Improve your writing--For graduate students & academics
What you'll learn
- Use punctuation to guide your reader and clarify meaning.
- Eliminate unnecessary words from writing.
- Structure sentences so that they emphasize the intended element of importance.
- Compose descriptive writing that shows, instead of tells, readers what you mean, thereby strengthening your point.
- Revise writing for accessibility and voice.
Requirements
- No specialized knowledge needed. Only a basic understanding of parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives) and punctuation (periods, commas). Easy-peasy!
Description
Unlike other courses that focus on the what—for instance, what is an adjective?, what is active voice?--this course limits the specialized vocabulary and instead focuses on the how and why of writing.
In other words, we’ll be examining the effects that our choices have on our writing—for instance, if I did place a comma here, how would that affect the flow of the sentence? For that reason, this course is highly APPLICATION-BASED. As we proceed through each of the three modules, I want you to feel COMPELLED to look at your own writing and examine how you could improve it. Then, once you understand its weak areas, I want you to feel EMPOWERED to strengthen them.
This course is for those wishing to write better, not by memorizing terms and definitions, but by thinking about what they actually want to say and do and experimenting with how they do it.
**Targeted at graduate students--native English speakers and non-native speakers--this course course aims to help you produce writing that is accepted for defense and publication. Among other topics, we'll work on using punctuation to guide the reading, reducing wordiness, writing for understanding, and structuring sentences so that our readers are compelled to keep reading out of genuine interest.
Who this course is for:
- Graduate students and adult learners who see weaknesses in their writing and want to increase their publications by improving their writing skills.
Instructor
- 5.0 Instructor Rating
- 2 Reviews
- 5 Students
- 1 Course
One conversation with me and you’ll see that I speak and teach through my passion for writing. As writers, we carry so much control over our readers.
As you learn to use your words to communicate clearly to others, you’ll notice a world of opportunity opening up. For me, the power of writing granted me access to college and graduate school, earned me entry into a selective program at Rutgers University, transformed me into a world traveler, made me a published author, and earned me honors and accolades like being the speaker at my graduate hooding ceremony.
Through my teaching, consulting, and editing, I share my insight as a writer to help others strengthen their writing skills.
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*10+ years of teaching experience
*Peer reviewer of The Journal of Negro Education
*PhD in English Education, University of Tennessee
*MS in English Education, University of Tennessee
*BA in English (licensure), University of Southern Mississippi