0.1 Emmert
Hello and Welcome!
You are looking at a short course on how to write a seminar paper, a bachelor or master thesis, an academic article for publication, or even a doctoral dissertation.
Contrary to what you may believe, none of us were born with the necessary skill set to produce excellent academic writing, certainly nobody I know. Of course, this also means that none of us were born with an inherent writing disability. Everyone can learn how to write and by taking this course, you are taking a major step in the right direction!
What Are the Problems with Writing a Thesis or an Article?
When writing a letter, newspaper article, or basic legal brief, we can usually organize the entire project/paper/argument in our head. In contrast, proper academic writing – a 50 page thesis, a 40 page article for an academic journal or a 300 page dissertation – with hundreds of sources and dozens of main and many more sub-arguments exceeds the mental capacity of even the brightest human beings.
Therefore we become overwhelmed with books we borrowed, papers we printed or copied, things we read, ideas that came to mind, arguments we heard, notes we took somewhere and we end up with a big mess of unstructured and unorganized information, a race against a deadline, and a growing frustration and panic. In the end we either fail completely or we deliver a paper that we know is not very good.
But here is the good news:
IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY
Everybody who has to write something important knows the phenomenon of “writers block” (just think back to the first letters/poems you wrote to your new boyfriend or girlfriend). In the age of e-mail and text messaging we have less practice than ever with writing elegant and persuasive prose. So we sit in front of our computers and we panic even more. The deadline hangs above our head like a guillotine and all we have is clumsy sounding bits and pieces. In the end, we start paraphrasing somebody else’s text or even copy-pasting it altogether.
But again: IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY
How This Course Will Help
Although the course will only require a couple of hours of your time, it may well save you hundreds of hours just in the academic writing project you are currently facing. Indeed, it may make the difference between a success and a failure.
More importantly, this course will teach you valuable skills that will benefit you for the rest of your life! Just imagine what you will be able to accomplish if you can approach any kind of major writing project with the confidence "I can do this, I am good at this. If I put my mind to it, I will succeed. I will finish on time and with good or even great results!"
The tips and tricks you are about to learn are based on personal experience. Nobody taught me how to write and I struggled for years and through many projects, often with mixed or disappointing results. Eventually, I learned a few things by trial and error and got better at what I was doing. Soon after, I noticed that virtually all of my students were struggling in much the same ways and I started sharing my experience and giving them tips on how to get better results sooner, without having to repeat every bit of trial and error themselves. For years, this sharing of experience took the form of a one-day workshop that I taught for students from the bachelor to the doctoral level in many countries across the globe, literally from Armenia to Zimbabwe, and in many of the top universities and law schools in Europe and America. In each and every instance, there were at least a few participants that came to me later to thank me for the valuable advice they had been given. In many cases, they also shared some advice or experience that I was able to incorporate, to make the workshop a little better every year. Since I can only be in one place at a time and - frankly - have become a bit tired of teaching the same workshop many times a year and many different places, I have now, with the help of some experts in online education, turned it into the course in front of you. I have reason to believe that it is at least as good as it was before and hope you will join the many hundreds who will look back and say "yes, this was worth it, it really helped me a lot!"
Badges/Certification
Some of you may need a badge or some other form of certification that you have successfully completed the course. For this purpose, there are quizzes and assignments included. If you submit those, they will be graded and you should receive feedback and suggestions on your submissions within a few days. To obtain the badge or certificate, you will need to get at least 51% on every single assignment. If you get a lower score, you will have to re-take the quiz or assignment. There are no inherent limits on how often you can re-take a particular quiz or assignment. If you don't need a badge or certificate, you don't have to complete those quizzes or assignments, although they won't hurt.
Your Feedback
Although I have taught the workshop many times and have integrated feedback from many more students and colleagues than I could possibly remember and thank here, this course will always remain work in progress. YOU can contribute your feedback and your advice to help me make it even more useful for those that come after you. Please send your critique to Prof. Dr. Frank Emmert, LL.M. at femmert@iupui.edu. Thank you in advance!
It is possible that some content or activities in this course may present challenges to students with disabilities. If you have any issues accessing content or activities due to a disability, please contact your instructor as soon as possible.
This course employs the following technologies:
- video
- Canvas quizzes
- Canvas assignments
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