The course focuses on shaping the draft of a text so that it best achieves its goals and meets the expectations of target readers. The texts produced will be sections of a research paper. The initial focus is on enhancing the clarity of the content through improving the flow, the placement of and emphasis on information, and the readability. The improved texts are then revised by an AI tool, and the differences between the original and the AI version are discussed and evaluated. Follow-up practice exercises are provided to develop understanding of common language issues.
Specific topics to be addressed include:
• analysing genres to identify audience, aims, and patterns of organization
• understanding and avoiding plagiarism
• improving academic style: register, citations, structures, and punctuation
• writing effectively: achieving clarity through choice of grammatical subject and of verb, effective placement of information within sentences, appropriate amount of information in a sentence, connections between sentences, connections between paragraphs.
• considering readers’ knowledge: language options for prioritising or backgrounding information and explanations
• paragraphing for ease of reading
• writing concisely
• expressing an appropriate level of confidence: hedging and boosting
• automated revision of texts and other tools for academic writing
• evaluating rephrasing suggested by AI – which version is better and why?
• the effect of grammatical choices in areas such as word order, articles, tenses, participle clauses, noun phrases, relative clauses, parallel structures and punctuation
Teaching methods
An active approach is used, with participants drafting, discussing, and revising short texts related to their academic work. Lessons consist of a mixture of teacher explanation, practice exercises,
and class/group discussion of participants’ own writing and of revisions suggested by AI tools.
At the start of the course participants are required to complete the Self-Paced Course on Academic Writing on didatticaonline.unitn.it/postlaurea. This consists of 5 modules covering basic
principles of effective writing.
During the course, students are required to draft 2 short written texts, and to revise each text based on peer and teacher feedback so that it is ready for superficial language editing, justifying
their revisions. Students are then required to further revise the text and justify the language choices made.
At the end of the course, each student produces 2 lists summarizing what they have learnt from the course: their points to bear in mind at the drafting/initial editing stage, and the language
knowledge they would like to apply in their future writing.
Assessment methods
The production and revision of 2 short academic texts and the production of 2 lists summarizing what the student has learnt from the course are required components for completion of the
course.
An exam during the last lesson tests students’ ability to apply the content of the course. Several short academic texts are provided, each of which must be revised for one aspect of writing
covered on the course.
A minimum of 75% attendance is required.
