EL7700 Academic English for Postgraduate Research Students and Staff (CLS and CSE)

This course is for PhD students, researchers and staff/visiting academics in the College of Life Sciences (CLS) and College of Science and Engineering (CSE). This course has 3 modules. Each module is 8 weeks. You can choose to study one, two or all three modules. 

Module 1

Course content

• Study language for use in a research meeting
• Discuss key features of scientific academic writing
• Study language for evaluating the research of others
• Identify how an appropriate referencing system is used in your subject area
• Discuss cohesion in paragraphs and across long texts
• Study the organisation and language of academic presentations
• Orally describe your research in an academic presentation
• Practice answering challenging questions about your research

Module 2

Course content

• Describing your research in a poster presentation format
• Features of introductions to longer pieces of writing
• The sections of a probation or progress report
• The organisation and language of literature reviews
• Language for describing research methods
• Language for reporting results
• Language for discussing research findings
• Features of conclusions to longer pieces of writing

Module 3

All modules for term 3 will be delivered online.

Course content

• Give an oral summary of your research
• Study the language and organisation of abstracts
• Identify ways of making writing more precise
• Study features of paragraph cohesion
• Study ways of justifying research orally and in writing
• Identify key differences between spoken and written academic English