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Academic Writing

Class at Faculty of Social Sciences |
JTB104

Syllabus

EACH LESSON WILL FOCUS ON ONE CURRENT AFFAIRS TOPIC RELATED TO CEE. TOPICS WILL INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING AND

ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON CURRENT EVENTS.   

Lesson 1 

Trust in the EU; Euroskepticism; inequality 

Academic writing: What is academic English?; describing trends

Lesson 2

Czech society and politics 

Lesson 3

Is populism a threat to democracy? The EU response to rule of law violations in Poland and Hungary

Lesson 4 

Ukraine: European security and defence 

Lesson 5 

United in diversity? economic, social, cultural, North-South

Lesson 6 

United in diversity? Are post-communist Member States different than other Member States?

Case study: stereotypes in football 

Lesson 7 

The European Green Deal: transition from coal in Central Europe 

Lesson 8 

EU structural and investment funds: purpose, solidarity, impact of Brexit, effectiveness, corruption

Lesson 9 

EU enlargement: Ukraine, Moldova, the Western Balkans  

Lesson 10 

Ageing population as a key economic challenge; immigration

Lesson 11 

Comparison of the first and second Czech EU presidencies; analysis; lessons learned 

Lesson 12

Neverending Brexit? Potential Polexits, Hungexits?    

ACADEMIC WRITING CONTENT WILL INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:

Academic English style and grammar conventions

- academic style principles; qualifying and hedging; use of passive voice; nominalisation; use of articles; subject-verb agreement

Essay types and structure; Signposting language; Structuring paragraphs

Critical thinking; Supporting claims with evidence; In-text references

- connectors (conjunctions), e.g. to express cause and effect; punctuation, e.g. colons, semicolons and commas

Content editing and proofreading; Summarizing and paraphrasing; Reporting verbs  

- editing for structure, academic style, grammar, supporting claims with evidence

- Reporting verbs and reporting verb tenses 

Choosing paraphrase or quotation

Introduction to thesis writing; Seminar papers

Writing about methodology and data; Academic presentation skills

- Explaining methodology and rationale; Discussing and interpreting data in figures, graphs and tables 

Writing resources: Seminar paper guidelines; The Manchester Academic Phrasebank

Thesis structure, parts and exercises

Academic presentation skills: presenting a thesis or academic research      

Annotation

The course merges academic writing with European current affairs, focusing on East-Central Europe.

Current affairs materials and topics will be used to teach academic English. These will include written and broadcast news and news analyses, academic journal articles and book chapters, lectures, videos and other current affairs sources. The focus will be on academic English use, grammar, vocabulary, style and structure.