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Intermediate Writing (Higher Intermediate / Intermediate 2)

  • Pukyong National University (Daeyeon Campus)
  • Room: (allotted room, but not likely used)
  • Instructional medium: This course will be conducted by means of uploaded, pre-recorded videos in the LMS. It is unlikely that we will hold live classes in our classroom this semester.


Prof. Kent Lee

  • Office: C25-1103
  • Office hours: By appointment


1 Course description

This course is designed mainly for sophomores, juniors and seniors in social science and humanities fields. The goals of the course consist of improving your academic English writing skills, and expressing yourselves better in English. This includes specific skills like:

  1. Writing different types of paragraphs (definition, classification, narrative, etc.)
  2. Prewriting techniques
  3. Using basic sentence types effectively; this includes common second-language issues such as essay structure, style, wording, and grammar issues.
  4. Developing main ideas, topic sentences, and body paragraphs


2 Assignments

2.1 ¶#1

For the first paragraph / multi-paragraph writing assignment, you will write a self-introduction email of at least a couple of paragraph. You can refer to the email guide in the book (§2.5) for the basic format of an English email. The general format and structure can be more formal, but the contents of the body paragraph can be more semi-formal (including first and second person pronouns). In your email, you can choose any one or more of the following topics and explain them in your email.

  1. Why you chose your major, and your future plans.
  1. Tell me about your English learning. What things have you find to be actually helpful and useful in learning English (habits, practices, experiences, reading materials, media materials, etc.)? What things have been unhelpful or adverse? How do you feel toward English? Do you personally like it or find it useful, or do you feel negative about it? What experiences have made you feel that way? How important is English for your future?

To help me learn the Korean language and culture, perhaps you could recommend some basic reading materials, websites, or any written or print materials that might help. Be sure to provide background information on such sources. (My Korean is at a lower-intermediate level).

Be sure to indicate your name and section in the subject line. Be sure to send your email to at least two of my email accounts simultaneously, to avoid emails getting lost (and that helps my email filters to put it in the right folder).

Due date: 18 Sept.



3 Evaluating sources

3.1 News sites

There are the top news outlets, sites and publications for general world news, political news, original reporting, investigative journalism, commentary and analysis. Many of these predate the Internet, so here, format includes its original format before going online.

3.1.1 General news

Name / site Format & scope Location
ABC News (US) Traditional nightly TV news US
ABC News (Australia) Traditional TV news Australia
Al Jazeera TV news Qatar
The Associated Press Wire service US
The Atlantic Magazine; commentary & analysis of news, culture and society US
BBC News Traditional TV news UK
CBS News Traditional TV news US
CNN TV news; general news US
Deutsche Welle Radio & TV news / TV news Germany
Foreign Affairs Magazine; in-depth analysis of global affairs US (published by a famous thinktank, the Council on Foreign Relations)
The Globe and Mail Newspaper Canada
The Guardian Newspaper UK
The Hill US political news & commentary US
Huffingtonpost Magazine format; commentary and analysis of US & international news, politics, society, and culture US
NBC News Traditional TV news US
The New Yorker Magazine; commentary & analysis of news, culture and society US
National Public Radio Radio news US
New York Times Newspaper US
Reuters Wire service Germany
Politico US political news & commentary US
South China Morning Post Newspaper Hong Kong
Time magazine Magazine US
The Times of India Newspaper India
The Wall Street Journal Newspaper; US & international financial & general news US
The Washington Post Newspaper US

The following are foreign language news sources from around the world.

  1. Le Monde (France]
  2. Sverige Tillskott (Sweden)
  3. El País (Spain)
  4. Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany)
  5. CNTV (China)
  6. Deutsche Welle (Germany)
  7. Der Spiegel (Germany)
  8. Yomiuri (Japan)
  9. RT (Russia)
  10. France24 (France)
  11. Niews (Netherlands)
  12. De Telegraaf (Netherlands)

The following are news aggregators, which do not do original reporting, but merely aggregate or collect trending stories from many news outlets.

  1. Google News
  2. Yahoo News

The following provide commentary and analysis from a specific political perspective. They are not intended as general news sources, but as sources of (generally) intelligent political commentary.

  1. The New Republic (US; liberal)
  2. The Nation (US; liberal)
  3. National Review (US; conservative)
  4. The Weekly Standard (US; conservative)


3.1.2 Business & financial news

Name / site Format & scope Location
Bloomberg TV news US
Business Insider Magazine US
Business Standard Newspaper India
CNBC TV news US
The Economist Magazine US
The Financial Times Newspaper UK
Forbes Magazine US
Fortune Magazine US
Market Watch Magazine US
New York Times (business section) Newspaper US
The Wall Street Journal Newspaper US


3.1.3 Technology & IT news


3.1.4 Science news

4 Paraphrasing and summarizing

Sample revision essays from an assignment may appear here.


5 Reference materials

5.1 Citation systems

The following are some commonly used citation systems; you can use any one of these for your papers in this course.


Style Typical field
* Chicago Manual, short & long footnote styles humanities (This is a more semi-formal citation style; end references are still required with footnotes)
* Chicago Manual (parenthetical) humanities (This is a more formal style with Author+Year in parenthetical in-text citations) humanities
* Chicago Manual (all versions) complete guide to all versions

If you have a lot of media sources, you might find Chicago or MLA easier to use.


6 Discourse & style issues

Read the relevant course packet chapters on coherence / transitionals, cohesion, reporting verbs, and word choice. We may go through some of this quickly in class, as this is rather dry. Please look at the examples and bring your questions, as you may or may not understand why some examples are given, or are flagged as problematic.

To revise and improve your midterm paper, first look at these more general guides to style and wording. Then look at these more specific topics.