Teaching a Course on Academic Writing

In my experience, students, particularly freshmen, regularly have difficulties writing solid

academic texts: their papers lack any structure, have no clearly stated goals, they do not pay
attention to methodology and are unable to relate research results to theories. While searching for
sources, students often rely on Wikipedia; they do not sufficiently or adequately cite their
sources. These problems warrants constant attention since different written assignments, such as
short or long essays, research papers, reports or seminars, are required within most of the political
science courses. Very often, these assignments contribute at least a part to the overall grade for a
particular course, or serve as a requirement to be fulfilled for a student to take an exam. As a
whole, written assignments are considered an important tool for students to gain the expected
competences within individual courses.
Due to the importance attached to written assignments on the one hand, and due to the poor
record of student writing skills on the other hand, there is a need for courses/seminars on
academic writing as such. This need has been addressed in the United States for decades in the
form of courses on Introduction to Academic Writing that students need to take before university
classes even start. Courses on academic writing are therefore needed so that students acquire the
skill of writing academic papers of different lengths, purposes and forms.
The issue of how to design, organise and write academic essays has been subject to
substantive literature,1 but not much appears to have been written about how to teach such
courses,2 even less of specific problems, characteristic for European universities, particularly on
the Continent where the skill of essay writing is not as developed as in the Anglo-Saxon
education; for public universities, where funds for access to literature and various sources are
very limited; and for specific national traditions that may favour a particular type of written
assignments or a particular way of writing them. The purpose of this contribution is to share my
own experience with designing and teaching a course on academic writing for students of
International Relations (IR) and European Studies (ES).

The goal of the course on academic writing

There is generally one goal of any course on academic writing: to teach students how to write
solid academic papers – i.e. to help them obtain the skill of academic writing. The emphasis on
obtaining the skill is very important: students do not learn about academic writing as such, in
order to be able to repeat such knowledge at an exam. Instead, they acquire the skill of writing: so
everything said in a class has to be internalised and put into practice. Students need to know and
understand the ‘theory’ of writing, with a view to putting it into practice. The end result is their
papers that are prepared according to standards of academic writing: e.g. by using methods,
referring to sources. It may be hard work to complete such a course, particularly because it takes
place in the beginning of undergraduate education. However, the hard work will pay off within
other courses when students taking a course on academic writing – if such a course in not
obligatory for all students – will fulfil the requirements within other courses much faster and
better. Consequently, they will obtain better grades for their research and written papers within
other courses. If this is clearly explained, the motivation3 for the course tends to improve
significantly.
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 To improve motivation, it is useful to relate the skill of writing with contents of interest to
students, to their study programme. For IR students, practical cases will thus always relate to
international affairs, to developments in the international community, or to concepts in IR. For
ES students, essay topics and practical cases will be about European Integration. Topic from
other courses taught simultaneously may be used as examples within the course on academic
writing. This has proven very useful in at least two respects: first, it boosts students’ confidence
in their knowledge about the area of their study – they can talk about substantive issues while
learning the skill of academic writing; in other words, the knowledge acquired elsewhere is of
immediate relevance within the course on academic writing. Second, learning academic writing
becomes attached to reality, to something that students are interested in; they do not learn about
the ‘theory’ of academic writing, but they effectively learn more about issues of IR or ES, only
that they ‘pack’ their knowledge in academic papers. In addition to learning technicalities of
academic writing, there may often be a short discussion in class about individual issues in
international or European affairs, possibly with the purpose of selecting interesting research
questions. This may be followed by a discussion about possible and the most appropriate methods
with which those questions could be answered.
To achieve the final goal of gaining the skill of academic writing, a number of goals will need
to be reached on the way:
a) to be able to distinguish between high schools, free style essays and academic texts;
b) to understand methods, and roles of theory;
c) to understand the contents, scope and meaning of academic honesty and the consequences of
dishonesty;
d) to know types of sources, and ways of getting them;
e) to understand the importance of the preparatory stage of writing, i.e. reading, thinking about
arguments, working on a question, reading;
f) to be familiar with the guidelines for authors as they relate to their faculty/university, and to
acquire the skill of writing according to those guidelines, limitations, such as word limits, and
time restrictions so that deadlines are respected and met.

Preparation of the course

Any preparation of a course needs to take into consideration a number of factors, some known
in advance and some unknown, some related to the course, the so-called internal factors, and
some not directly related to the course, referred to as the external factors.
For the preparation of a course on academic writing, at least five internal factors appear
particularly important: goals, students’ previous knowledge, contents, exercises and teacher’s
workload. First, much thought will go into the preparation of how the goal of helping students
learn the skill of writing can be achieved. What issues need to be addressed, what smaller goals
need to be achieved, so that students will be able to write academic papers? Among such steps,
one of the most important one is becoming familiar with different types of sources, and with
various ways of accessing them. An organised visit to the library may be an obligatory part of the
course.
Second, a specific academic environment within which the course will be held has to be taken
into account during the planning of a course on academic writing. Thus, one needs to think about
students’ previous experience and knowledge. Did they obtain any writing skills at high schools,
what types of papers did they write, what kind of rules did they follow? These questions are
particularly important for the first time teachers; in such a situation, it may be useful to have
some back-up scenarios: a few less basic exercises, for example, if students are already familiar
with some of the issues, or more practical exercises if they can explain certain issues with their

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words, so if they know the ‘theory’. With the experience of having taught such a course, a teacher
will be more familiar with what students know from high school, what concepts they are familiar
with, and what issues they have never addressed.
Third, most of the consideration during the preparatory phase will be devoted to the contents.
Those need to encompass all issues that guarantee the achievement of the final goal, taking into
account the characteristics of students and their specific knowledge. Writing as a comprehensive
process needs to be dealt with systematically.
Fourth, with the emphasis being on obtaining the skill, various exercises are important.
Simultaneously with the contents, therefore, attention needs to be devoted to the preparation of
exercises that will serve the goals of the course. To this end, part of the course will take place in a
computer room where different exercises can be carried out. Such exercises appertain above all to
searching for sources and selecting them according to specific research objectives.
Five, a teacher’s workload can be huge if the number of students is high. If students are to
learn the skill of writing, they can only do that by practising and learning from their own
mistakes. In other words, teacher feedback is essential. From a teacher’s perspective, therefore, it
is a significant difference if a class consists of 10, 20, 50 or 100 students. Given the number of
students and (un)availability of any help from a teaching assistant, a teacher will be asking the
question, during the preparatory phase, can I cope? If the answer leans towards the negative or
towards uncertainty, then exercises will probably need to be adjusted so that the workload will be
manageable.
One way of approaching this problem can be to engage students more. Some exercises, for
example, can be marked by students themselves. For instance, the first attempt to write an
academic essay can be corrected in class, by students themselves. Students bring their unsigned
essays to class (to protect their privacy), thinking that they would hand them in to the teacher.
Once the essays are handed in, rules learned thus far can be repeated, then the teacher can hand
out student essays so that they get an essay of a classmate, and correct it. The exercise is great fun
and very useful: it enables students to compare their own progress and that of classmates, it
enables them to put the rules learned into practice, and it puts them in a unique position of both
being able to grade and being graded at the same time – so fairness in marking plays an important
role. They typically realise that grading is not easy and that too many mistakes were made in the
essay they graded.
In addition to the factors that relate to the course itself, external factors or those from the
institutional environment or context within which the course will be carried out, need to be taken
into consideration when preparing a course on academic writing. Such issues include, firstly, the
number of students taking the course. This is very important for a number of reasons: the course
requires a lot of correcting and is very intensive for students as well as for the teacher; some
exercises may depend on a number of students; computer resources (the number of computers)
tend to be limited so the course has to be planned in such a way that every student can sit behind
an own computer and complete the in-class exercises by him/herself.
Secondly, students need access to a computer, a printer and internet from day one. Given that
they are in the first year, they may not have completely settled in by week one and it is useful to
let them know, perhaps in the description of the course, that they need to take care of the
technical part before the course begins. Additionally, they need to be enrolled in the
university/faculty library, with full borrowing rights and access to all electronic resources.
Thirdly, like with any other course, rules and hence certain limitations within a particular
academic environment apply to the preparation of the course and need to be taken into
consideration. Such rules may include, but are not limited to, the preparation of timetables, use of
lecture and computer rooms, grading, number of in-class hours, number of credits etc.

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Contents and methods of teaching academic writing
Contents and methods of teaching a course on academic writing may differ at some
universities, but specific approaches towards teaching academic writing would include the
following key components:
1) Academic integrity/honesty: A detailed explanation of academic integrity, including
copyrights and references, plagiarism. Students need to understand what academic honesty
includes, what plagiarism4 is, why academic honesty is important, how it is observed and what
the consequences are if they disobey the rules on academic honesty.
In terms of teaching methods, the importance of academic honesty is discussed in class, with
students participating in the discussion. Students attempt to write down a definition of the
concept of academic honesty. Frequently, they admit that they are not familiar with the concept.
After an in-class discussion their homework is to write a declaration, sign it and hand it in,
pledging to respect and observe all issues that fall under the scope of academic honesty, by listing
all the sources they have used for a written paper and referring to specific parts of sources from
which they have used certain ideas, data, analyses of any other information, and by explaining
that they are familiar with the consequences of not respecting academic honesty.
2) Research as a process; methods and (meta) theories: In a lecture, academic writing is first
put into the broader context of research, which is presented and explained as an on-going process,
with writing of research result being but one stage, inseparable from other stages of research such
as literature review. Based on the prescribed secondary literature, which students read beforehand
and come to classes prepared, on (meta) theoretical approaches towards analysing issues in IR
and the appropriate methods for obtaining the knowledge, a set of lectures addresses two meta-
theoretical traditions, the traditions of explaining and of understanding (Hollis in Smith 1990),
and a number of research methods.
Among the methods, special attention is devoted to the analyses of secondary and primary
sources, comparative analysis, case studies, historical analysis, content analysis and several other
non-empirical as well as empirical methods such as interviews. Each method is discussed,
particularly the research context and goals within which a particular method can be selected.
Special attention is devoted to the problems that need to be avoided or alleviated when individual
methods are selected: e.g. when selecting cases, one needs to think which cases would be most
representative, and which can be omitted. Various exercises are then carried out in a seminar,
with the purpose of relating research issues/questions with the most appropriate methods to study
those issues. Emphasis is therefore placed on the use of methods in practice.
3) Sources: In a lecture, the importance of sources is discussed in class. A difference between
academic/scholarly papers and other expert-type of papers, such as newspaper articles, is
emphasised. The importance of relying on sources when writing an essay is emphasised. To rely
sources refers to, firstly, the preparatory or research stages of the essay-writing process, when
different sources will be consulted before a particular essay topic will be chosen, or before the
structure of a particular essay will be set up if a topic has been given.
Secondly, it applies to the thinking process: i.e. to the process of studying literature on a
chosen subject, and thinking about what has been written, and what has been omitted or left out,
when other authors have discussed a particular issue. The analyses of authors studying and
writing about a particular issue or topic may have been partial. They may have addressed the
issue from a particular angle, leaving out other possible explanations. In other words, sources in
an academic paper need to be critically discussed, not just used so that a student complies with
the requirement of, for instance, using an X number of sources in an essay of a thousand words. It

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is not enough for a student to merely list the X number of sources. As a first step, students need
to display their understanding of the topic and the references they have consulted.
Thirdly, to ‘rely on’ sources also refers to the writing itself when sources need to be duly
quoted in the text itself and in a list of sources used in an academic paper.
Students are introduced to three types of sources: primary, secondary and tertiary. Tertiary
sources5 are briefly discussed and examples are shown, but much attention is devoted to primary
and secondary sources. Students learn about ways of getting different sources, and how to
distinguish between reliable, scholarly secondary sources and less reliable sources, such as
papers, found on the internet, that have unknown author. Particular attention is devoted to the
internet as an endless source of information. In this respect, students first learn that there are no
internet sources as such. Instead, there are primary and secondary sources that can be found on
the internet. This helps students think about the quality of what is available online, about who
actually published what is available, whether or not those sources are credible and can be relied
on for future research, if the data/information is correct.
It may be useful to have a discussion in class about who has contributed to the Wikipedia and
how the information can be purposefully misleading and wrong. Students need to be familiar with
ways and means of double-checking that the information in secondary sources is correct. In this
respect, particular attention is devoted to the review process: students learn about the process as it
applies to journals and books, and with the ways of looking for scholarly literature that has been
subject to peer reviews in various databases such as JSTOR, Ebscohost, and Proquest.
This part of the course on sources then continues with practical exercises in the computer
room. In this respect, co-operation with the faculty’s library has proven to play a very important
role. It seems particularly useful if a librarian specialising in electronic resources (academic
databases) conducts a seminar with students, in class. This way, students get first-hand
experience of the library, they become familiar with how the library functions and where and
how relevant sources can be found. Crucially, they get to know the electronic resources available
on-line, and the librarian responsible for offering help with regards to those resources. Due to
such close co-operation with the library and the librarian(s), the risk of students seeking advice
on issues they have already learned will be minimised. The librarian will try and resolve
problems, rather than unknowingly help prepare student homework.
In that seminar, students are introduced to the on-line collections of journals and books,
databases. They complete exercises such as looking at possible references on a given essay topic
(e.g. ethnic conflicts, peace keeping operations, environmental protection), among full-text
articles published in peer-reviewed journals available on-line. Their results differ, both in terms
of sources on the same research topic, and the number of sources found. This is followed by a
discussion about possible reasons for those results, their approaches towards looking for the
sources, how they have narrowed down their search, how they need to think about the essay topic
and always relate the literature to their arguments in their essays. The same exercise, with the
addition of writing an introduction to their, at this stage still imaginative, essay, can be repeated
at home, on a different topic.
Another important exercise in the computer room is an exercise on searching for primary
sources. A teacher prepares a set of questions – for instance, how many states established the
Council of Europe and when. Students tend to seek answers to such questions either with the help
of the Wikipedia or Google. Both are strictly forbidden for the purposes of doing this particular
exercise. Instead, students are requested to answer those basic questions by referring to the
appropriate primary sources, in this case the Statute of the Council of Europe, which they can
easily locate on the Council of Europe’s website. Other questions typically refer to the work of

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several other international institutions such as the United Nations. For instance: What were the
topics on the agenda of the Security Council in the past two months? Here again, students do not
look for what has been reported by the media, but need to look up the appropriate primary
documents, in this case, Security Council resolutions.
Other international governmental and non-governmental institutions are discussed in more
detail. The purpose of such exercises is to help students get familiar with different types of
primary documents (agreements, treaties, resolutions, declarations), ways of getting them on-line,
and with their political and/or legal importance for different international and domestic actors.
4) Structure of an academic text: In a set of lectures, seminars and exercises in the computer
room, the structure of academic papers is discussed and later practised by students at home. Three
parts of papers – the introduction, the main body with paragraphs, and the conclusion – are
discussed in detail.
Given various limits of a course, such as the number of students, credits and hence student
input/hours, it may be necessary to practice one type of academic papers in greater detail. Good
examples are essays with a word limit of a thousand words.
Much attention needs to be devoted to the contents of introduction. Taking into account the
fact that research is a process, of which writing is just one part, students are reminded that the
contents of an essay, its question(s) or hypotheses, its goal(s), and consequently the contents of
the essay, are to be determined by using different research methods, and first of all, by thoroughly
studying the relevant literature as acquired by different means – a visit to a library and its
catalogues, and a thorough examination of electronic resources. Based on a thorough literature
review, an essay and its introduction will begin to take shape. In an introduction, the problem to
be addressed is typically introduced first, leading to a question to be answered in the essay. Third,
the structure (steps to be taken towards achieving the goal) and methods are clearly explained.
Here, parts of the essay (sections, or chapters, in longer written texts) will be explained either
separately or together with the methods used. If the same methods are used throughout the
sections of the essay, then methods will typically be explained after the structure of the essay.
However, if different parts/sections of the essay will be based on different methods, then students
are advised to combine structure and methods.6
The central part of the essay is composed of individual sections as explained in the
introduction. In longer essays, sections would be separated by titles. The central part is divided
into paragraphs, each with a developed thought. For this part, the use of methods and sources – if
analyses of secondary and primary sources are among the methods to be used in the essay – is
essential. Based on the methods, the relevant issues are being collected so that answers to the
essay’s question(s) can be offered in the concluding part.
In the conclusion, based on the analysis in the central part of the essay and based on the
question(s) guiding the analysis, answers to the question(s) are provided, typically with the
author’s own words. For the conclusion, students need to ask themselves what they have found
out, with the help of the methods employed throughout the research process. What can they say
about their problem and question as set up in the introduction to the essay? Can they verify their
hypothesis, and how?
In terms of teaching methods, this part is the hardest for the teacher as it requires a lot of
reading, commenting and grading. In addition to reading and grading entire essays, two other
methods can be used. Firstly, when exercises are made on source searching, one of the exercises
can include searching for sources on a chosen topic, and writing an introduction to an essay,
based on the selected sources. This exercise serves three purposes: 1) it makes students link the
selection of sources to their written paper, and therefore seek relevant sources; 2) it helps students

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think about the research question and individual pieces of information in seeking answers to the
question on one hand, and the literature needed to get such information on the other hand; 3) it
helps a teacher manage the workload by correcting short introductions that not only present the
first but also the essential part of academic essays.
The first essay is typically written when students have not learned all the rules or all guidelines
for authors so students will be focusing on the contents, on whether or not the problem and the
question are clearly presented, whether the introduction has all the parts it needs to have (a
problem or a context, a question, structure and methods, and limitations if relevant), and whether
the central part of the essay follows the structure as presented in the introductory part, whether all
the methods are used as presented in the introduction, and lastly, whether or not the author has
answered the question(s) as set up in the introduction, based on the results of the analysis in the
central part of the essay.
Student active participation in this course is essential, and to mark this first essay can be one
opportunity to increase their engagement. When students read, grade and comment essays of their
classmates, they learn a number of important issues: such an exercise helps students gain the skill
of reading and assessing an essay according to whether or not the essay follows the guidelines.
And just like they correct someone else’s paper, they will need to assess their own. Students learn
that they always need to read and revise their papers before they hand them in, as if they were
correcting someone else’s paper, with a view to improving the structure and strengthening the
argument. They would typically laugh when they hear the instruction that they, at one point, need
to read their paper as if the essay were not theirs, but they would later admit that this gives them
the often needed distance to assess an own paper, without thinking, for instance, about hours
spent on studying two books that in the end, are not needed to follow the argument.
5) References: Much attention is devoted to the use of sources, to direct and indirect quotes,
and to the technical details about the style of quotations and writing of the references. It is very
important for students to understand that every institution has its own rules and that every author
needs to check such guidelines for a particular paper. Rules should be checked before writing a
paper, and the paper needs to be written by taking into account guidelines for authors as they are
adopted by our institution. Students tend to refer to other student papers for the guidelines, and
they may need to be reminded that this may be insufficient or misleading, given that other
students may have not followed the guidelines, or those may have changed in the meantime.
Attention is devoted to different types of sources (primary, secondary) and to different types
of secondary sources (books, edited volumes, book chapters, journal articles, conference papers,
theses), to ways of writing these sources correctly, with all the details (publishers, volumes,
numbers etc.), in the right places.
All these rules are discussed in class, students get a hard copy of them, then they apply them to
practice when they make other exercises, such as looking at secondary sources in academic
databases; the selection of sources would now need to be written according to guidelines for
authors as they apply at their faculty. Similarly, their essays would need to take into account the
guidelines for authors. If students have difficulties or do not understand the guidelines, those
need to be discussed in class. Exercises can be made specifically for practising the guidelines:
typically, such exercises would consist of a number of sources, written incorrectly, as they appear
in student papers, and students would then need to correct those mistakes by checking the hard
copy of the guidelines. They should understand that they are not required to learn anything by
heart, but they need to be able to observe them in practice. Hence, they always can have all the
materials when they are making exercises, and also during the exam.
6) Some other general rules (guidelines for authors): In addition to the guidelines for authors
as they apply to references, other rules/guidelines are thoroughly discussed. Those apply to
paragraphs, space between lines, fonts – in text and in footnotes and in indent, abbreviations, use

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of foreign words, use of phrases – so that all papers are written according to the same style and
by applying the same set of rules. All these rules, again, are not to be learned by heart, but
students have to observe them in their essays. In terms of teaching methods, the same are applied
to references, as explained above, and to other guidelines for authors.
7) Exam: Given that the preparation of academic papers is a complex exercise, the final exam
needs to be prepared accordingly. I compose the exam in the following way: in the first,
invigilated part, students correct a part of an essay according to the guidelines for authors, which
they are allowed to consult. They have to successfully complete the first part so that they can
proceed to the second part. The latter takes place in the computer room. Students are given three
topics for their written essay. In the computer room, they select one topic and search for five most
appropriate secondary sources. At least three sources have to be scholarly articles, published in
peer-reviewed journals, one has to be a book, and one has to be a book chapter. They write those
five to seven sources on their chosen topic in a word document, which they hand in. The purpose
of this part is to check that in addition to being able to follow the guidelines for authors (part one
of the exam), they are able to look for scholarly sources and select different types of sources in
different academic databases. At least three out of those five to seven sources selected in the
computer room then need to be used for writing the essay.
In the third, take-home part of the exam, students write an essay of up to one thousand words.
Students have approximately 48 hours to finish and hand in their essays, written according to all
the rules as discussed throughout the course. The exam grade is a grade for the final product;
students are not graded for parts one and two – as those are considered as necessary prerequisites
for completing the goal of writing a solid academic essay.
The exam grade, which is the grade of the final essay, would typically comprise 70 per cent of
the final grade. The rest are grades students earn by completing exercises throughout the duration
of the course. Those individual exercises are crucial for two purposes: students need to complete
them successfully to earn all the credits (altogether five in my course), and they need to complete
them well as they can earn 30 per cent of the final grade.

Problems and (some) solutions

One of the biggest problems with this course is the workload, particularly if the number of
students taking the course is higher than 10 to 20. To teach over a hundred students how to write
academic papers, and to help them acquire the skill of academic writing, can be a huge challenge.
Taking into account the number of students, work may be divided into different groups, seminars
may be conducted several times, depending on the number of computers in the computer room,
for instance. Last but not least, for the teacher, the workload needs to be taken into account when
planning for the course. In this respect, teaching methods may vary depending on whether there
are 15 or 100 students taking the course.
The second problem encountered applies to technical equipment of students. Given that the
course begins in week one of the first semester, when students from across the country move to
the city, it may happen that they have no internet connection at home, or even no computer
brought from home. They may not have enrolled in the faculty’s library. To avoid any such
technical and technology-related problems, it may be useful to let them know in advance about
what they need and when. This can be done with a few lines in the course outline.
The third issue that may come up in the beginning is the workload students are faced with. The
course is very intensive, with the objective of teaching students, as quickly as possible, how to
write good academic papers. It may be useful if students are told upfront that the course requires
a lot of work, that it is very intensive and that they may wish to think about this when they plan
their schedules. A clear explanation and recognition by their teacher that the quantity of student

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input is acknowledged have proven sufficient to alleviate this problem (to the extent that this can
at all be considered a problem).

Conclusion
Teaching freshmen academic writing is a rather demanding task, particularly due to the
intensity of work and the huge workload itself – for students, and consequently, for a teacher.
This is a course where teacher’s feedback is crucial: students can only acquire the skill of writing,
rather than solely the knowledge about writing, by practising, and correcting their mistakes or
shortcomings. A number of issues apply to the entire process of obtaining this skill: from
understanding basic but all important premises of academic honesty, various types of sources,
different research methods and theoretical approaches towards addressing a certain issue, being
able to identify a problem and form a question, to ways of obtaining the sources, the ability to
distinguish between reliable, scientific, scholarly, academic sources and less reliable sources, the
ability to select the relevant sources for specific research and specific research goals, to being
able to write according to the guidelines for authors, on time and following other instructions
such as the word limit. It is important that students understand the entire comprehensive process
of academic writing, the importance of reading, thinking, selecting methods, reading, writing,
checking, self-correcting.
In addition to a number of issues identified in this paper, at least three factors appear to make
such a course a success. Firstly, the preparation of the course with a view of helping students gain
the skill of academic writing, based on the understanding that this skill is needed for a successful
completion of assignments within other courses. Accordingly, the contents for individual
exercises will come from the area of their study. Students can contribute to the selection of
topics. This will reaffirm the initial assumption that the course on academic writing is basic, and
that the skill is a tool for analysing issues that relate to a particular discipline and a study
programme.
Second, it is crucial that there is a high level of communication among teachers, within a
department, about what students do and what they learn within the course on academic writing. If
colleagues know what to expect from students and when, and if they themselves require the skill
for their assignments, then this will automatically increase student motivation for the course on
academic writing.
Third, co-operation with the library can provide a win-win situation: the work of the librarians
for increasing student e-literacy and ability to look for relevant sources can be incorporated into a
formal course. On the other hand, co-operation between a teacher and the librarians, with a direct
involvement of a librarian in the course, can make it possible for students to seek and get
qualified help directly in the library. Librarians know what students need, but also what they need
to know, so they can help students with their homework.
Such a combination of the course structure and teaching methods, as well as a lot of
enthusiasm and hard work, can make a course on academic writing a success, noticed by students
and colleagues alike. My own experience with teaching such a course has reassured my personal
belief that a course on academic writing is needed, and that it is needed in a study programme as
early as possible.