All Language Centre courses

Abstracts, Introductions and Literature Reviews are common sections of academic papers and dissertations / theses. This workshop will introduce these three sections and explore how they frequently overlap. The workshop involves a video to watch and exercises to complete before an online Zoom workshop.

Building a cohesive and logical argument is a key element of academic writing. Often, feedback from supervisor will tell us that argumentation needs to be improved. In this workshop we examine what precisely is meant by argumentation and look at ways to improve the quality of argumentation in our own academic work.

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to produce clear, concise and compelling documents in a professional setting. You’ll pick up techniques for quickly identifying, honing and communicating your key message — whether it’s for day-to-day emails, longer reports or a persuasive pitch.

If our writing is cohesive and coherent, there are logical connections between words, sentences, paragraphs and sections. This workshop explores different techniques for increasing cohesion, which should make your writing easier to read and more effective. Students will first watch a video and complete some exercises online. In the real-time webinar we will discuss the exercises and students will be able to ask questions.

This workshop builds on topics covered in the previous session, partly by analyzing excerpts from published journal articles for their cohesion. Although attending the previous workshop is an advantage, it is not a prerequisite.

The final chapter of a dissertation / thesis can have various titles including ‘conclusion’ and ‘discussion’. This workshop looks at the typical contents of a final chapter and also cautious language (hedging), which is commonly found in a conclusion. It involves a video to watch and exercises to complete before an online Zoom workshop.

In-Sessional English Conversation Hours

So much hard work is compromised due to poor editing. Editing is much more than just simple proof-reading. It involves a critical approach to planning, setting out information, constructing argument, paragraphing, sentencing and ultimately understanding the effect of what we write on the reader. In this workshop we look at a variety of elements in the editing process and we use good models and student work to help us.

This session covers the basic principles of academic style. Learn how to make your writing more formal, persuasive, and precise, and how to use the passive voice and tentative language (hedging) to good effect.

This workshop discusses the basic principles of academic style, helping you to write more formally, persuasively and precisely. Learn how to attain clarity and accuracy and how to use the passive voice and tentative language (hedging). Students will apply their learning to practical examples.

Across disciplines, academic writing uses a repertoire of patterns of language to organise and create fluent and coherent texts. Evidence from large databases (corpora) of academic writing shows us how grammar and vocabulary follow regular patterns to create fluent information focus.

We continue to work with patterns and chunks in writing, based on academic corpus database statistics. We look at patterns of language used after nouns in ways typical of academic writing, and how chunks are used to link ideas and arguments in a fluent way. This is a practical workshop with tasks to complete before and during the Zoom workshop.

The correct use of articles (the / a / an) is one of the trickiest aspects of English grammar for non-native speakers, whether their language uses articles in a different way from English or maybe manages to get by without any articles at all. This webinar will set out clearly the ways in which English uses articles, and will hopefully offer some conceptual keys to help students correct their own usage. Students will then be asked to complete some exercises online.

The most significant grammar mistakes that foreign students make are usually those that greatly change the meaning of the sentence. Modals, such as can or would, are often used to indicate the position of the writer in academic writing, so their inaccurate use can easily give a very different meaning from that intended. For this workshop, students will first watch a video and complete some exercises on Moodle. In the real-time webinar, students can ask questions and discuss areas of difficulty.

Hedging is an important skill in academic writing, used to show uncertainty, hesitation, or caution where appropriate. In this workshop we will consider when, why, and how to use hedging effectively in our academic writing and practise using hedging with a range of example sentences. No preparation is required before attending this workshop.

The most effective writers are actually skilled self-editors. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to approach the editing process – and what to look for when revising your work. Please bring along a piece of work you’d like to edit.

The most effective writers are actually skilled self-editors. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to approach the editing process — and what to look for when improving your work. Please bring along a piece of work you’d like to edit.

This workshop will take you step-by-step through the process of writing a persuasive business report — from planning to polishing. We’ll look at the style, structure and content of an effective business report, and explore some of the differences (and similarities) between business writing and academic writing.

There is nothing to do before the workshop.

As a graduate student at Cambridge, you are expected to write clearly. This workshop looks at some common barriers to clarity in writing – and suggests strategies for overcoming them.

Good academic writing should be clear, concise and coherent. This workshop looks at some common barriers to clarity in writing — and suggests strategies for overcoming them. There is a short exercise to complete before the workshop.

Idioms form an important part of everyday spoken English and offer insights into British culture and society. In this informal workshop, you will explore English idiomatic expressions within their cultural context and will put them into practice through a range of simple exercises.

This is a workshop which will concentrate on intonation and stress within normal spoken and written English, and will aim to give students some idea of how stress and intonation work at the level of the sentence or even the paragraph. It should help students understand how intonation is used in English to convey meaning beyond the surface value of individual words, and should help them to use this technique as well. .

Methodology and results are two very common chapters in academic papers and dissertations / theses, especially in scientific subjects. This workshop will focus mainly on linguistic aspects of these chapters. It involves a video to watch and exercises to complete before an online Zoom workshop.

Across disciplines, academic writing uses a repertoire of patterns of language to organise and create coherent texts. Evidence from large databases (corpora) of academic writing shows us how grammar and vocabulary follow regular patterns to create clarity, appropriate information focus and argument structure. This is a practical workshop with tasks to complete before and during the Zoom workshop.

This workshop continues the theme of Patterns and chunks in academic writing (1), looking at how writers signal the organisation of their texts using a repeated repertoire of language chunks. This is a practical workshop with tasks to complete before and during the Zoom workshop. Attendance at Patterns and chunks in academic writing (1) is not a prerequisite for attendance at this workshop.