Welcome
This course is designed to support you at a variety of stages of your academic career—whether you’re a first-year MA student learning the ropes or an early-career faculty member refining your skills.
We’ll cover the foundational principles of argument development while diving into strategies to help you sharpen your ideas and communicate them effectively. My goal is to provide tools and insights that meet you where you are and help you take your writing to the next level.
The video lectures are clear and concise, breaking down complex concepts into manageable steps. But the real heart of this course lies in the almost 8,000 words worth of worksheets and handouts, which are designed to help you apply what you’ve learned in a practical way. Prioritizing thinking through the handouts and worksheets to apply them to your writing will ensure that you can incorporate the lessons learned into your work.
These resources are carefully sequenced to guide you through the writing process—from brainstorming, outlining, and drafting for yourself to refining, reverse outlining, and strengthening your argument for others. These resources flow from the beginning stages of writing, when you write for yourself, to the end stages of writing, when you refine your argument for others.
I recommend downloading all the handouts at the start of the course and revisiting them with each new writing project you work on. These tools aren’t just for now—they’re designed to grow with you. You’ll find them helpful whether you’re drafting a seminar paper, journal article, dissertation chapter, or conference presentation.
Important: If a worksheet is fillable, be sure to save a copy to your device before you start working. Otherwise, you risk losing your progress if the document is closed without saving.
Keep in mind that writing is ultimately a personal process. The strategies I share are ones that I know work—they’re tested, refined, and trusted by scholars across disciplines. However, that doesn’t mean they’ll all fit perfectly with your individual style.
The beauty of this course is its flexibility: you can try out each mindset, strategy, and tool, reflect on what works best for you, and adapt as needed. Over time, you’ll craft a writing practice that feels natural, productive, and uniquely yours.
As you move through the course, remember that academic writing is a journey, not a destination. Every messy draft, every false start, every hard-won revision is a step toward growth. Don’t be afraid to take risks, experiment, and even stumble—that’s where the breakthroughs happen. Writing is a skill you’ll develop over a lifetime, and this course is just one step in that process.
Above all, be kind to yourself. Learning to write clear, compelling academic arguments is demanding, but it’s also incredibly rewarding. Trust the process, embrace the learning curve, and take pride in the progress you’re making.