230728 Englisch: English Academic Writing II (S) (WiSe 2026/2027)

Students must complete an abstract writing projects to receive LPs. Students will do several revisions of their text before the project is completed.

Semester Project: 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.

Teilnahmevoraussetzungen, notwendige Vorkenntnisse

READING & WRITING FOR RESEARCH

The weekly classes focus on hands-on writing exercises using Epads and Breakout Rooms. Techniques for improved reading skills, text analysis and advanced academic English writing techniques will be extensively covered in this course.

1. Working with journal articles & abstracts
- learn advanced English academic writing for research and journal publications
- each week get "hands-on" writing practice with individualized suggestions & help
- the writing techniques and processes native-speakers students use in university
- the structures and forms used in English academic texts & papers

2. Reading techniques & tricks used by medical & law graduate students in the US
- learn the speed-reading techniques used by native-speaker graduate students when reading long academic texts
- learn how to read and mark English academic texts quickly and with accuracy
- learn how to "Skim, Scan and Chunk" an academic text

3. Writing skills and techniques necessary for research and journal publications
- learn breakdown & analysis techniques for English journal articles & academic texts
- analyzing published articles: what is good? what is bad? how can you improve your writing?
- learn the specific writing techniques required to write a quality journal or research article
- the Plain English movement in regard to scientific writing: what does it mean to one's writing
- techniques to analyze your own writing: find and fix problem areas in your texts
- learn how to analyze & fix your problem areas in your articles and research texts

4. Analysis techniques to evaluate and edit your publication abstracts & article texts
- learn the specific style & writing qualities for abstracts that attract citation searches
- learn the structure & organization used for English academic journal & research publications
- how to efficiently use SEO keywords in your abstract (and avoid word bloat)
.