Academic Writing Made Easy

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Details

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Provider

edX
Pricing

Free Online Course (Audit)
Languages

English
Certificate

$65.00 Certificate Available
Duration & workload

8 weeks, 2-3 hours a week
Sessions

On-Demand
Subtitles

English

A Best Course of All Time

Found in

Overview

This MOOC takes you through the basics of academic writing step by step. From structuring and organising an academic text to avoiding common pitfalls that can negatively affect your credibility, this 6-week course offers a guide for those who want to improve their writing. It looks at various components that will make your academic writing stand out for all the right reasons, including paragraphing, style, tone, paraphrasing and punctuation. Using samples of student writing it also gives you tips on what to avoid and explains why. Each week is comprised of video lessons, followed by exercises and peer-review tasks, taking you through various aspects of academic writing.

The course requires upper-intermediate (B2) to advanced English (C1).

Syllabus

The MOOC “Academic Writing Made Easy” covers the following topics to help you improve your writing:

Week 1 Rhetorical Preferences: Meeting the expectations of your target group

Week 2 Genre: Differentiating between types of scholarly texts

The Writing Process: Overcoming writer's block

Week 3 Cohesion: Making your ideas flow logically

Week 4 Sentences: Writing reader-friendly sentences

Week 5 Credibility: Convincing your peers to accept and believe what you write

Week 6 Punctuation: Polishing your text

Putting it all together: Overcoming the last hurdles

Taught by

Dr. Heidi Minning, Jeremiah Hendren, Dr. Stephen Starck, Dr. Aparna Bhar, Susan O’Byrne, Rose Jacobs, Ruth Shannon and Huma Abid

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 54 Class Central reviews

4.7 rating at edX based on 10 ratings

Start your review of Academic Writing Made Easy

Azzeddine Hicher @dz2021
3

Hello

Azzeddine from Algeria

You are very very perfect. I wish so much to repeat the course again.

Thank you very very much.
Anonymous

I found the course helpful for those perusing college educations. The course is organized in selected six units, which were integrated. The course was taught by a team of instructors, which made it interesting as a new unit began. This online course…

I found the course helpful for those perusing college educations. The course is organized in selected six units, which were integrated. The course was taught by a team of instructors, which made it interesting as a new unit began. This online course has also means to self-evaluate lessons learned. It looks like essential for students of any discipline in higher education, if not for others. For example, I was just joining a university for post graduate education by the time I started learning the course ‘Academic writing made easy’. It has given me the insight how to improve course assignments and term papers. I hope it will help me in other academic writings; it encouraged me to attend more similar courses while practicing academic writing. Therefore, I can say it is an essential course I can recommend confidently to others.
Anonymous

I am in the middle of writing my masters thesis and I found my writing was lacking some stlyle. Even though it is supposed to be completed in a period of 6 weeks, I completed it in one day.
I found the unit where you were given a method on how to actually start writting particullary interesting and I think it helped me a lot.
Also the other units were very helpfull. There are so many things to you should pay attention to, but are not aware of if you just start writing.
Anonymous

The course provide me a new level of vocabulary, like technical words that used in every paragraph. I started to learn more about reading comprehesion, ways of narrative, the structure of an article, organize a text the way the reader can understand the content, that the credibility it’s very important, etc. I like watch the videos before a new task because they explain me an idea of what comes next and give me little tips that will help me to complete the task the best way. I hope to keep myself learning about the course and keep understending all the concepts that will help me to writing perfectly til my skills will be better.
Chresann D'souza
4

I truly found the course to be very helpful and informative. It touched upon the most basic and subtle things that we tend to overlook the most while writing.
The exercises that were conducted during the lectures helped in giving a better and clear understanding of the topic.
I would truly appreciate it if another level of this course will be aired, I'd love to be a part of it again and enhance my knowledge!
I'm grateful to everyone who made it possible for me to attend this course.
Anonymous

The course avoids unnecessary detail and just addresses the most common problems encountered during the writing process. It is very beginner-friendly, and it is a good introduction to the process of academic writing.
Anonymous

I took this course because I wanted to improve my academic writing and I can finally say that I have considerably done so! The lessons are useful, well-explained and easy to follow. In each unit you have the opportunity to practice and receive feedb…

I took this course because I wanted to improve my academic writing and I can finally say that I have considerably done so! The lessons are useful, well-explained and easy to follow. In each unit you have the opportunity to practice and receive feedback from your tutors. I was at first a little bit scared about how much time I would have to spend doing this course, but it ended up being really easy to do.

If you are a teacher or a student who has to write different texts in English, this is the course for you. I studied Linguistics and I had never had such a clear picture of how academic writing works. Of course this is a process of trial and error, but believe me that after this course you will find yourself much more confident with your writing than never before.
Anonymous

The course on academic writing has been developed in a very easy to understand course with elements of good writing explained in a very systematic format with adequate practice sections provided.
Anonymous

As someone who wanted to learn how to write both for science subjects and English Literature, this course gave me a lot more confidence and has helped me in both areas, as well as encouraging me that I will do well in university.
Anonymous

I feel like this course was just what I needed. I’m about to go into writing and I found the course beginner friendly. The content, the delivery and the exercises were well done in my opinion. Furthermore, pdf summaries were provided for post-course studies. I recommend the course.👌🏾
Romina Canizo
2

It is well organized, with many examples that are very ilustrative.
I really enjoy some excercises, others where more difficult for me to achieve a good result.
Love the tips about what to do or not... for example the advice of avoiding nominalization BUT where it is a good choice to use it!
I really take advantage of the way of writing by drafts!!!!
I encourage postgraduate students to take it!!!
Anonymous

This course has been very helpful. I've learnt more than I anticipated. I'm ready to tackle my writing with a new-found confidence. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who would love to improve their academic writing. The lessons are well paced and is enough exercises to practice everything that you are learning.
Anonymous

This class is very helpful for a fresh international academic writer, as it introduces and explains the main concepts in writing, like rhetorical preference, register, and hedging, before going to details. Understanding these concepts really helps me analyse my writing problems systematically.
Anas Syed
2

Well designed course. Really captivating and learns tons of things which otherwise I wouldn't know. I really recommend the course
Anonymous

I have always been afraid of writing. My writing style is to keep it long; nobody is going to read it, and so I may get an average score. It's a pleasure to find this course. The most useful part to me is The Writing Process; it helps me overcome the writing fear.
Anonymous

the course is beginner friendly, i highly recommend those who want to start Academic writing to take it .just 3 days or 1 day a week will help a. i have learnt so much over the past one month .Thank you edX
Anonymous

This course gives me a lot of inputs on Academic Writing. It motivates me to write academic paragraph and essay with confidence. I will recommend this course to my friends and colleagues. I have spent quality time in this MOOC. I congratulate the entire team who worked for this course behind the screen. It gives me immense pleasure to say thanks for this great opportunity. I look forward to attend more courses from your esteemed university.
Anonymous

This course is so good! It is well organized and very easy to follow. The videos are not to short and not to long. The instructors are professional and sympathetic. It really is enjoyable to watch their lessons. It never got boring and I am confident that I can use what I have learned in this course in my upcoming thesis.
Anonymous

I definitely have sharpened up my writing skills. The exercises were quite taxing and you needed to pay attention to the videos. The instructors were clearly reading from a cue card but they were nonetheless professional. I just audited the course. If I had upgraded I could have done the mid-term and final term tests too.
Anonymous

First of all big thanks for this magnificent course. The whole course was easy and perfectly designed. The lessons and exercises tasks, after lessons were very helpful. In my opinion, those students who want to make their writing more productive and consistent should do this course.