This master-level course aims to develop students’ theoretical knowledge and practical skills required to undertake their research and writing. The course includes an introduction and discussion on academic scholarship and research writing in the field of communication, helping students identify their implicit theoretical hunches, articulate those ideas into a researchable question, and then relate this question to a certain theoretical framework to discover new knowledge in the relevant context. It is also designed to help students develop a solid proposal through practice, discussion, and mutual critique.

CILO-1: Identify the rationale for conventional academic referencing conventions. CILO-2: Analyze the quality of academic writing, including clarity, structure, and audience orientation. CILO-3: Adopt APA-style referencing for both in-text citations and bibliographic references. CILO-4: Summarize the academic requirements for writing an abstract, a methods/methodology section, a literature review and a research proposal in preparation for writing an academic paper or report.