CL, thank you, and as it appears that you have the experience, here below is my further follow-up.

To expand on the topic, my students' level of English is low and they are new to writing academic essays. Moreover, their reading and researching skills were more than inadequate, when I began the courses not so long ago.

My understanding is that any foundation prep course has its levels and goals, and it initiates with basics rather than with high quality expectations. Grasping and adequately paraphrasing a simply written source of information out of a well known link may be an encouraging start to courses of students that have only used computers for computer games before.

So, do you start off with outlined academic sources to get your students used to it from beginning? If so, how much time do you have prior to the essay and how many other subjects are your students dealing with?

I am looking forward to more of your input on.

Cheers and beers