Coping with Extensive Texts

"Coping with Extensive Texts" is an advanced level, English textbook, designed to meet the academic needs of University students, especially those that will arise after graduation, that is, doing bibliographical research in English for a postgraduate course, and writing a research paper/ dissertation. The content of the course is primarily macroeconomic, revolving around the broad areas of Economics and the Environment, Sustainable Development, Economy in Crisis (the Great Depression), Globalization, as well as on social issues, Stereotyping and Reality TV. The texts are partly used in reading comprehension and vocabulary elicitation activities but they are also treated as springboards for discussion and further research and writing. Before the main section of the book, there are introductory chapters with reading strategies and writing guidelines. The topics are approached from different angles, through different types of text. In this way, the student/ reader is immersed in authentic texts of different writing genres, academic, journalistic, spoken discourse, familiarizes himself with the structure of each and learns to process a wider range of texts. Units are intended to a) be skimmed, processed for the outline of their argumentation and serve as a springboard for discussion, further reading and, bibliography research, b) offer material for more detailed reading comprehension, grammar awareness, word building, accurate word usage, and practice of writing skills ranging from shorter pieces such as summaries to more extensive, essay writing.