Summarizing, Synthesizing, Argumenting: Academic and Functional Writing – An open digital textbook for advanced university students in French as a second language

This digital textbook will guide advanced French as a Second Language university students in writing academic and functional summaries, syntheses and argumentative texts in their second language. It incorporates a reflective approach, step-by-step tasks, and an English/French comparative approach to text types and genres. It has three overall objectives: Guide students in learning how to write summaries and syntheses in various formats for various purposes; guide them in summarizing/synthesizing effectively in broader argumentative texts; give them tools to diversify the argumentative strategies and patterns they use, both in short, argumentative genres and in longer, more complex texts.The textbook will be fully multimedia-based, with animated (audio/video) texts and graphics, interactive exercises and quizzes, and include an introduction, a preliminary chapter guiding students and teachers on working efficiently with the eBook, six subject chapters, and four appendices (a glossary; a commented bibliography; a guide to using digital writing tools; suggestions for other writing tasks).