In this lecture you will work through the phases of an academic writing project step by step:

We start from finding a topic for an individual paper, discuss how to distillate it to a precise focus or research question. Based on this, we learn how to find structure for the writing process as well as for the text product.

Using different strategies of writing and reading in an efficient order, we develop our text product continuously from a first draft to a second draft and end up with a final version that fulfils all academic standards.

It is a “How to” course which will theoretically and practically cover the following questions:

How to… ?

• find a good topic.
• distillate a specific research question, theses or hypotheses, or aim for the text
• build a good structure
• manage the text production process
• find and integrate literature
• design your writing process
• get a first draft on paper
• improve content argumentation and structure of your draft
• integrate feedback to come to a second draft
• improve your academic style an fulfil formal affordances
• finalise a text according to the CDS criteria

We will go through these “How To” topics while producing an individual paper, from the first idea to a final text product.

The final grade will consist of at least 18 tasks to be completed and the delivery of a final text:

About one half of the tasks (9) will be done throughout interactive methods "in class", the other tasks are (9+) assignments that should be completed from one session to the next.

To finish this lecture successfully, you must participate in 6 "in class tasks" (compensation of one missing session possible) and in 6 assignments in time and deliver a final text version.

To achieve grade 1, you should take part successfully in all 9 "in class tasks" (compensation of one missing session possible), complete 9 assignments in time and deliver a good final text version.