If you would like (for some inane or perhaps insane reason), here is the course syllabus for your reading pleasure. Of course, I reserve the right to amend it, so please treat this as a guideline.

For those of you that have taken courses from me, you will recall that we have had no textbooks, and in the present course we will also have no textbook. Class material will be available in Google Drive, and feel free to download, save, print, or otherwise use it. Because I eschew making paper handouts, if you prefer paper, please take care of printing files yourself.

You will find course requirements near the bottom of this page.

---

Hereafter you will find a reasonably detailed synopsis of the various class meetings ("sessions") that we will enjoy this term.

Sure, you were about to ask, right? That, Good People, is a sextant, a very necessary tool for navigation in the days of sailing ships (i.e., in the pre-GPS age). There is, in a most appropriate nod to our faculty, a strong mathematical background to this beautiful tool.

---

Session #1 (September 25) — Introduction; Paper Format 

As often happens on the first day of class, we'll be speaking in somewhat general terms about our course and some of the topics therein. First, note that this course includes all four skills that appear in academic work: speaking, listening, reading, and writing. There are, of course, certain requirments for this course, as is true for every course; please scroll down to the specific course requirements for your enlightenment.

I would like you Fine Students to prepare an annotated bibliography as part of your work in this course. This is, as the name suggests, a bibliography with helpful annotations. Your bibliography should include articles related to your research or interests, but basically any article of interest to you would be fine. The exact format you follow is entirely your choice, but the guiding principle is that the annotations should be helpful for you. You might well ask the number of entries to make, to which I would offer my usual response: "Enough."

Having enjoyed that, Good People, we will now devote the remainder of our time today to reviewing our friend, the paragraph. This is, of course, the fundamental unit of any paper you write, and it would behoove you to be as skillful as possible at crafting interesting, effective paragraphs. Let's take a look at the paragraph structure file below.

Class Material & Homework:

Session #2 (October 2) — Topic Sentence Analysis & Paragraph Structure 

In the first half of today's class we will be doing some paragraph writing—details in class, folks.

In the second half of our session today (time permitting), I'd like to provide a brief introduction to corpus linguistics. Because this is a large and growing area in our field, I've opted to add a separate page to only begin to scratch the surface. Follow this link to our resource page with some information on corpus linguistics.

Homework:

Session #3 (October 9) — Basics of Description; Common EFL Errors; Punctuation 

One seemingly simple yet often poorly-done area is description, a skill which requires a good command of some commonly used phrases, adjectives, and a few strategies. In the describing objects file below, we'll find some advice and lots of practice.

In my years of teaching in Japan, I've come across errors that occur repeatedly in students' writing, and today we will talk some about those.

Our final goal today is to talk briefly about the proper use of punctuation in English, which is naturally somewhat different than its usage in Japan.

Homework:

Session #4 (October 16) — Structural Genre Analysis; Narrative Moves 

Our first task today is to introduce a simple yet productive type of analysis called genre analysis. This begins with a sample (dare we say a corpus?) of texts, in which we want to find trends or patterns. We can look at any component of the writing, which can include types of words (e.g., adjectives), grammatical features (e.g., verb tense), moves, rhetorical features such as topic sentences, and so forth.

Next we will walk through two genre analyses. The first is of my work, which includes the three articles below.

 Class Material: 

Second, let's extend this idea to the organization of academic papers.

Finally, folks, let's examine the discussion section in some detail. As you'll recall from our lesson on writing an introduction, we talked about moves, which are parts or actions. In the same way, your discussion will include moves; many discussions generally have up to five moves, which are as follow:

Class Material:

Let's continue with a look at the language of academic papers. This is an area in which students can sometimes get perilously close to the register used in oral communication, which is generally much more casual. Here we have a useful chapter on (3) academic style, courtesy of Stephen Bailey and his 2018 book titled Academic Writing: A Handbook for International Students. Below you will also find two of my articles, which we will glance at to check for my use of academic style.

Class Material:

Session #5 (October 23) — Incorporating AI into Academic Writing 

A point for your consideration today: As you're crafting your magnum opus, consider using the strength of corpus data to enhance your work. One source is, of course, your basic dictionary, which will provide you with concise definitions, examples of usage (to an extent), as well as synonyms and antonyms. If you google your search term using "define [term]", you'll find several online dictionaries, among which the Free Online Dictionary and Merriam-Webster are quite

I do have a small task that will be required on your forthcoming papers for our class. You might have encountered statements of disclosure when submitting research manuscripts; those detail, for example, activities that might have had some influence on your work. In medical research, pharmaceutical companies sometimes sponsor research, which naturally raised questions about whether they try to influence the results. Thus, with each paper you submit to me in the future, you will need to include a single page Disclosure Statement listing and explaining any AI activities you used while writing your paper.

First, let's consider apps and their purposes.

AI purposes in academic writing

Session -- (October 31) — No Class (Halloween) 

Remember that your descriptive paper is due today at this File Request (DescrPaper)

Session #6 (November 6 — Peer Review 

Second, I would like to offer the first of several admonitions about making your writing more interesting, which often means making it a tad more complex. A singular hint in doing so is to consider how you can use conjunctions (which, you will recall, should not be at the beginning of your written sentences). A second avenue to making your writing more interesting is to look at the variety of sentence patterns in both your own writing and in my writing. An easy way to do so is to use Excel and simply line up sentences, as you'll see ... This is a method that we will call genre analysis, about which we will have more to say later.

Class Material:

Session #7 (November 13) —  The Capstone Project 

Let's continue with a look at the language of academic papers. This is an area in which students can sometimes get perilously close to the register used in oral communication, which is generally much more casual. As you'll recall, on October 31 we talked some about using complex sentences and also varying the types of sentences you use (or at least being aware thereof). We'll begin with some time looking at the two links below, #1 and #2. Thereafter we will peruse a useful chapter on academic style, courtesy of Scott Bailey and his book titled Academic Writing: A Handbook for International Students. You might consider the style in my articles, which we will find slightly higher on this page.

A second point I would like to cover today concerns paragraphs and (a) how they are organized internally, and (b) how the paragraphs in a paper are organized. Let's have a good look at this helpful handout on structuring and organizing paragraphs.

OK, Good People, why did I include an image of a ship's helm at this point?

A small sidelight I'd like to address today is writing polite email (or emails if you prefer the plural form with that distinctive S). These are, of course, of considerable importance, and the skill to craft effective messages is an often overlooked skill.

Class Material:

Session #8 (November 20) —  Logic & Cause 

OK, Good Students, let us ...

Class Material:

Session #9 (November 27) —  Outline Audit 

Good morning, everyone. Today our class will be devoted to considering relative classes, which are a very common feature that you certainly encountered in your English training. You likely did not enjoy them much, however, which many students have mentioned.

Second, I would like to spend a few minutes talking about hedging. This refers, of course, to the technique of softening what you write.

Class Material:

Your homework is to begin working on your final paper, which will be due by January 31.

Technical Paper details:

Session #10 (December 4) —  Scientific Neutrality; Visual Elements 

Our first task today is a look at the nature of writing neutrality.

Second, we will also consider the world of tables and figures, which is more art than science, I think. Here we have a useful chapter on the use and presentation of visual material.

 Homework: 

Session #11 (December 11) —  Synthesis & the Use of Citations 

Good morning, everyone. Today we'll be devoting our class to the very necessary craft of citations. None of your (my, our) work exists in isolation, for we build on those who have come before.

Class Material:

Session #12 (December 18) —  The Dual-Audit Workshop 

Today in our final class of 2026 we have two auditing tasks, the first of which is to perform a sentence-level check of your final paper. Second, we will do peer edits to look at the organization and logic you're used.

 Student papers sans citations: 

Finally, allow me to add a small assignment to your final paper. In the spirit of this so-called genre analysis, you will conduct and submit a genre analysis of your own writing. You may choose the particular area that you analyze, but it should help you improve your paper. You might, for example, look at all the paragraph topic sentences. Another idea is to exam the verbs you used (and especially the tenses). Please see the two "geometric pattern" files in the Class Material.

Session #13 (January 8) —  Polishing Your Capstone Paper 

Welcome back, everyone, and may this Year of the Sheep be happy, healthy, and productive for you. In this penultimate class I will be meeting with individual students.

Ah, it's time for one final (mini-) task, folks. As part of your portfolio, please add a conference paper that introduces at least three academic conferences where you could present your paper. In this report I will need (a) the name and details of the conference (e.g., location, dates, application deadline), (b) how your paper would be appropriate for the conference (topic or thread match), (c) cost and logistics of attending the conference, and (d) any publishing opportunities.

Session #14 (January 15) —  Potpourri 

In this, our final class meeting, I would like to address the following two tasks. First, I would like to provide some thoughts and advice on plagiarism, about which all academic writers must remain cognizant. Moreover, in this brave, new world of AI, authorship has entered a a "gray zone" in which it is so exceedingly easy to get a boost from our AI friends. The first two links below, courtesy of Dr. Michaela Panter at AJE, are particularly good.

Second, we will look—quite briefly—at the three very vexing articles in English: a, an, and the.

Finally, allow me to remind you that you need to include a genre analysis in your technical report. Yes, it is a bit old-fashioned in its implementation, but it is always truly instructive to do so.

Plagiarism Material:

Material on Articles (a, an, the):

Genre Analysis Material:

Homework:

1. In principle, three absences will be allowed, beyond which the student's overall grade will be reduced.


2. Regular and active participation in class is expected.


3. Required writing will include the following:
• ✔ Self-introduction (5%; due October 2)
• ✔ Descriptive paper (15%; due October 31)
• ✔ Technical paper portfolio (60%; due January 15)
• ✔ Genre analysis (5%)

Note that you may revise and resubmit any paper for additional credit.