The course has been designed to reinforce essay composition skills and introduce students to the practice of writing for academic purposes. It will prepare students for work in high level English courses in which research writing is a requirement. It introduces basic research writing skills including note taking, paraphrase, summary, direct quotation, positioning, and MLA or APA style citation. The course will place equal or greater emphasis on macro-level composition skills such as: essay structure, paragraph structure, coherence, unity; and micro-level skills such as: sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary, spelling and mechanics.