Writing Academic Arguments

Facilitator: Ms Selene Delport is the Postgraduate Workshop Coordinator at Stellenbosch University’s Writing Lab. Since 2009, Ms Delport has been presenting writing skills workshops for postgraduate students focussing on thesis and dissertation writing. In addition, Ms Delport has developed and presented various other workshops tailored to postgraduate needs, including sessions on crafting research proposals, writing academic articles, and strengthening argumentation skills.

 

Target Group: Honours, Masters and Doctoral Candidates

 

Background: The workshop aims to equip participants with the writing skills necessary to construct academic arguments in various types of reserach reports. Please note: This is an interactive workshop, not a presentation. Participants will actively engage in group work and discussions about textual construction.

 

The following topics will be covered:

  • Argumentation Basics
    • A bit of theory
    • Using sentence skeletons to get started
  • Integrating Other's Voices
    • Active 'listening'/reading
    • Paraphrasing or quoting?
    • Integrating sources
  • Developing Your Own Voice
    • Authorial voice
    • Citations
    • Foregrounding and backgrounding
    • Active vs passive voice
    • Verbs
    • Hedges and boosters
    • Pronouns
  • Argumentation Structures
    • The classical model
    • The Rogerian model
    • The Toulmin model
  • Argumentation Strategies
    • Practising the structures
    • Tying eveything together

 

 

This workshop is funded by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) through the University Capacity Development Grant (UCDG)

 

Related Information

Date:

  • 5 -6 June 2025

Time:

  • Day 1: 09h00-16h30
  • Day 2: 09h00-13h00

Venue:

  • To be confirmed

Online Platform:

  • MS Teams

Registration:

  • Registration is not yet open.  


Enquiries: