TL;DR: The World's Shortest Writing Textbook

How should new university students approach their first essay? Do professors really expect students to do all the readings? What exactly is APA Style? Dr. Joel Heng Hartse has answers to these questions. His short survival guide to university reading and writing can help new academic writers overcome their fear of long papers. 

TL;DR: A Very Brief Guide to Reading and Writing in University—the acronym stands for “too long; didn’t read”—published this week by UBC Press, is a brief book, designed that way to encourage students to actually read it.

The book evolved from the sudden shift to online instruction in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as Heng Hartse was teaching Foundations of Academic Literacy, a first-year writing course at SFU. The course has been delivered to thousands of students since its inception in 2007. Appreciating the challenges new students faced, along with adapting to remote learning, he wanted to share a direct, no-nonsense and friendly approach to undergraduate studies. The book’s quick, simple chapters help with issues like identifying the audience, creating an outline, getting a handle on grammar and sentence structure, quoting a source and writing a strong conclusion.   

As a researcher, Heng Hartse is interested in academic writing and publishing in light of the globalization of English and the internationalization of higher education—his current SSHRC-funded study looks at how and why a small number of international undergraduates seek paid private assistance with writing and other academic work. He also recognizes that over half of the undergraduate students at SFU speak an additional language, and hopes to demystify university writing by publishing what he calls “the world’s shortest writing textbook.”

TL;DR: A Very Brief Guide to Reading and Writing in University is available at bookstores across Canada, and as a free open access download from the UBC Press On Campus series.