Writer's Manual: Introduction

This writer's manual consists of a general introduction to the writing process and instruction material (plus feedback forms) for four types of writing products which prepare for the Bachelor's final paper:

•  Academic summary
•  Essay
•  Research design
• Research report

This writer's manual is written for Bachelor's students from the Department of Modern Languages. Practicing with the four types of text enables students to reach the desired BA final level, also with an eye toward moving on to a (Research) Master's programme. These diverse texts return in several courses of the Department of Modern Languages programmes.

There is no unambiguous definition of academic writing. Different academic disciplines use different genres and each field has its own rules and requirements. However, important factors for all scholarly texts are argumentation, level of subject knowledge and a clear structure.

The writer's manual can be used in different ways:

• Students may consult the writer's manual for a short explanation of a writing task. However, the instructions in this manual are of a general nature and never substitute the instructions of the lecturer in specific courses. So it is important for students to carefully read the instructions in the course manual of the course in question and only after having done so use the writer's manual as a guide line.
• Students may use the evaluation list at the writing task as a check list when working on a specific kind of text.
• For lecturers the writer's manual offers a tool to add instructions to a writing task in his or her course.
• The writer's manual helps in giving consistent instructions, feedback and evaluations in different courses given by different lecturers

The writer's manual was created thanks to the contributions of  Ineke van den Berg, Luuk Dijkstra, Rick de Graaff, Ewout van der Knaap, Els Rose, Elma Zijderveld (Department of Modern Languages in collaboration with the Centre for Teaching and Learning) (November 2011).

In order to assess and evaluate a person's writing and language skills in an unambiguous manner,  the feedback forms of the ERK levels are a welcome tool. If you want to find out more about this Europees Referentiekader talen  ('Common European Framework of Reference'), the different ERK levels and the feedback forms developed to this end, please click on the tab 'ERK Beoordeling'  in  the Writer's Manual in Dutch.