Continuing our conversation from the previous post, we’re talking about the best places on the web where you can learn to write essays and research papers in a systematic and holistic way. So we’re not discussing how-to articles with bullet lists of writing topic, here we write about courses from leading global schools that engage you in the process of developing your academic writing in a didactic way, develop your skills, make you apply your understanding in practice, interact with other people, give feedbacks, correct other’s mistakes - in a word, we’re discussing high-quality free education on academic writing. 

In the last post, we have mentioned a few courses offered by Coursera. I’d like to add a few more Coursera’s courses. 

Writing II: Rhetorical Composing 

is a course designed to make you a better writer of rhetorical texts, that is, texts that contain techniques and ideas to inform and persuade others. Offered by the Ohio State University, the course wants to make you a more effective consumer and producer of written, visual and multimodal texts. The class includes short videos, demonstrations of texts, interactive reading activities, research, text composing tasks. The course will not only teach you writing skills, it will also enhance your reasoning and analytic skills, teach you to research intelligently, paying particular attention to evidence-based texts, critically evaluate your own and someone else’s writing. 

How to Write an Essay from Berkeley University of California,

offered on EdX. This is the first course in a series of academic writing courses offered by the University of California on EdX. The course gives an introduction to academic writing for English language learners, and teaches you basic grammar terminology and understanding, shows you how to write effective sentences and paragraphs, introductions and conclusions, and gives you strategies for longer texts and thesis statements. The course is taught via readings and videos. You will need to write an essay that will be reviewed by your peers according to set criteria, and you will have to review your peers’ essays. The course is 5 weeks longs, requires 5-6 hours of weekly work, and can be started at any time as it’s archived on EdX. 

English Grammar and Essay Writing course

offered by Berkeley University of California on EdX expands on the previously mentioned course, How to Write an Essay, and is particularly good for those who learn English language as a second language, though it will also be an excellent resource for native English speakers who want to improve their writing skills. The course focuses on essay development, grammatical correctness of expressed ideas, and self-editing skills. You will learn about the most common English grammar errors, tone of the essays, polish your skills of editing and proof-reading, and enrich your vocabulary. The course starts on 11 January 2016, lasts for 5 weeks, and requires 4-5 hours of your work per week. The materials will be taught via readings, videos and different types of homework tasks, including peer-reviewed assignments and actually essay writing. The course is totally free but you can purchase a verified certificate from EdX for $49. 

As you see, each of these courses takes 4-5 hours a week. That's roughly 30-60 minutes of your time every day. It may seem like quite a lot but think about the great advantages that you get with taking your writing skills to the next level. Your academic grades are bound to improve. Our writers have taken one or several courses from these universities and they possess expert knowledge on academic writing.

So if you still have any difficulties with writing your essay, contact us. We love writing!