module specification

This module will equip students on courses in creative technologies, media and journalism with essential transferrable skills of good writing and also introduce them to basic research and academic writing skills.

This module aims to develop good writing in a variety of ways, focusing on expectations and standards in the professional and academic environments; your studies on this module will include two major elements: good writing principles for your future profession, and academic writing skills for your higher education.

This way, you will first study what makes a good text: from the principles of clarity, brevity and simplicity to developing personal style. You will examine different types of texts, their communicative purposes and expectations in the professional world, as well as structure, narrative and storytelling principles, from emails and blogs to professional reports.

In the second part of this module, you will focus on a crucial skill in higher education: academic research, writing, and referencing. You will learn to search for, review and analyse information in academic and non-academic sources, extract relevant information, and use it to develop and support your argument in academic writing or other forms of presentation. You will examine and practice the specific language of academic writing, the structuring of academic texts and the goals and principles of academic referencing.

In addition, this module will help you develop confidence and creativity in writing, techniques to overcome writer’s block and ‘fear on a blank page’ and working in teams on creative and academics tasks to foster inclusive team-working skills.

In class you will learn through a combination of lectures and practical classes, with weekly writing tasks. You will be assessed through a series of blog posts, a written report and weekly online journal contributions.

This module focuses on developing writing skills for employment and academic success.

Students will learn the principle of good writing: from simplicity, brevity and clarity, to recognising the goals of different types of writing, and structuring texts according to these goals [LO1, LO2, LO5].

Students will also examine the idea of a writing voice and personal style in writing and develop their own voice with recognition of how and in which types of writing it can be expressed most effectively [LO5]. In addition, students will work on developing confidence, ambition and creativity in writing, and in working in a socially responsible way in diverse teams [ULO].

Students will also study academic writing in a holistic way – from the purposes of this style of writing to practical elements like searching for relevant information in academic and non-academic sources, finding authoritative sources, analysing and compiling information to support their argument in academic assignments, as well as structuring texts and referencing
[LO3, LO4, LO5].

The module will be taught by a programme of weekly sessions, comprising a three-hour block for each of the weeks in which it runs. Learning and teaching strategy will be based on an interactive practice-oriented model.

Teaching sessions will include instruction, practical workshops, blended learning and tutorials. Most weeks, classes will include both lecture and practical elements, and there will be weekly writing tasks in order to develop confidence and habit for writing, underpinned by the philosophy of learning to write by writing to learn.

Students will write during and outside of the teaching sessions, and they are expected to attend and encouraged to participate in the sessions by asking questions, seeking and providing feedback from and to their colleagues, and reflecting on their own practice. Feedback from peers is a valuable teaching strategy as students will play the roles of both authors, editors, and audiences of the writing produced in class. A reflective coaching atmosphere in sessions will aim to foster confidence and creativity in writing.

Tutorials and formative assessments will take place to prepare students for the summative assessments.

Electronic resources, including the university’s VLE and its tools, will be used by students and staff. VLE will contain notes, slides, readings, and weblinks related to the weekly teaching session topics.

Independent reflective study, including reading and writing exercises, will form the backbone of every session.

On successful completion of this module, having completed all the tasks set, students should be able to:

LO1. Write in a clear and informative way;

LO2. Structure texts depending on the purpose of the communication;

LO3. Develop their ability search for, analyse and compile information from research literature and other sources into academic texts;

LO4. Write for academic purposes with proper referencing;

LO5. Critically evaluate texts, including their own.

This list includes both core and additional reading:

https://rl.talis.com/3/londonmet/lists/E9E4504D-0349-9E15-4E30-C8A6278D2FEB.html?lang=en&login=1