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Workshop on Writing the Literature Review for the Urban Studies Programme (URSP)

On 16 September 2021, Dr Olive Cheung and Mr Matthew Knowles conducted a joint face-to-face writing workshop in Dr Murat Es’ URSP4001/4003 Capstone Thesis/Project course. The EAC project team is happy to continue providing language support for senior students of the Urban Studies Programme with workshops and consultations each term. This year marks the fifth year of ongoing collaboration on the capstone thesis/project course. In the first part of the joint workshop, Dr Es gave an overview of the discipline’s research methods and phases of the final project. In the second part, Dr Cheung provided a comprehensive introduction to writing the literature review for the thesis/project, covering aspects such as the functions, structure, rhetorical moves, and implications. Dr Cheung’s discipline-targeted approach emphasized the key features, errors, and appropriate language use at every stage of the literature review. Following her presentation, Mr Matthew Knowles then explained the importance of collocations and word choice in academic writing. He demonstrated the usage of useful online tools to assist students with their writing, which included collocation dictionaries and corpora. Both instructors provided plenty of opportunity for hands-on practice with student samples from previous cohorts, and incorporated visuals and UReply to support their explanations. According to the student feedback results, the overall satisfaction rate was high. Many students expressed their appreciation for the instructors’ enthusiasm, discipline-focused teaching approach, and comprehensive materials that made frequent use of student samples. The EAC project team looks forward to returning in Term 2 to hold a second workshop on writing the capstone thesis.