Instructor: Pai H. Chou
<br>Email: phchou@cs.nthu.edu.tw
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<br>1. Course Desc<x>ription
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<br>This course covers the grammar, vocabulary, st<x>yle, logic, and tools needed for writing and reading 
<br>materials 
<br>on science and technology.  The grammar review part covers sentence construction and common mistakes.  
<br>The vocabulary part compares similar but often misused words in technical English.  A large portion of the 
<br>course will cover st<x>yle with editing exercises on making the writing concise, precise, professional, 
<br>coherent, 
<br>easy to read, and persuasive.  The logic part deals with the organization of ideas and reasoning, with a review 
<br>of common logical fallacies.  The course will be using collaborative writing tools for collaborative authoring of 
<br>such materials.
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<br>2. Textbooks
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<br>- Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills. 2nd
<br>	Edition. Crane Publishing Cl., Ltd.
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<br>- Strunk and White, the Elements of st<x>yle, available online
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<br>- Course reader
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<br>3. Teaching Methods
<br>    The course will review grammar and st<x>yle rules for technical English.
<br>    The format will be lecture with interactive sessions for the class to
<br>    participate in reading and editing technical English.
<br>    Exercises will be taken from textbooks and provided by instructors.
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<br>4. Evaluation
<br>    30% class participation
<br>    50% take-home assignments
<br>    20% final paper
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<br>5. Tentative Schedule
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<br>Part 1: Approach to Academic Writing
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<br>- Audience, Purpose, Strategy
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<br>Part 2: General-Specific Structure
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<br>- General statement, definition, definition, naming, definite vs indefinite article, restrictive relative clause
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<br>Part 3: Problems, Processes, Solutions
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<br>- problem-solution text, mid-position verbs, verbs and agents, active vs passive voices, causality, adversative 
<br>connector
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<br>Part 4: Data Commentary
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<br>- Strength of  claim, purpose, location, indicative vs. informative, highlighting, qualification, strength of verbs, 
<br>graphs, time, chronology
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<br>Part 5: Summaries
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<br>- summarizing vs copying, headings, points, paraphrasing, reporting verbs vs evaluative verbs, mention, 
<br>citation
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<br>Part 6: Critiques
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<br>- purpose, elements, general aim vs specific aim, findings, criticism vs critique, unreal conditionals, inverted 
<br>word ordering, agreement
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<br>Part 7: Constructing whole paper
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<br>- types of publications, sectioning, features, methodology, hyphenation, results organizations, 
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<br>Part 8: Refinement
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<br>- thesis statement, rhetorical pattern, basic moves, sentence ordering, opening, answer, centrality claim, 
<br>literature citation, tense, quasi-negative vs neutral, contrastive, hypothesis, suggesting extension, purposive 
<br>vs desc<x>riptive, abstract, acknowledgment
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<br>6. Course Website
<br>http://lms.nthu.edu.tw/course/13310