Technical Writing 2

Course Overview

Course Description

In this course, students will develop the scientific and technical reading and writing skills they need to understand and construct research articles. First, students will learn what research or the research process is and how it is reflected in the writing of a research paper. Students will look at software tools and corpora (collections of language samples) that can assist them in the writing of research papers. Students will create their own corpus of research papers and will use throughout the remainder of the course. Students will then write a full research paper in their field of specialization, working separately on the title, abstract, introduction, materials/methods, results, and discussion. For each part of the research paper, students will first analyze the sample texts in their corpus and then present their findings to other members of the class. This will help all students to understand which elements are common to all science and engineering disciplines, and which are unique to individual disciplines. Next, they will apply what they have learned in their own writing, slowly constructing a full-research paper by the end of the course.

Course goals

• Understand the importance of English in the fields of science and engineering.
• Use effective strategies to learn academic vocabulary.
• Use text analysis tools to identify differences in texts published in different fields.
• Identify the structure of technical research papers in specialist fields.
• Write the sections of a research paper in a specialist field.
• Write simple and extended definitions.
• Explain methods and processes.
• Explain information in figures and tables.
• Know how to use hedging in showing research findings.
• Understand the importance of references, citations, and avoidance of plagiarism.

Download a generic course syllabus here.

Specific details related to each teacher are available on the Waseda Moodle course page.

Information

Materials

• Course materials will be distributed in the first lesson of the course.
• Bringing an advanced English/Japanese dictionary to class is recommended.

Grading and assessment

• Components
  • Final written paper (80%)
  • In-class and homework assignments (20%)
• Test Absence Policy

Further Information

• Statement on academic honesty
• Students should bring a sample of their writing from a previous course (e.g. TW1, CBD1/2) to the first class if available.

Supplemental resources

• Students are encouraged to visit the Nishi-Waseda Campus writing center (Bldg. 60, 2nd floor, Room 201). More information can be found here.