Professional Writing

Numbering Code P-GOV00 63030 OB45 Year/Term 2022 ・ First semester
Number of Credits 2 Course Type lecture and seminar
Target Year 1st & 2nd year students Target Student
Language Japanese and English Day/Period Tue.3
Instructor name MURPHY, Mahon (Graduate School of Law Associate Professor)
Outline and Purpose of the Course Course goals: Nothing better reveals the clarity and quality of ideas than when it is put into writing. It is essential in most professional domains, particularly academic, to be able to express your findings and ideas in a clear, succinct, and effective fashion. This class aims to enable non-native English students to comprehend the features of good writing and improve the quality of their written output, mainly for academic purposes. As the best way to improve your writing is to write often, the class will spend considerable time on assessing and editing output of students.

Course Goals Students should become aware of the basic skills and "rules of thumb" in writing effectively in English and will demonstrate these skills in a final 3,000 word English article by the end of the class. They should also acquire know-how of how to practice and continue improving their writing skills outside of class.
Schedule and Contents Part One: Understanding good English writing
1. Ice-breaking session. Types of English writing. What makes for successful writing? A few examples.
2. Your initial draft (400 word abstract with title): assessment and feedback

Part Two: Writing Skills
3. Initial preparation: identifying your audience, context, key message
4. Word order and breaking up long sentences
5. Structuring paragraphs and sentences
6. Being concise and removing redundancy
7. Avoiding ambiguity and the passive/personal forms
8. Highlighting your findings, hedging, and plagiarism

Part Three: Sections of a Paper
9. Title and abstract
10. Introduction, literature review and methods
11. Results, discussion, and conclusion
12. Strategies for revising and checking drafts
13. Useful phrases
14. Your second draft; assessment and feedback
15. Review of whole course

Submit final draft of 2000 word research paper (with 400 word abstract)
Evaluation Methods and Policy Regular assignments: 40%
Final writing assignment: 40%
Class participation: 20%
Course Requirements Upper/intermediate English writing skills is a prerequisite.
Study outside of Class (preparation and review) Students will be expected to spend 2 to 3 hours a week in preparation for each class.
Textbooks Textbooks/References English for Writing Research Papers., Wallwork, Adrian., (Springer)
Supplementary material will be provided throughout the course.
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