The course will introduce students to the basics of academic reading and writing. After taking this course, students will be equipped to critically read academic arguments and navigate the various elements of an academic article. The course culminates in building coherent arguments, crafting research questions, conducting literature reviews, and effectively using sources to support students’ academic voice and research goals.

Introduction to Critical Reading & Research Writing

Introduction to Critical Reading & Research Writing

Instructor: Nupur Samuel
Access provided by TECNOLÓGICO DE MONTERREY
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What you'll learn
Analyze academic texts by evaluating arguments, evidence, perspectives, and source credibility.
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12 assignments
June 2026
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There are 12 modules in this course
The first module on reading aims to teach students how to read critically by engaging them with the strategies of close and critical reading--skimming, finding keywords, annotations, concept mapping, asking questions. It further invites students to read against the grain and look for an appropriate perspective to be able to read like writers.
What's included
9 videos6 readings1 assignment
9 videos•Total 78 minutes
- Introduction to the Course•2 minutes
- Introducing close reading- Why read? Why read critically?•10 minutes
- Defining a text : What does it mean to engage with a text?•11 minutes
- Multi-modal Reading: Working with Images, Graphs and Statistics •10 minutes
- Identifying and Reading Voice: Whose voice?•10 minutes
- Strategies of Close Reading :Skimming, Annotating , Concept Mapping and Asking Questions•12 minutes
- Finding Perspectives :Context , Experience, Lens and Bias•9 minutes
- Reading Against the Grain: Locating the Reader•9 minutes
- Critical Reading in Academia :Summing up and Further Steps in Course•6 minutes
6 readings•Total 60 minutes
- Meet Your Faculty : Prof. (Dr.) Nupur Samuel•10 minutes
- Meet Your Faculty: Prof. Pia Bakshi•10 minutes
- Meet your Faculty : Prof. Vrinda Bhatia•10 minutes
- Course Overview•10 minutes
- Course Structure and Syllabus•10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment 1•30 minutes
This module will introduce students to the structure of an academic argument, how an argument can be differentiated from other kinds of writing. Rather than just stating information or describing a topic, academic writing is driven by CER (Claim, Evidence, and Reasoning) model that is claims, supported by evidence, and shaped by critical reasoning. Students will learn how authors bring in different kinds of evidence, and how their voice aids in building the argument.
What's included
8 videos1 reading1 assignment
8 videos•Total 70 minutes
- Defining and Identifying Arguments •8 minutes
- Claims: Assertions by the author •7 minutes
- Evidence: Types, Functions, Engagement ;Citation•10 minutes
- Reasoning: Connecting the Claims and Evidence•9 minutes
- Concepts, Themes, Description and Claims•9 minutes
- Counterarguments: Relevance and Implications •7 minutes
- Voice: Tone and Assertion•10 minutes
- Anatomy of and Argument: How the Argument is built•9 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment 2•30 minutes
Understanding that reading academic articles may seem challenging to students, this module aims to discuss the article through its components--its structure, transition, tone, and progression. This module will guide students through the essential components of a research article, helping them recognize and analyse the structure and purpose of each section. From understanding how to critically read titles and abstracts to identifying thesis statements, methods, and conclusions, students will develop skills for dissecting and engaging with academic texts meaningfully.
What's included
8 videos1 reading1 assignment
8 videos•Total 68 minutes
- Basic Outline of a Research Article•8 minutes
- Close Reading the title, abstract and keywords•10 minutes
- Reading Introduction•8 minutes
- Identifying Thesis Statement•8 minutes
- Methodology ,Methods and Positioning •9 minutes
- Paragraphs and Topic Sentences :Sub-Claims•8 minutes
- Reading Analysis and Conclusion•8 minutes
- Understanding References and Bibliography•9 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings •10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment 3•30 minutes
Dialogue and cross sectioning of the ideas characterise academic writing. This module on connections aims to discuss the process of synthesis a writer follows to build their argument. It will discuss in detail the nature of connections such as that of similarity, expansion, focused description, causality or contradiction. It will further discuss how the themes emerge out of the process of data selection and rejection across the texts.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment
6 videos•Total 73 minutes
- Building Dialogue with sources•12 minutes
- Nature of Connections•13 minutes
- Expansion through connections•12 minutes
- Counterarguments through Connections•13 minutes
- How themes emerge from connections•13 minutes
- Establishing relevance : Selecting and Rejecting Courses•11 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Reading•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment-4•30 minutes
This module introduces students to academic writing, focusing on its purpose and structure. From summaries to analysis, students will be invited to move beyond description by developing skills in critical analysis using methods like close reading, interpretation, and contextualising. Students will also be introduced to common writing pitfalls and how to overcome them. The module concludes with guidance on using AI tools responsibly to support, and not replace, original thinking.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment
6 videos•Total 64 minutes
- How is Academic Writing different from other genres of writing•11 minutes
- How to summarise a Text?•11 minutes
- What do we mean by Analysis?•10 minutes
- Techniques of Analysis•11 minutes
- Common pitfalls in Critical Writing•11 minutes
- Using AI in Academic Writing•11 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment- Week 5•30 minutes
Students will explore how to build strong arguments through clear claims and appropriate evidence. This module explains different types of evidence—data, case studies, quotations—and their disciplinary uses. Techniques like the ICE method (Introduce, Cite, Explain) will help students present evidence effectively. The module also emphasizes balancing sourced material with original analysis to create persuasive academic writing.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment
6 videos•Total 60 minutes
- Claims and evidence as building blocks of an argument•10 minutes
- What counts as evidence?•10 minutes
- Present evidence in Writing•10 minutes
- Deriving a claim from evidence ; Understanding arguments, assertions and thesi•9 minutes
- Connecting claims and evidence•10 minutes
- Building and argument•11 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Reading•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment- 6•30 minutes
This module helps students enhance the clarity and flow of their academic writing by focusing on connections, structure, and the development of an academic voice. Students will begin by creating simple links between texts and progress to making complex conceptual connections. They will learn how to engage with counterarguments to strengthen their positions and how to structure paragraphs and transitions for coherence. The module also emphasizes the importance of cultivating a confident academic voice and introduces techniques for peer and self-review to improve the quality and coherence of their writing.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment
6 videos•Total 73 minutes
- Building Simple Connections Between Texts•12 minutes
- Moving From Complex Connections - Working at the Level of Ideas and Concepts•12 minutes
- Using Counterarguments to Strengthen Your Position•12 minutes
- Working with Structure•13 minutes
- Finding your Academic Voice•12 minutes
- Working with Peer Reviews and Self Reviews•12 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment - 7•30 minutes
Complex academic arguments are often interdisciplinary in nature. This module introduces students to the conventions of academic writing across various disciplines. They will learn how to effectively incorporate evidence of varying kind: qualitative data, artworks or advertisements, archives, statistics etc. Students will explore visual argumentation techniques and conclude with strategies for interdisciplinary writing, where methods and sources from different academic fields are combined to address complex topics.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment
6 videos•Total 71 minutes
- How to Include Interviews in Academic Writing•12 minutes
- How to Write About Visual Sources in Academic Writing•12 minutes
- How to Integrate Quantitative Data and Statistics in Academic Writing•12 minutes
- How to Include Historical and Archival Sources in Academic Writing•12 minutes
- Visual Argumentation•11 minutes
- Interdisciplinary Writing - Writing Across Disciplines•11 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment - 8•30 minutes
While introducing the learners to research writing, this module focuses on a crucial aspect which shapes our research: the formulation of a complex research question. This module will take the learners through the steps of arriving at a research question and acquaint them with types of research questions. The module will also help learners articulate their research questions with clarity.
What's included
7 videos1 reading1 assignment
7 videos•Total 70 minutes
- Introduction to Research and Research Writing•12 minutes
- Why Research Questions Matter?•10 minutes
- Problematising an Issue•11 minutes
- Types of Research Questions•9 minutes
- Refining and Narrowing Questions•9 minutes
- Testing your Questions (Piloting)•9 minutes
- Clearly Articulating the Final Research Questions•10 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Untitled•30 minutes
This module will enable the learners’ understanding of what constitutes credible, verifiable sources in research writing. It will also demonstrate how to look for such sources and the essential research practices which will ensure the reliability of our sources. This module will also introduce the learners to the logic of citation and an in-depth understanding of how evidence makes its way in our writing via in-text and bibliographic citations. This module will help the learners develop an understanding of what constitutes plagiarism.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment
6 videos•Total 59 minutes
- The Importance of Credible Sources and What Constitutes Credibility of a Source•10 minutes
- The Multiple Ways of Finding Credible Sources for Our Research•9 minutes
- The Logic of Citation•9 minutes
- Understanding In-Text and Bibliographic Citation•11 minutes
- Some Useful Tips on Citational Practices•9 minutes
- On Plagiarism•10 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment - 10•30 minutes
This module focuses on a crucial aspect of research writing viz. review of literature. The module will acquaint the learner with the steps of building a review of literature, beginning with making an annotated bibliography and converting this into a coherent narrative about one’s research.
What's included
7 videos1 reading1 assignment
7 videos•Total 65 minutes
- The Place of Review of Literature in Research Writing•10 minutes
- Building an Annotated Bibliography•10 minutes
- Clustering Annotated Bibliography into Themes•9 minutes
- Making Conceptual Connections Between the Texts (Part 1)•7 minutes
- Making Conceptual Connections Between the Texts (Part 2)•9 minutes
- Strengthening Research with Review of Literature•11 minutes
- Evaluating Sources and Ethical Use•8 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment - 11•30 minutes
This module aims to help the learner refine their research writing by enabling them to understand how multiple kinds of evidence can be integrated in our writing and how evidence can be interpreted through some conceptual frameworks. It also Emphasises the question of locating the author’s voice in their own writing and strengthening it. The module also addresses structural aspects of an introduction and a conclusion to research writing and gives an overview of the publishing process for research scholars.
What's included
6 videos1 reading1 assignment
6 videos•Total 64 minutes
- Layering of Evidence in Research Writing•11 minutes
- How to Integrate Data With Conceptual Frameworks•12 minutes
- Locating the Author's Voice and Positionality•11 minutes
- Writing an Introduction to Our Research•11 minutes
- Structure of Conclusion in Research Writing•10 minutes
- A Beginner's Guide to Publishing Our Research•10 minutes
1 reading•Total 10 minutes
- Essential Readings•10 minutes
1 assignment•Total 30 minutes
- Weekly Graded Assessment - 12•30 minutes
Instructor

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