230715 Englisch: English Academic Writing I: Academic Writing Fundamentals (S) (SoSe 2026)

Please note that this course will be online only. All lessons will be given using Zoom and Moodle.
[Bitte beachten Sie, dass dieser Kurs nur online verfügbar sein wird. Alle Lehrveranstaltungen werden mit Zoom und Moodle durchgeführt.]

Required Writing Projects (for LPs): 2 texts with several stages of revision and editing following detailed line-by-line notes from the teacher. There will also be a minimum of 3 one-on-one Zoom conferences during the semester to discuss your work.

Four types of English writing covered in this course:

- A Comparison Summary text: a summary of an article which describes research comparing two or more dissimilar things, e.g. cultures, processes, techniques. Students will learn how to correctly organize a text into paragraphs with topic sentences, write / create correct parallel sentences and structures, and learn standard academic English phrases and vocabulary used when comparing two or more dissimilar topics.

- An Intro-Background text: the first paragraphs which summarize and gives selected details which the reader needs to know in order to understand the main topic / main body of a text or article.

- A Sequential Events Description: a chronological text which includes selected details organized and linked using typical academic English connectors. Typical chronlogical texts describe chronological events or processes, e.g. historical events, a scientific process, or the conflict/climax section of a short story.

- A Conclusion-Summary: this comes at the end of an article, analysis or research paper and links the introduction/background from the beginning to the conclusion/summary which constitutes the final paragraph(s) of an academic text.

- HOMEWORK: In addition to the project writing assignments, a homework script will be used for weekly exercises in grammar and English writing techniques. Students should expect to spend between 1-2 hours each week on their writing assignments and homework exercises.

A key part of our weekly class meeting will be online group-writing projects using Epads which are guided and supervised by the teacher.

Requirements for participation, required level

"English Academic Writing I Fundamentals" is a native-speaker university level English academic writing course. This course requires considerable determination and you will do a lot of writing homework. Please be certain that you are prepared to do the work necessary before submitting the required questionnaire (see below).

Covered in this course:
- Technical analysis of academic texts
- Techniques for writing precise and technically correct texts
- Learn and master those techniques through multiple writing and rewriting of your texts

Technical writing techniques include:
- parallel construction at both the sentence and paragraph level
- sentence variation using relative, participle and prepositional clauses
- correct use of active voice
- identifying and correcting nominatives/passive voice and expletives
- experience writing single-topic based texts, including using a "topic hierarchy" to focus and unify a text

** Students must complete a questionnaire to get a place in the course.

- Register on the EkVV.
- Download the questionnaire at https://robertcthomas.com/uni-writing-i-ii-questionnaire/
- Complete and send to robert.thomas@uni-bielefeld.de

You can definitely learn to write good academic English during this semester, but you will need self-discipline and persistence. Note that you will sometimes feel discouraged by the challenges you will encounter writing at this level, so prepare yourself to be goal-oriented and success-focused when signing up for this course.

A minimum English reading level of B2 is highly recommended. Although a C-test (placement test) result is not required, a completed Questionnaire MUST be submitted to get a place in the course.

The course will take place entirely online.