To gain an appreciation of what quality means in the context of academic writing.
• To understand the nuances of writing different sections of the postgraduate dissertation/thesis.
• To develop the ability to appropriately frame and structure a research argument using evidence as per disciplinary conventions.
• To understand the requirements of publication; and
• To reflect upon the social issues that are prevailing in the society, use research as a tool to find out the empirical evidence and write quality report to sensitize the society.

The following take-aways are planned:

• Participants shall have a strategy to improve quality of academic writing and the speed of text generation
• Participants shall be able to produce coherent and well-structured drafts
• Participants shall be able to develop individualised editing checklist to use to improve the readability and comprehension of generated text

Course book

Jordan, R. R. (2003). Academic writing course: Study skills. Pearson education. (attached).

Course Facilitator

Dr. Godfrey Mugurusi

The course will be given by Dr. Godfrey Mugurusi.

Godfrey is an Associate Professor & head of the logistics management program at the department of Industrial Economics & Technology Management in Gjøvik, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway. He currently teaches within the procurement and logistics disciplines. His research is within management cybernetics, innovative and sustainable public procurement, global sourcing, and digital ecosystems.  He has taught research methods on the doctoral program at the Faculty of Economics of the Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic. He has also participated on several research projects applications including with in healthcare services and with autonomous transport systems.