ACADEMIC ESSAY WRITING



Developing Academic Essay Writing Skills

Course Code: BBLAN16100 (Eventually: BBLAN12400LM)

Courses: Sep 20 (8.30-12.30), Sep 27 (15.00-17.15), Dec 6 (8.30-10.45)

Venue: Piliscsaba, Amb 126

Lecturer: Karáth Tamás PhD (tamas.karath@)

Welcome to this course!

The aim of this semester is to develop your academic writing skills. The course is conceived to be a continuation to the “essay writing 2” seminar, which you are supposed to have achieved in an earlier semester. (Some students, though, take this course under the code of “essay writing 2”.) In this seminar, you will not be required to write a full seminar paper, but to focus on specific aspects of the BA thesis. We will practice the use of quotations and references, prepare bibliographies and gain routine in online library catalogue and database research. This process will be accompanied by a systematic development of writing techniques. The seminar will also help you to develop your argumentative skills. I hope to provide you with solid grounds for your BA thesis.

Methods. Most of the work will be done outside the contact classes through distant consultation (via e-mail). Therefore, please, check your Neptun messages and your mails regularly. The deadline for each home assignment is indicated in the right-hand column of the table below. Many of the exercises will be based on a paper you have submitted in an earlier semester (preferably the one submitted for the “Literary Representations of Marriage in English Literature”, spring 2014 course). Please send me your chosen essay in an attachment to my e-mail address (tamas.karath@) by 27 September.

The content and tasks of this course:

|Date |In-class activity and topics |Deadlines of submissions |

|Sep 20 |Revision: paragraphing, thesis and topic | |

|8.30-12.30 |sentences | |

| |Discussion topics: | |

| |(1) Academic style | |

| |(2) Criteria for academic topics. What counts as | |

| |an academic argument? | |

| |(3) Choosing the topic. Generating ideas about a | |

| |topic. From topic to thesis. Facts, | |

| |interpretations, value judgments. Expressing | |

| |academic opinion. | |

| |(4) Developing argumentative strategies: | |

| |- Introductions (seminar papers and BA theses) | |

| |- Argumentative fallacies | |

|Sep 27 |Research |Assignments to be submitted: |

|15.00-17.15 |(1) How to discover scholarly literature? |(1) Exercise sheet: Revising sentences |

| |Database, library search and bibliographies |(2) Exercise sheet: Making connections |

| |(2) The documentation system of academic papers: |(3) Exercise sheet: Punctuation and capitalization rules |

| |Referencing, quotes and paraphrases, works |(4) Send an earlier seminar paper to my e-mail address |

| |consulted | |

|Oct 4 |No class |Submit the editing exercise (editing two pages of an essay for brevity and|

| | |precision) – via e-mail |

|Oct 11 |No class |Submit the reedited version of the introduction of your essay with a clear|

| | |thesis statement – via e-mail |

|Oct 18 |No class |Submit the extended introduction of your essay (for a BA thesis) – via |

| | |e-mail |

|Nov 8 |No class |(1) Submit the exercise on argumentative fallacies |

| | |(2) Find three argumentative fallacies in three separate paragraphs of |

| | |your essay and correct them – both via e-mail |

|Nov 15 |No class |Find two passages in your seminar paper where you (1) quote an external |

| | |source and (2) paraphrase an external source. Edit both passages with |

| | |correct references in the MLA style. Prepare the “Works consulted” list of|

| | |the two items. |

|Nov 22 |No class |(1) Search for 5 items of secondary literature in the online catalogues of|

| | |PPKE BTK Faculty Library, Cambridge University Library and the Library of |

| | |Notre Dame University, Indiana, each. Arrange the 15 items in a |

| | |bibliography according to the MLA style. |

| | |(2) Search for 5 articles related to your seminar paper in JSTOR (online |

| | |academic database: , available after subscription or from |

| | |library servers that have subscribed to it), and 5 other in another online|

| | |database of your choice. Indicate also the name and the URL of this second|

| | |online database. Arrange the 10 articles in a bibliography according to |

| | |the MLA style. |

| | |(3) Provide three academic websites with research material related to the |

| | |topic of your paper. Give the URLs of the websites. – all via e-mail |

|Nov 29 |No class |Correct all cases of references and the works consulted section of your |

| | |paper. |

|Dec 6 |(1) Academic form: Parts of the paper, lay-out |Submission of all the exercises that you were asked to rewrite after the |

|8.30-10.45 |(essentials in word processing) |first submission |

| |(2) Reviewing and outlining scholarly literature | |

| |(3) Criteria of the evaluation of BA theses; | |

| |plagiarism | |

Please respect deadlines.

Requirements

- To be present preferably in all the three sessions of the course

- To submit all the home assignments indicated in the above table under deadlines

Assessment

Each home assignment will be graded; a missing task will receive the fail mark. If you receive the mention “not accepted” for a home assignment, you have to rewrite it by 6 December. You may rewrite any submitted assignment for a better mark. The submission deadline of the rewritten exercises is also 6 December. The final assessment of your course will be based on all the graded assignments of the seminar.

Seminar ethics

The program for the semester is set very tightly. If you miss a phase, no excuses will be accepted. You are supposed to keep deadlines, and to contact me if something unexpected prevents you from attending or submitting the assignments. Above all, the quintessential principle (valid for your entire university career) is to avoid plagiarism. Any evidence of such academic crime means failure of this seminar.

Enjoy the course!

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