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Multilingual Studio

All Sessions on Zoom Wednesdays (closed during strike) from 12:00 - 2:00 PM!

The Multilingual Studio offers a welcoming space for you as a multilingual student to develop your reading, writing and critical thinking skills. It's an opportunity to engage your multilingual abilities in enhancing your understanding of the genres and conventions of academic writing.

You will meet on Wednesdays, beginning January 24, in sessions from 12:00pm to 2:00pm, where you practice reading and writing strategies, get expert advice on how to incorporate effective academic moves in your written work, learn alongside motivated peers, and exchange ideas and learn from each other.

Snezhana Harizanova profile photo

In 2023-2024, Snezhana Harizanova leads the Multilingual Studio

Our Studio is an inclusive, collaborative and interactive space. Our 2023-2024 specialist instructor Snezhana Harizanova (snezh@yorku.ca) uses a learning-through-doing experiential approach to promote an active and critical approach to key academic skills.

The Multilingual Studio is open for drop-in! Join our Studio by using the Zoom link above and below.

For more information about the Multilingual Studio you can contact Writing Centre Coordinator James Robertson at jroberts@yorku.ca.

Multilingual Studio Schedule

The focus of some sessions may be slightly modified depending on the audience. Some aspects of the topics will be recursively addressed as essential features of academic writing as relevant. Connections will be made as much as possible/appropriate (depending on the audience) to students’ disciplines, other languages, prior writing experience and knowledge, and interests.

We often think of academic writing conventions as limitations to our writing and of grammar as a series of scary rules about “what-not-to-do.” But academic writing conventions can serve as guidelines in producing an effective piece of writing, and grammar is an awesome tool you can use to write more effective sentences and increase your range of syntactical choices.   

Beginning January 24th, come join Snezhana Wednesday's from 12:00-2:00pm for the Writing Centre’s series of Multilingual Studio workshops. The workshops are open to all students who want to learn how to construct sentences that say what you want them to say and how to connect them to produce an effective piece of academic writing.

On January 24, we discuss some important features of academic English and look at some differences between formal (aka. standard) and informal English and why these are important to know. Come and share your knowledge while learning!

Have you heard of SVO, OVS, and SOV? On January 31, you'll be surprised how much you already know about sentence structure! Come and learn how to apply your linguistic knowledge in constructing proper sentences in English and learn how to use punctuation to avoid common sentence errors as well as to express meaning.

On February 7, we look at types of paragraphs and learn how to write a good paragraph following academic writing conventions. Bonus! How paragraphs work together in an academic paper.

Still tangled in some sentences? If you would like to learn more about sentence structure, especially about the types of relative clauses and how to use them, come join us on February 14!

If you have written essays before but are not sure how to approach your academic paper assignment because you are an international student or your writing experience is mostly from high school, then you may want to join this session. On February 28, you'll learn what an academic paper is and how to approach your writing assignment as a critical reader, writer, and thinker.

You are probably already aware that plagiarising from others can have serious consequences but are often unsure how to avoid plagiarism when you use sources for your essay. On March 6, we'll study common practices (good and bad) used to acknowledge sources used in your work.

On March 13, we will have a closer look at summarizing and paraphrasing. We will discuss how they differ, and how you can decide whether to summarize or paraphrase what others have written when you borrow ideas or information from their work.

Academic writing is different from other types of writing in several ways. On March 20, we'll explore some of the most important features of academic writing and some discipline-specific variations.

Expressing ideas clearly and concisely is very important in academic writing. On March 27, you'll learn and practice different ways you can improve the clarity and conciseness of your writing (conciseness vs. wordiness; concrete vs. vague language; active vs. passive voice; dangling and misplaced modifiers.

Your writing matters, and it is essential to present your ideas and thoughts fluently and logically. On April 3, you'll discover some ways you can improve the flow of your writing.