Advanced Writing

Course 3: Advanced Writing

This is the third course in the Academic English: Writing specialization. By raising your level of academic writing, this course helps prepare you for college-level work.
After completing this course, you will be able to:
– plan and write a more sophisticated argument essay
– identify plagiarism and explain how to prevent it
– read and analyze several articles to form your own opinion on a topic
– make connections between several articles
– form thesis statements from your readings
– use sources effectively when writing an essay
Please note that the free version of this class gives you access to all of the instructional videos and handouts. The peer feedback and quizzes are only available in the paid version.

What you will learn

Course Introduction

This is the third course in the Academic English: Writing specialization, and it is a more advanced writing course. It will help you raise the level of your writing and make you more aware of the type of writing you can expect in college. You’ll learn what plagiarism is and how to avoid it using correct MLA citations. Also, you’ll learn to write a synthesis essay, which will help develop your critical thinking skills. Finally, you’ll write a documented essay, which will help further enhance your skill of using outside sources in your writing.

Advanced Argument Essays

In the previous class, you learned about writing argument essays. Here you’re going to learn how to make your essays more academic by writing more body paragraphs and adding support from outside sources. You will write a new argument essay, and since you already know how to write an argument, this will be a good way to practice using sources. You will also start learning about MLA format.

Avoiding Plagiarism

The topic of this module is very important for you to know about before you start taking college classes. Plagiarism is a kind of academic dishonesty that gets students into big trouble or even gets them dismissed from school. In this module, you will learn what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

Synthesis Essay

In college classes, you will often be asked to read several articles and write an essay about an idea you form from reading the articles. This kind of essay is called a synthesis essay. In this module, you will be given two lists of articles to choose from. You will need to read the articles on your list and then write a synthesis essay. You will use sources from the articles to support your own ideas.