Subject Academic Reading and Writing

📘 Course Title: Academic Reading and Writing

📌 Course Code: ENG-410
📌 Credit Hours: 3 (3-0)

📖 Course Contents

📌 Reading and Critical Thinking

Students will develop effective academic reading and critical thinking skills by:

✅ Reading academic texts effectively through:

• Using appropriate strategies to extract key information
• Identifying main points, supporting details, and conclusions in an intermediate-level text
• Understanding the writer’s intent (cause and effect, comparison and contrast, exemplification)
• Interpreting charts and diagrams
• Making effective notes using mind maps, tables, lists, and graphs
• Understanding and following instructions for assignments, tasks, and exams

✅ Enhancing academic vocabulary through skills learned in Compulsory English I

✅ Developing dictionary skills, including:

• Locating guide words and entry words
• Choosing the appropriate definition
• Identifying pronunciation using the pronunciation key
• Recognizing part of speech, syllable division, and stress patterns

📌 Writing Academic Texts

Students will develop the ability to write well-structured academic texts by:

✅ Planning their writing

• Identifying the audience, purpose, and content
• Collecting information through mind maps, tables, charts, and lists

✅ Organizing information effectively

• Chronological order for narratives
• Stages of a process
• General to specific (or vice versa)
• Most important to least important
• Advantages vs. disadvantages
• Comparison and contrast
• Problem-solution patterns

✅ Writing different forms of academic writing

• Argumentative essays
• Descriptive essays
• Developing ideas using listing, comparison and contrast, cause and effect, pros and cons
• Writing strong topic sentences, supporting details, and conclusions
• Using cohesive devices like reference words and signal markers

✅ Editing and Proofreading

• Revising content, structure, and language
• Proofreading for grammar and coherence

📌 Grammar in Context

Students will improve grammatical accuracy in academic writing by focusing on:

✅ Phrase, clause, and sentence structure
✅ Combining sentences effectively
✅ Reported speech

📚 Recommended Books

1. Eastwood, J. (2004). English Practice Grammar (New edition with tests and answers). Karachi: Oxford University Press.
2. Fisher, A. (2001). Critical Thinking. Cambridge University Press.
3. Goatly, A. (2000). Critical Reading and Writing: An Introductory Course. London: Taylor & Francis.
4. Hacker, D. (1992). A Writer’s Reference (2nd Ed.). Boston: St. Martin’s Press.
5. Hamp-Lyons, L. & Heasley, B. (1987). Study Writing: A Course in Written English for Academic and Professional Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. Howe, D. H, Kirkpatrick, T. A., & Kirkpatrick, D. L. (2004). Oxford English for Undergraduates. Karachi: Oxford University Press.
7. Murphy, R. (2003). Grammar in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8. Smazler, W. R. (1996). Write to be Read: Reading, Reflection, and Writing. Cambridge University Press.
9. Wallace, M. (1992). Study Skills. Cambridge University Press.
10. Yorky, R. Study Skills.