Writing in Academic Contexts

The course offers an introduction to academic writing in higher education. Students get a perspective on writing as a cooperative tool in cultural and social contexts: Why do we write academic texts, an for whom are we writing? What is the characteristics of academic texts, and how do we develop such texts? How does reading and writing cohere - and why it is important to cite sources? Through these questions we put academic texts in context and shows how they are a contribution to a larger ongoing dialogue in which both the reader, the text's purpose and genre is of great importance.

The course prepares the students for writing a bachelor thesis.

KNOWLEDGE

After completing the course the student will:
- appreciate writing as a social action, and academic texts as links in a larger "dialogue"
- appreciate how writing can underpin teaching processes, thought development and academic competence development
- have a general knowledge of central quality traits of academic texts
- understand mechanisms which create coherence in a text

SKILLS

After completing the course the student will:
- be able to use writing to develop ideas and academic competence
- have competence on writing and texts that can be utilised in education
- commands writing as a means for developing thoughts and ideas as well as his/her own academic competence
- knows of different academic forms of representation and genres, and is able to use these in writing, and in assessing other texts.
- can develop a text alone or with other students, and is able to offer and utilise responses to texts under development.

Lectures and groups. The students will be trained in developing texts and to give response on other student's texts.

Regarding assessment: compulsory activities need to be approved previous to evaluation of the texts included in the exam folder. Requirements for texts will be announced at course start.