This seminar course aims (1) to bridge the gap between undergraduate and graduate courses by providing the course takers with an opportunity to read academic thesis and (2) to develop students’ research ability. Throughout taking this course, students will conduct conceptual review of literature on their research topics. Eventually, they will gain familiarity with academic research processes. For those planning to pursue graduate study and face the need of submitting writing samples for the showing of academic writing ability, they can use the academic papers practiced in this class as writing samples for their MA study application.

This seminar course aims (1) to bridge the gap between undergraduate and graduate courses by providing the course takers with an opportunity to read academic thesis and (2) to develop students’ research ability. Throughout taking this course, students will conduct conceptual review of literature on their research topics. Eventually, they will gain familiarity with academic research processes. For those planning to pursue graduate study and face the need of submitting writing samples for the showing of academic writing ability, they can use the academic papers practiced in this class as writing samples for their MA study application.

This course is to help perspective students interested in pursuing graduate study to gain an awareness of academic thesis writing principles. Most undergraduate students are not trained academic research paper writing and have no ideas how academic research or thesis research may look like. Such unawareness results in their frustration if they go for advanced study and face the need of writing research papers or postgraduate thesis. This course aims to offer undergraduate students a chance of genre practice for the reinforcement of academic research writing knowledge.

An academic research paper is usually divided sequentially into the section of introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. The course instructor will use former MA TEFL students’ master theses (accessible, available, and retrievable online via THU’s library database) as the writing model to introduce/explain/illustrate the writing conventions and rhetorical moves of each section. Course takers will be taught to use THU’s library database to search references, to identify the research interest, and to formulate a tentative topic within their research interest. Students will conduct a conceptual review of literature on their research topics. For those who plan to pursue graduate study and need to submit writing samples for the showing of academic writing ability, they can use the academic papers produced in this class as part of their application materials.

This course is to help perspective students interested in pursuing graduate study to gain an awareness of academic thesis writing principles. Most undergraduate students are not trained academic research paper writing and have no ideas how academic research or thesis research may look like. Such unawareness results in their frustration if they go for advanced study and face the need of writing research papers or postgraduate thesis. This course aims to offer undergraduate students a chance of genre practice for the reformer of academic research writing knowledge.

An academic research paper is usually divided sequentially into the section of introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. The course instructor will use former MA TEFL students’ master theses (accessible, available, and retrievable online via THU’s library database) as the writing model to introduce/explain/illustrate the writing conventions and rhetorical moves of each section. Course Takers will be taught to use THU’s library database to search references, to identify the research interest, and to formulate a tenative topic within their research interest. Students will conduct a conceptual review of literature on their research topics. For those who plan to pursue graduate study and need to submit writing samples for the showing of academic writing ability, they can use the academic papers produced in this class as part of their application materials.

Wyrick, J. (2017). Steps to writing well. Cengage Learning.

(We will read two chapters on "how to write a research paper" and these two chapters are not taught in the Comp 2 class)

Wyrick, J. (2017). Steps to writing well. Cengage Learning.

(We will read two chapters on "how to write a research paper" and these two chapters are not taught in the Comp 2 class)