This is a fast-track course for first-year doctoral students scoring level 3 on DACR A1. It is a condensed version of our Academic Writing 1 and Academic Writing 2 courses. It develops and improves the range and accuracy of the students’ writing by focusing on the main features of STEMM writing at doctoral level (including text organisation, cohesion, sentence structure, grammatical accuracy and academic vocabulary). It is designed primarily to help students with the writing of their ESA, but will also be relevant for aspects of writing research papers and the thesis. Writing tasks focus on structuring introductions, writing definitions, describing and evaluating procedures, and reporting and commenting on research findings.

This is an online self-study course which runs over a recommended 8-week period. To make the most of this course, we recommend you allocate an average of 2 hours per week to work on the activities, assignments and other recommended resources. There are no scheduled weekly live classes; instead, you will have a CfAE coach to guide you and answer any questions you might have. You will also receive 1:1 feedback on each of the course writing assignments.

Please note that this course has been carefully designed to meet your needs and improve your academic writing during the first 12 months of your doctoral programme. You will not be able to take it after the DACR A2/ESA.

Course eligibility

If you are eligible for Academic Writing 1&2 (i.e. if you are a 1st-year doctoral student scoring level 3 on DACR A1), you will receive the recommendation for this course with your DACR A1 result.