230728 Englisch: English Academic Writing II: Academic Writing Techniques (S) (SoSe 2026)

Students must complete two writing projects to receive LPs. Students will do several revisions of their texts before the projects are completed.

Project #1: A comparative summary based on an article comparing several aspects of US and German society. Selection of information, organization, structure and writing style will be stressed during this project.

Project #2: Writing an abstract for an academic paper describing the cultural elements evident in the academic writing styles of Germany, the US, and France. In preparation students will read, analyze and rewrite multiple abstracts taken from published academic papers. Emphasis is on both reading and writing skills. Students must first evaluate, analyze and extract the most important information from a 2500 word text, and then assemble and write that information into a very concise abstract of 300 words that accurately describes the research describe in the longer text.

Students should expect to spend between 1-2 hours each week on their writing and homework exercises. A weekly homework script will be used which contains the reading and writing assignments as well as problem exercise sets on paraphrasing, revision, editing and rewriting techniques as used in English academic writing.

Please note that weekly participation in the (weekly) Friday class sessions is required. Students who will miss more than 3 classes should consider waiting to take this course in a future semester. Individual Zoom conferences will take place during the semester to discuss the writing and revisions of the writing assignments.

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

Requirements for participation, required level

"Academic Writing II" is an advanced native-speaker university level English academic writing course.

Students should have either completed Academic Writing I: Fundamentals or have experience writing, revising and editing Bachelors, Masters or PhD Theses, or research papers intended for professional journals.

** 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

If have not taken Academic Writing I and have not yet written a Bachelor or Master's thesis or submitted an article in English for publication:
- Try the SELF-TEST at https://robertcthomas.com/uni-writing-i-ii-questionnaire/ You can send it to robert.thomas@uni-bielefeld.de for an evaluation
- You are welcome to sign up for both Academic Writing I & II on the EkVV - come to both classes the first week or two to decide for yourself if Writing II is the best course for you

An English reading comprehension level of B2 to C1 is highly recommended.

Required knowledge and experience with the following techniques:
- parallel construction use, both the sentence and paragraph level
- using relative, participle and prepositional clauses to vary sentence structure
- correct use of active voice
- errors using nominatives/passive voice and expletives
- writing single-topic based texts,
- evaluating a text for focus and coherence using subject-verb progression, at paragraph and sentence level

Note: The course requires completion of two major writing projects., requring 1-2 hours of highly-focused weekly writing homework each week. This is not an exaggeration. The course requires considerable determination, self-discipline and persistence.

This course will take place entirely online.