Course Description 

       Students at the master’s level are already quite proficient at writing in English as a second language – ranging from low advanced to superior levels. Experience has shown that most students can write information-driven content competently. But problem areas remain: for example, integrating deeper reading, argument, and critical dialog into papers.

        Thus, we will work on writing argumentative responses in this course. This means carefully reading and understanding the arguments made by an author, defining the problems raised by the argument, and coming up with your own response. You must then justify your response by argument, written in the spirit of dialog to an audience of critical readers, done to deepen understanding (not ‘to win’ the argument). 

      We will also work on key areas of writing style and paper structure. To this end we will focus on the typical problems: writing good introductions and conclusions, finding a good writing style, and making good main body paragraphs.