LC-1310 - Academic Communication for MSc Students (o,w), Lecture H10, 18.1.2022-5.4.2022

The purpose of this learning journal # 1 is to make you reflect on your background as an academic writer & presenter and to help you identify your own strengths and weaknesses in academic communication. You will also set some personal learning goals for yourself and think about a possible topic you will be working on during this course (both in writing and in the presentation). Finally,  you get to practice free writing, which is less strict than academic writing. Writing freely is a powerful technique to develop your writing skills.

Write a 1 -2 page reflection in which you answer / reflect on the following questions.

 1.Describe your background and experiences as a user and learner of English. For instance, you could desribe your English learning experiences from earlier schooling or your experiences with using English. How do you feel about your English communication skills in general?

 2.What kinds of experiences do you have with academic writing? What kinds of issues do you normally struggle with when writing academic pieces in English? What kind of instruction have you received about academic / scientific writing in English? How about academic writing in general? Do you think that academic writing is different in your native tongue than in English?

3. Describe your background / experiences with academic presentations. Have you received instruction on presentation skills? How do you feel about presenting in English? What are your strengths when presenting? What aspects would you like to improve when presenting in English in academic settings?

 4.What areas of academic communication do you hope to get help with in this course?

5.Think of interesting areas of research in your field you would like to explore more in our course through the paper and presentation. In our course, you will write "a state-of-the-art review report" on this topic and also present about it. Hopefully, this topic would be motivating for you to work with.  The topic can be based on what you did for your bachelor's, a current course focus or your possible future master's thesis topic. The paper length is 1000-1300 words. The presentation length is 9-12 minutes. The paper does not involve experiments - so it simply reviews the topic area in question. It is sort of a mini literature review -- or a short review article. Many of my previous students have used this opportunity to get started with research a topic they might be working on in ther Master's thesis or as a part of the internship. Some students have enjoyed the liberty to be able to explore topics they have not yet been able to work on in their studies.

Discuss your preliminary topic idea here in the learning journal and be ready to discuss your topic idea in small groups on our next week's class.