Academic Writing - Student Term Papers - Structure, Introductions, Conclusions

Seminar paper from the year 1997 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, printed single-sided, Martin Luther University, course: Seminar Academic Discourse, language: English, abstract: Academic writing is a task that students, especially in the social sciences, engage in very frequently during the course of their studies. They have to compose essays, research reports, term papers etc., which, besides being the basis for students' evaluation, are to prepare them for their professional careers later in life. For those who will stay in the field, writing is going to be a major activity.§At university a student's writing skills set him or her apart from other students in the eyes of the professor, but there is no real competition; all papers will be read by the instructors. In the professional world, however, with an abundance of academic texts and with limited time, only those articles will get attention that, besides containing profound reasoning, are at the same time well written, i.e. conveniently structured, precise, short, well formulated etc.§This paper is part of a study on academic writing conducted within the seminar "Academic Discourse". The study examines students' works with regard to the authors' writing skills. It looks at the various components of a student term paper (linguistic features and structural elements) to detect the problems German students of English have. The objective is to create a guide for current and future students in this department experiencing difficulties in this area. It combines advice from published writing guides and professors, linguistic theory and personal experience, and is to be an introduction to academic writing for beginners and a reference booklet for the more experienced. We did not attempt to produce a "How-to" manual but rather tried to name the problem areas and to offer help on those with advice and examples. It cannot take the responsibility off the students for the further refinement of their skills by other means. The means. The study will further emphasise the need for specialised training in academic writing.§The paper starts with an introduction of the data and an explanation of the methods used. A presentation of the available advice from professors and writing guides on each topic follows, furthermore tables showing how the studied data has followed these suggestions. The analysis points out discrepancies and offers explanations; it also includes a short evaluation of the guiding material. Finally, suggestions are made on the basis of rewritten introductions and conclusions of student term papers.