Formal Credited Writing Courses

Given the importance of writing in one’s native language in higher education and the influence of English as a lingua franca of scientific communication, the Academic Writing Education Center (AWEC) offers courses in both Chinese and English academic writing, each of which has three credits. To tap the power of small classes and personalized instruction, all AWEC classes are capped at 20 students. Engaging students in foundation-laying and thought-provoking classroom activities, AWEC aims both to help students build logical, critical, and integrative thinking skills and to demystify the misconception that writing is a mere output of sheer talent and excessive drilling.

Academic Writing Research and Material Development

Unlike the writing centers of many domestic and foreign universities, AWEC is devoted to academic writing research, in addition to offering academic writing courses to graduate students and organizing seminars to extend writing education. It is our conviction that only through writing education research can we accomplish professional teaching practice and develop effective teaching methods and materials to meet the needs of NTU graduate students.

The writing education research of AWEC is currently threefold:

(1) Assessment of course effectiveness and development of teaching materials for academic writing instruction
(2) Development of English writing assessment methods
(3) Investigation into discipline-specific characteristics and differences in academic writing

Writing Education Promotion

In order both to raise the awareness and understanding of academic writing of NTU graduate students and to further stimulate their potential and innovation for academic writing, AWEC invites outstanding scholars from home or abroad to conduct themed speeches and workshops. In addition, AWEC holds every semester writing education workshops whereby new teachers and post-doctoral researchers learn and communicate about writing education.

Collaboration with NTU Academics

– In addition to academic writing courses, AWEC offers courses on professional writing in the discipline in collaboration with professors from various departments. Taking advantage of the homogeneity of students, such courses aim both to effectively improve students’ professional writing abilities and to familiarize them with discipline-specific characteristics of research paper writing via critical reading and guided writing. Up to date, AWEC has worked with the following colleges and departments:

College of Liberal Arts: Department of History
College of Social Sciences:Departments of Economics、Departments of Sociology
College of Engineering:Department of Civil Engineering （CAE Group, Hydraulic Engineering Group, and Foreign Specialists）
College of Science: Department of Mathematics
College of Management: Department of Finance
College of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science: Graduate Institute of Communication Engineering
College of Life Science: College of Life Science and Department of Biochemical Science and Technology、College of Life Science and Department of Biochemical Science and Technology
College of Bio-Resources and Agriculture: Department of Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering
College of Medicine: School of Medicine、Graduate Institute of Clinical Medicine
College of Public Health: Institutes of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine、Institutes of Health Policy and Management、Institutes of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences