Dr. Israa Talib Saad Al-uboudi

The paper aims at clarifying the main problems which postgraduate students (both M.A. and Ph.D. students in the different departments of the College of Education, scientific and literary) face when using English in writing. English is given to them as a secondary lesson in the two courses of their preparatory year of study. Teaching English is supposed to help students develop their reading and writing skills and thus they will be able to understand their mainstream subjects taught in English. Students’ problems have been explained by identifying and analyzing the different types of mistakes they committed in their examination papers and assignments to specify the reasons lying behind committing them.

The paper aims at clarifying the main problems which postgraduate students (both M.A. and Ph.D. students in the different departments of the College of Education, scientific and literary) face when using English in writing. English is given to them as a secondary lesson in the two courses of their preparatory year of study. Teaching English is supposed to help students develop their reading and writing skills and thus they will be able to understand their mainstream subjects taught in English. Students’ problems have been explained by identifying and analyzing the different types of mistakes they committed in their examination papers and assignments to specify the reasons lying behind committing them. The paper includes two sections. In the first section, the different types of mistakes, taken form students’ examination papers and assignments, have been identified and explained. They are classified into different types and arranged into groups to clarify the main areas where students have more problems. The second section sheds some light on the possible causes of these problems like the interference of students’ mother tongue, incomplete knowledge in relation to the basic rules of writings and English grammar, the course time, students’ interest and teaching materials and methods. It also presents some suggestions to help students overcome such problems in their future writings.

Preposing and postposing are interesting linguistic phenomena that endow English and Arabic fascinating means of expression and variation. They involve a number of devices that bring certain elements into focus by moving them either into sentence initial (preposing) or final (postposing) position. In Arabic, these two phenomena are treated together under one heading known as ‘preposing and postposing’ which is part of a wider linguistic phenomenon known as ‘al-udul’. By shifting certain elements from their normal positions, certain linguistic and aesthetic purposes and benefits are attained. The study aims at shedding some light on the processes involved within these phenomena in both English and Arabic to show how each language deals with (and considers) them, what types of shifts associated with these phenomena in the two languages and which language makes greater uses of ‘preposing and postposing’ and why. It has been concluded that in spite of the fact that in both languages preposing and postposing are used to present information by applying different word orders in order to highlight different aspects of meaning, the issue of considering and discussing them in English and Arabic differs considerably. Keywords: Preposing, postposing, word order, norms, shift, violations, preposing and postposing processes.

'Grammatical shift' is an extremely interesting grammatical phenomenon that does require some knowledge of grammar as such knowledge provides some basic understanding about the operations involved in such shift. By means of this phenomenon it is possible to vary the ways of expressing the language. In English, the issue of ‘shift’ is problematic by itself as consistency in writing is considered important to preserve its clarity and smooth flow. Unnecessary shifts in pronouns, verb tenses, discourse and others are ungrammatical unless they are motivated by meaning and discourse. One of the main issues which syntax is concerned with is 'consistency' of sentence elements. 'Consistency is the key', this sentence and similar expressions have been used and emphasized by most linguists and teachers advising learners to keep consistent in whatever they write and to avoid unnecessary shifts in persons, tenses, voices, moods and discourse. It has been argued that consistency in writing is important to preserve clarity and smooth flow. These shifts occur whenever a speaker or writer shifts from one person to another, from one tense to another ...etc. without a discourse or semantic reason for doing so. (Harris and Kunka, 2011: 138-139; Kies, 1995. Online). The phenomenon of ‘grammatical shift’ in English, as it is intended in this study, has not been widely discussed and investigated. On the contrary, making shifts within writing has been avoided and attention has been paid for good and consistent writing. In this study, focus will be mainly made on three types of shift: person shift, tense shift and discourse shift which, as will be shown, has a direct effect on the various aspects of the first two types of shift.

The main aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of committing grammatical mistakes by M.A. students writing their theses in English. The paper shows that most M.A. students commit a large number of different types of grammatical mistakes in spite of the fact that they have an English course in their first preparatory year of study. This course is supposed to provide them with the sufficient and adequate knowledge about English. The discussion of this issue is not based on the assumption that students may commit such mistakes in writing their theses, but it is based on concrete evidence represented by samples of mistakes: sentences, clauses, phrases and even words extracted from students' theses. It is quite necessary to tackle such a problem and try to find the causes and remedies for the mistakes students may commit. The paper comprises two sections .The first section exposes the above issue with samples of different grammatical mistakes taken from M.A. theses written by students in the Dept. of Mathematics, College of Education. These mistakes are classified according to their seriousness, importance and frequency of occurrence to illustrate the main areas where students have more troubles. The second section illustrates the reasons for committing such mistakes and presents a number of suggestions as remedies for our problem.

The main aim of this paper is to discuss the issue of committing grammatical mistakes by M.A. students writing their theses in English. The paper shows that most M.A. students commit a large number of different types of grammatical mistakes in spite of the fact that they have an English course in their first preparatory year of study. This course is supposed to provide them with the sufficient and adequate knowledge about English. The discussion of this issue is not based on the assumption that students may commit such mistakes in writing their theses, but it is based on concrete evidence represented by samples of mistakes: sentences, clauses, phrases and even words extracted from students' theses. It is quite necessary to tackle such a problem and try to find the causes and remedies for the mistakes students may commit. The paper comprises two sections .The first section exposes the above issue with samples of different grammatical mistakes taken from M.A. theses written by students in the Dept. of Mathematics, College of Education. These mistakes are classified according to their seriousness, importance and frequency of occurrence to illustrate the main areas where students have more troubles. The second section illustrates the reasons for committing such mistakes and presents a number of suggestions as remedies for our problem.

The graduation research titles for the academic year 2025/2026 have been posted on the Telegram group designated for research students. Students are kindly requested to review the topics and select their preferred titles

During the academic year 2024-2025, a group of our staff with a group of our fourth year students visited Warith schools at Karabala to let our students have a chance to attend some lessons presented by teachers at those schools as part of their applications .

The University of Kufa's Women's Affairs Division, in partnership with the Family Culture Center at Al-Taheraa Friendship Center, under the auspices of the University's President, Professor Dr. Alaa Naji Al-Moula, and in line with the Third National Plan for Women, Security, and Peace (2025), and the institutional reform pillar, specifically human development and women's empowerment, organized a lecture on "Beliefs and Mental Health" on June 25, 2024.

To first year students, your first examination for the second course will be on the 18th of May and the material will be the second and third chapters. Wish you Good luck. .