Resource of the Week #147: A Resource on Academic Writing

Hello again. An extra benefit of a multi-instructor workshop is the chance for instructors to learn from one another. This week’s resource is one I learned of from the workshop I recently spoke at in Mexico City.

This resource, which is a website from Finland, is titled Academic Writing in English. As noted on the website, academic writing includes such items as journal articles, theses or dissertations, and essays for classes.

Although a little of the content is specifically for native speakers of Finnish, the website can help researchers coming from almost any native language.

The website has sections on 4 topics:

• cohesion (which the site defines as “the mechanisms which help to make a text clear, logical, unified and reader-friendly”)
• grammar
• punctuation
• style (including structure of scientific papers)

Each section has several subsections. The website is interactive and includes exercises.

In the grammar section, one helpful-looking subsection is on using articles (a, an, and the). This sub-section is quite detailed. It ends with 10 exercises.

Not everyone would agree with everything on this website (for example, about placement of adverbs). However, the guidance seems good overall. I hope some of you find this resource helpful.

Until the next post—

Barbara