This course aims to develop and hone advanced academic writing and reading skills necessary for your university career and beyond. The lessons will focus on reading and analysing source materials, utilizing critical thinking strategies, understanding what constitutes valid claims and arguments, recognizing appeals to the reader, and identifying and refuting common fallacies. The five-stage writing process will be followed to produce argumentative papers utilizing research techniques, including library sources, Zotero, formatting and citations standards. Students will be required to produce various in-class and out-of-class writing assignments including a topic proposal, a detailed outline, critical summaries, a literature review, an annotated bibliography, and a critically argued and fully sourced 2000-word term paper. Students must receive a grade of C or above in this course to fulfill the University’s English Composition requirement and be eligible to take courses in English literature. Students will be required to submit assignments through TurnitinUK.

At the end of the course, the student will be able to

Understand rhetoric and write:

• utilizing advanced writing strategies

• coherent and cohesive argumentative papers

• and develop strong thesis statements

• clear and concise supporting arguments

• a topic proposal

• a detailed outline

• critical summaries and paraphrases

• effectively following the 5 stages of the writing process: planning, drafting, revising, editing and proofreading

• a literature Review

• an annotated Bibliography

Read and think critically:

• analysing claims and arguments from source material

• understanding appeals, as well as common fallacies

• annotating texts effectively

• using strategies to summarize and paraphrase texts

• analysing and understanding challenging texts and other types of source material

Develop advanced academic vocabulary:

• using rhetorical ‘moves’ accurately and effectively

• with appropriate transitioning words and expressions

• using appropriate vocabulary in academic register

• with subject specific terminology

 Research sources:

• using advanced techniques

• evaluating source validity and reliability

• using library resources effectively

• identifying and exploiting web-based sources

• using MLA format for correct citation of sources

• utilizing Zotero as an effective researcher

• avoiding plagiarism

Attendance is compulsory for this course. Any student who misses more than six lessons without having medical certification which has been validated by the relevant university authorities may risk failing the course. For obvious reasons of academic seriousness, clasess begin punctually and a student who is not present when the roll is called will be considered late. Two lates constitute an absence. In the event of their absence, students are responsible for finding out what has been covered in class and set for homework, either by contacting the professor or other students.

Submitting Coursework

Students will submit hard copies of coursework and homework on the due date as well as electronic copies in the case of at-home essays. Late work will be penalized by a reduction of half a grade for each late day. The granting of essay extensions is at the instructor's discretion. In the event of absence, the student is responsible for getting the hard copy to the instructor via a classmate on the day of absence. If this is impossible, students must send an electronic version before class. Late submission will result in grade reduction and assignments will no longer be accepted if more than one week late.

Students who miss class when an assignment is given must contact the instructor promptly (on the same day) to find out what the question is and what the required readings are.

As the final coursework grade will be an average, it is very important not to miss an essay as this will have a very significant effect on the final average score.