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Undergraduate | GRF-COM10 | 2023
Academic Writing
Punch up your academic writing skills. Grapple with the building blocks that inform effective essay writing. Consider the importance of structuring your arguments. Strengthen your ability to work with sources and to reference accurately.
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- Prior study needed
- Duration
- 13 weeks
HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Academic Writing
About this subject
At the completion of this subject you will be able to:
- write clear and concise prose
- write a successful academic essay
- use critical thinking in reading and writing texts
- work with sources
- reference accurately
- be informed about ethical use of sources and plagiarism
- plan, draft and edit text
- discern and create an argument
- understand the basic structures of effective communication.
- Language
- Building blocks
- Sentences
- Paragraphs
- Argument/reading
- Analysis/note-taking
- Precis/synopsis
- Argument
- Composition
- Working with sources
- Drafting
- Editing
This unit provides an introduction to the distinctive conventions and practices of writing for university assessment. It focuses primarily on the academic essay, especially on the strategies successful academic writers use to incorporate information and viewpoints from existing sources, while at the same time forming and expressing their own independent viewpoint. It is essential training for students in navigating their way through existing knowledge without plagiarising. The unit is of particular relevance to students in all areas of the humanities and social sciences who are required to understand the research essay as a genre.
- Exercises (15%)
- Annotated bibliography; outline/plan; introductory paragraph (30%)
- Essay (40%)
- Multiple Choice Quiz (15%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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- 18
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- 20
Entry requirements
Prior study
To help set you up for success before you start this subject, we suggest completing or having equivalent knowledge in:
one of
GRF-COM15-Developing Research and Analytical Skills (no longer available)
GRF-CCJ16 (Not currently available)
Additional requirements
- Other requirements -
- Additional materials
Study load
0.125 EFTSL
This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.
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