Registration for spring term 2025
There is no registration for AW1. Instead, at the time of their DACR A1 result, eligible students will automatically be given access to the following term's course. This will also be the case for students continuing from the previous term's PAW course. If you'd prefer to take AW1 in a later term (if there's still time before your DACR A2/ESA), you'll be able to let us know via our course withdrawal form.
The upcoming course officially starts on Monday 27 January 2025.
This course is the first part of a recommended writing programme for first-year doctoral students scoring level 2 on DACR A1. It develops and improves the range and accuracy of the students’ writing by focusing on the main features of STEMM writing at doctoral level (including text organisation, cohesion, sentence structure, grammatical accuracy and academic vocabulary). It is designed primarily to help students with the writing of their ESA, but will also be relevant for aspects of writing research papers and the thesis. Writing tasks focus on text organisation and flow, writing definitions, and planning and structuring introductions. Once students have completed this course, they progress onto Academic Writing 2.
This is an online self-study course which runs over a recommended 8-week period. To make the most of this course, we recommend you allocate an average of 2 hours per week to work on the activities, assignments and other recommended resources. There are no scheduled weekly live classes; instead, you will have a CfAE coach to guide you and answer any questions you might have. You will also receive 1:1 feedback on each of the course writing assignments.
Please note that Academic Writing 1 and Academic Writing 2 have been carefully designed to meet your needs and improve your academic writing during the first 12 months of your doctoral programme. You will not be able to take either of these courses after DACR A2/the ESA.
Course eligibility
Those eligible for Academic Writing 1 (i.e. 1st-year doctoral students scoring level 2 on DACR A1) will receive the recommendation for this course with their DACR A1 result. Students scoring level 1 on DACR A1 will only be able to progress onto this course after having successfully completed Preparation for Academic Writing.
CfAE term dates
Autumn term
21/10/24 - 13/12/24
Spring term
27/01/25 - 21/03/25
Summer term
06/05/25 - 27/06/25
Vacation term
07/07/25 - 29/08/25