Academic Writing in English

Are you unsure what the main differences are between general and academic English? Had feedback on your writing that your style is too informal? We'll introduce you to the main differences between general and academic English and give you the opportunity to practise your academic writing skills during the workshop.

Dissertation Café

This is a regular meeting for Master’s students to talk about their dissertations, theses and business transformation projects. Being able to summarise your thesis, defend your methodology and discuss results is key to writing such a long piece of work. The aim of this Dissertation Café is to give you the space and strategies to discuss your topics together and help each other. Come along with specific questions. A module lecturer or dissertation supervisor will also join this session.

Grammar Clinic: Articles, verb tenses and adjectives

Grammar Clinics are language based workshops where you'll have a chance to review and practice the key grammar points you need for academic writing. In this workshop, we'll focus on articles, verb tenses and adjectives. 

Make sure you attend all three Grammar Clinics:

1. Articles, verb tenses and adjectives
2. Conditionals, clauses and linkers
3. Cautious language, passives and noun phrases 

Grammar Clinic: Conditionals, Relative Clauses and Linkers

Grammar Clinics are language based workshops where you'll have a chance to review and practice the key grammar points you need for academic writing. In this workshop, we'll focus on conditionals, relative clauses and linkers. 

Make sure you attend all three Grammar Clinics:

1. Articles, verb tenses and adjectives
2. Conditionals, clauses and linkers
3. Cautious language, passives and noun phrases 

Grammar Clinic: Passives and Cautious Language

Grammar Clinics are language based workshops where you'll have a chance to review and practice the key grammar points you need for academic writing. In this workshop, we'll focus on passives and cautious language . 

Make sure you attend all three Grammar Clinics:

1. Articles, verb tenses and adjectives
2. Conditionals, clauses and linkers
3. Passives and cautious language

How to write a formal email

In this workshop, you will learn how to write emails in a formal way. We will discuss how to structure a formal email, formal vs informal language, and intercultural differences when writing emails. It will be an interactive session so please come with your microphones on and be ready to participate.

Improving Your Academic Vocabulary

In this Academic English workshop, you will explore techniques for expanding your academic vocabulary, enhance your ability to convey ideas with precision and paraphrase effectively. You will also learn to use word families proficiently, enriching your writing style for academic contexts.

Language for Critical Writing

Have you received feedback saying that you need to be more critical in your assignments?  We will introduce you to some sentence structures that are the most commonly used in academic writing to demonstrate critical thinking.

Language for Discussions and Group Work

Do you struggle with group work or lack confidence when participating in a seminar? This is the workshop for you!! It will provide you with language tips for successful group work and enable you to participate successfully in a seminar or group discussion. In this workshop, you will practise using typical phrases and be able to exchange and challenge ideas appropriately in academic discussions.

Language for problem solving, negotiation, collaboration

Join our workshop, "Language for Problem Solving, Negotiation, Collaboration" to enhance your communication skills for academic success and beyond. You will learn strategies to articulate ideas effectively, negotiate solutions, and collaborate in group projects as well as gain confidence to navigate diverse contexts and foster collaborative relationships. Don't miss this opportunity to sharpen your linguistic toolkit for academic and professional excellence.

Language for Reflective Writing

In this Academic English workshop, you will improve your ability to reflect on your learning, describe and interpret learning experiences, and articulate outcomes to create impactful reflections. Tailored for students seeking precision in expressing ideas, this workshop provides essential language and skills for effective reflective writing. 

Language skills for executive summaries and abstracts

Abstracts and Executive Summaries are important parts of academic assignments and both condense its the main points, but serve different contexts and audiences.

• Abstracts, common in academic works, are brief summaries focused on research objectives, methods, results, and conclusions.
• Executive summaries, found in business documents, cater to decision-makers and stakeholders, highlighting key insights, findings, and recommendations.

Come along to this workshop for a step-by-step guide in how to structure abstracts and executive summaries, and what language to use to impress your readers and your future stakeholders! You will also get some practice in the use of language and the structure.

Language Tools for Research: Paraphrasing

Know that you need to paraphrase for your assignments but not sure how? We'll introduce you to key language tools that you can use when taking notes or writing assignments and you'll have the opportunity to practise these skills during the workshop.

This workshop is one in a three-part series of workshops to help you master the language you need to integrate research in your essays and academic assignments - make sure you attend all three!

• Language Tools for Research: Paraphrasing
• Language Tools for Research: Quoting
• Language Tools for Research: Referring Verbs

Language Tools for Research: Quoting

All academic writing is based on referring to the work of others, but simply dropping a quote into your text is not enough. This workshop will show you how to more effectively integrate quotations into your writing, as well as avoid the common errors students make when using quotes. 

This workshop is one in a three-part series of workshops to help you master the language you need to integrate research in your essays and academic assignments - make sure you attend all three!

• Language Tools for Research: Paraphrasing
• Language Tools for Research: Quoting
• Language Tools for Research: Referring Verbs

Language Tools for Research: Reporting Verbs

You know that you need to paraphrase and quote research for your assignments... but how do you introduce your paraphrases and quotes in your text in a seamless and coherent way? We'll introduce you to the key verbs that you can use when integrating research in your assignments and you'll have the opportunity to practise them during the workshop.

This workshop is one in a three-part series of workshops to help you master the language you need to integrate research in your essays and academic assignments - make sure you attend all three!

• Language Tools for Research: Paraphrasing
• Language Tools for Research: Quoting
• Language Tools for Research: Referring Verbs

Language Tools to Improve your Academic Style

Writing an essay in suitably academic style can be challenging. We will introduce and practise useful language strategies to make your writing more formal, clear and precise and you'll have a chance to practice too. Tailored for students seeking to improve their academic writing, this workshop provides essential language strategies to improve your academic writing style. 

Let's Get Critical

At Arden, we are surrounded by a multitude of cultures and perspectives. We communicate regularly in English with people who do not have the same mother tongue as us. Sometimes, misunderstandings occur and it’s difficult to know why. This is a practical workshop for anyone wishing to improve their critical thinking and intercultural communication skills. It will follow on the from guest lecturer Dr Ian McMaster who gave a talk about improving intercultural communication in the workplace last year.

We’ll discuss what we value when it comes to communication and what we feel is most difficult. We will challenge our beliefs and think critically about whether our perspective is in the correct. Using critical incidents from Dr McMaster’s book, we’ll not only improve our critical thinking skills, but also our intercultural competence.

This workshop will be run hybrid. Join us face to face if you are in Berlin or online if you are elsewhere.

Lunchtime English Discussion Practice

This informal discussion session will offer you the chance to improve your debating and negotiating skills, and provide an opportunity to receive feedback on your English grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. Come along and discuss the topic of the day and feel free to have lunch while chatting!

Presenting in English

Delivering presentations in English is an essential part of many courses at Arden. This workshop will guide you in how to present effectively. You'll learn some essential English phrases for organising your presentation and conveying information. We'll help you develop your language for responding to your audience's questions, as well as receiving tips on how to improve your confidence and delivery.

Synthesising sources and showing your voice

Making your voice clear in academic writing is challenging but essential. This workshop will help you to synthesise ideas and show your position to prove your thesis statement while focusing on the language you will need to achieve this.

Tips to Improve your Essay

These tips are intended to make you reflect on and revise your academic essays and assignments. The workshop is designed to help you better understand how to improve academic writing by considering academic and non-academic features, linkers, academic language and more. There is also an opportunity to practise proofreading and apply what you have learned.

Vocabulary and Language for Graphs and Charts

Describing information in a graph clearly and accurately can be challenging. We will introduce and practise useful language to indicate changes on a graph to ensure you are able to explain data trends in an effective way