Digital Research Writing in English (Spring 06)

Zhang Wei <spiderspace@gmail.com>

http://spaces.msn.com/pkuwriting/

Thursday 12:30 - 2:40; Room 116 Lijiao

Goal

The goal of the course is to help you develop digital literacy skills for academic purposes. Upon completing the course, you should be able to use digital resources such as search engines and online databases for locating relevant information; to evaluate the credibility of the gathered information; to integrate various bodies of information into a coherent framework; and to present the synthesized information in both oral and written English.

Major task
You are expected to carry out a semester-long research project in your major area of study using digital resources.  At the end of the course, you will make a PowerPoint presentation as well as a written presentation of the research results.

Grading

§           Participation and assigned tasks - 30%

§           Final research project presentations - 60% (written presentation: 45%; PowerPoint presentation: 15%)

§           Self and peer assessment - 10%

Manuals

Watson, G. (2003). Writing a thesis: a guide to long essays and dissertations. Chengdu: Sichuan University Press.

程爱民、祈寿华，2005，英语学术论文写作纲要。上海外语教学与研究出版社。肖珑，2003，数字信息资源的检索与利用。北京大学出版社。

Schedule

February 23  Introduction

March 2        What is academic writing

March 9        Criteria of effective academic writing
March 16     Finding a topic
March 23      Secrets from experts

March 30     Searching and sifting
April 6           Outlining the structure

April 13         Working with sources

April 20         Writing and re-writing
April 27         Fixing grammar
May 11         Making effective PowerPoint presentations

May 18         Final revisions

May 25         PowerPoint Presentations

June 1           PowerPoint Presentations
June 8           PowerPoint Presentations