Academic English

Acadmic English 

Is your English perfect? If in doubt, please bookmark in your calender

Saturday, April 30, 2011
9:30-16:00
Graduate Schools, Paradeplatz 4
Rooms 406/407

and take a look at the following sentences: Each of them could use some improvement. Can you identify the problems?
  
1. With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured.
2. Flux capacitors were distributed to whomever was judged to be in need of one.
3. A student's lack of socialization into a field may lead to writing problems because of  his or her insufficient knowledge about the construction of arguments by professionals in that field.
4. The subjacency requirements, are some of the most frequently violated, while subcategorization features, are generally respected.
5. The South has produced some of our greatest twentieth-century writers. For example, Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, Alice Walker, Tennessee Williams, and Thomas Wolfe.
6. Do not try to anticipate in advance those events that will completely revolutionize society, because past history shows that it is the eventual outcome of minor events that unexpectedly surprises us more.
 
Errors like the ones in the sentences above are sometimes confusing, sometimes embarrassing, and sometimes merely annoying, but--and here's the point--always avoidable.
The workshop is specifically intended for foreign academics working in English as a second language. Please bring your own texts/manuscripts/paper drafts for criticism and comment. We'll address a number of topics, including (but not limited to) the following:
 
-> Sentence and paragraph structure
-> Punctuation
-> Use of definite and indefinite articles
->Readability and style

Important
After the workshop, you can follow up on your writing project together with the workshop instructor on an individual basis, every Friday, 2-4 p.m.

About the instructor
Jon Bornholt is a doctoral researcher at the philosophy department at our university. His academic background is in English literature and linguistics. Besides his mother language English he is well versed in several living and dead languages.  He worked as an English teacher for several years.

Please register
- by sending an e-mail to schroeder-keohne@uni-wuerzburg.de
- until April 15
- on a  first-come, first-served basis
- max. 10 participants

Cost
None for you; The course is funded by a  "DAAD PROMOS" grant to the University of Würzburg Graduate Schools.