2. Structure of this lecture
• Some practicalities
• What is “English”?
• Discussion of Chapter 2 (Including some
notes on plagiarism)
• Discussion of Chapter 3 (including a
discussion on introductions)
6. Deadlines revisited:
• Introduction to Area Studies: 23 November, at
15.59, upload via Safe Assign.
• Academic Writing: three paragraphs in week of
5 November (not mandatory, but highly
recommendable). Hand in: hard copy AND
upload in Blackboard
• 17 December at 15.59, one hard copy in a box
provided (we will tell you where); also upload in
Blackboard.
7. What is English?
Definition:
English language
noun an Indo-European language
belonging to the West Germanic branch;
the official language of Britain and the
United States and most of the
commonwealth countries [syn: English]
(Dictionary.com)
9. Speakers
English as a first language:
approximations vary between 350 million
and 400 million
English as a second language:
up to 375 million speakers
English as a foreign language:
around 750 million speakers
(According to the British Council)
10. Academic English
Also: English for Academic Purposes
(EAP):
“refers to the language and associated
practices that people need in order to
undertake study or work in English
medium higher education.”
(http://www.uefap.com/bgnd/whatfram.htm)
11. A New type of English?
- “International English” (EIL) (Seidlhofer 2003)
- Refers to the international USE of English
- Also: Lingua Franca (Gnutzmann 2000); global
language (Crystal 1997); world language (Mair
2003), medium of intercultural communication
(Meierkord 1996)
13. How to begin writing a paper?
- Setting the goal: expository essay
- Topic: choose a particular world area for the
Introduction to Area Studies and the Areas course
- Brainstorming: generating ideas, and then
narrowing the topic to the specific perspective you
would like to explore in your paper
- Scope: the amount of detail will depend on the
length of your paper and the knowledge of your
audience
Do task 9, p. 63
Academic Language Centre
14. Developing your topic (1):
Read actively (and efficiently):
1.Read critically
2.Look at the structure of the tekst
3.Read the topic sentences
4.Understand and interpret the author’s
message
5.Analyse how it relates to your topic
6.Develop your own response to the author’s
message
Do task 10, p. 65
Academic Language Centre
15. Developing your topic (2):
Take notes while you are reading, and include:
Bibliographic information
Sources, page numbers
Paraphrase the author’s message, unless
you want to quote verbatim
Use the chart on p. 67
Do task 12, on p. 67; task 14 on p. 69; and
task 21 on p. 79.
Academic Language Centre
16. Paraphrasing:
- Find synonyms using a thesaurus
- Find antonyms
- Change the grammar (passive to active
voice, and vice versa)
However,
a much better strategy is to write an outline
with key and supporting points, put the
original away, and write down what you
have understood.
Academic Language Centre
17. Is this plagiarism (1)?
Copying some of the work of one of your
classmates without giving a reference
YES
Examples 1-7 in this lecture are heavily based on: Bailey, Stephen. Academic
Writing, A Handbook for International Students. London and New York:
Routledge, 2011. Print. (From page 32-33.)
18. Is this plagiarism (2)?
Copying and pasting from a source, citing
the source, but not using quotation marks
YES
19. Is this plagiarism (3)?
Copying from an essay you wrote earlier
and which was marked by a tutor, and
giving a reference to that essay
NO
20. Is this plagiarism (4)?
Copying and pasting from a source,
changing a few words and giving a
citation
YES
22. Is this plagiarism (6)?
Using information that constitutes general
knowledge, and not giving a citation
NO
But check to be sure
23. Is this plagiarism (7)?
Discussing an issue (for example an essay
topic) with a group of classmates and
using other classmates ideas in your
essay
Usually no
But take care!
24. More on register
- Anglo-Saxon verbs are informal, and easy
to recognise (all are irregular)
- Latinate words were introduced after
1066, when French was the language of
the courts (royal and legal). This was
therefore the formal language.
Do task 22 on p. 82; task 23 on p. 83; task
26 on p. 85 (if time).
Academic Language Centre
25. Types of peer feedback
- Directive feedback, suggesting a specific
change
- Praise, a positive description of something
the author has done well
- Summary comments review main points of a
text (organisation, clarity, etc.)
Academic Language Centre
27. Introduction:
- gives the topic of the essay
- gives (historical) background information
- shows concession (although, despite)
- may include a definition
- may contain interesting statistics or an
anecdote
- usually ends with your thesis statement
35. Planning stage (1)
The thesis statement:
-is the guiding main idea or hypothesis
-may very well be revised later on the basis
of what you have read in order to minimise
or expand the scope of your paper
-is generally the last sentence of your
introductory paragraph expressing what you
intend to prove / explain in your paper
36. Planning stage (2):
The thesis statement may be:
-a debatable statement (used in
argumentative essays in which you try and
persuade the reader to your point of view).
-a non-debatable statement (used in
expository and scientific articles in which
you explain a situation based on facts).
Do tasks 11 and 12 on pp. 100 - 101
37. Effective Thesis Statement:
suggests your essay’s direction,
emphasis and scope
Widely ridiculed as escape reading, romance
novels are becoming increasingly important
as a proving ground for many never-before-
published writers and, more significantly, as
showcases for strong heroines.
38. Introduction:
Organisation: from general to specific
•Setting the scene:
- Statements about the subject / background
information
- Attention grabber: question, quote, anecdote,
example, staggering statistic, etc.
•Thesis statement
Do task 14, p. 103.
Peer review of your introduction
39. The funnel method
Sentence 1: broad, general statement
Subsequent sentences:
narrower scope,
more focused.
Thesis
40. Example paragraph 1
- (1) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a great story
that develops around the legend of the Sorcerer’s
Stone, a long sought after substance that would
transform any metal into gold and bestow immortality.
(2) In telling the story of the Sorcerer’s Stone, the novel
also touches on many universal themes, such as
overcoming difficulties, dealing with conflict, relating to
authority and learning new ideas. (3) Choosing just
three themes to analyze from Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone was a difficult task because so many
themes are fully developed in the novel. (4) However,
the three significant themes that I chose to explain from
the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone novel are the
power of love, the importance of friendship, and courage
on the hero’s journey. (source:
http://academicenglishcafe.com/ModelEssay5.aspx)
41. Thesis statement (in bold)
- (1) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a great story
that develops around the legend of the Sorcerer’s
Stone, a long sought after substance that would
transform any metal into gold and bestow immortality.
(2) In telling the story of the Sorcerer’s Stone, the novel
also touches on many universal themes, such as
overcoming difficulties, dealing with conflict, relating to
authority and learning new ideas. (3) Choosing just
three themes to analyze from Harry Potter and the
Sorcerer’s Stone was a difficult task because so many
themes are fully developed in the novel. (4) However, the
three significant themes that I chose to explain from the
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone novel are the power
of love, the importance of friendship, and courage on the
hero’s journey. (source:
http://academicenglishcafe.com/ModelEssay5.aspx)
42. Example paragraph 2
- (1) Assignment essays are developed from set
questions that give students a period of time to
research a topic and produce their answer with
references to their sources of information. (2)
While there are some disadvantages with using
assignment essays as an assessment tool,
there are sound educational purposes
underpinning this practice. (3) This essay
examines the reasons why assignment essays
are beneficial for student learning and considers
some of the problems with this method of
assessment. (source:
http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/aso/aso-
online/academic-writing/sample-essay.php)
43. Thesis statement (in bold)
- (1) Assignment essays are developed from set
questions that give students a period of time to
research a topic and produce their answer with
references to their sources of information. (2)
While there are some disadvantages with using
assignment essays as an assessment tool, there are
sound educational purposes underpinning this
practice. (3) This essay examines the reasons
why assignment essays are beneficial for
student learning and considers some of the
problems with this method of assessment.
(source: http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/aso/aso-
online/academic-writing/sample-essay.php)
44. Integrating sources:
- Direct quotation “ ………. “
- Author + reporting verb
- According to (author), …….
- Paraphrasing
- Summarising
NB. Punctuation (cf. pp. 114-5)
Do task 20, p. 110; task 23, p. 115; task 25, p.
117
Notas del editor
In the schedule there are sessions planned for peer-reviewed presentations. We have to see how we are going to deal with these. Also, some students have not yet completed their course. We wil let you know via BB or else during the next lecture, what you have to do to obtain the credit.
Some students have asked whether they are to write an expository essay or an argumentative essay. In the assignment, you have to motivate your choice of area. This you have to explain to your reader. Expository essay: aims at acquainting the reader with a body of knowledge. This is what you want to do: help the readr undertsand why you chose your particualr area, give reasons, arguments for those. This does not make it into an argumentative essay (next slide)
Purpose of this type of essay is to persuade the audience to accept a position on a certain issue. This is a type of essay written if your assignment asks you to find arguments in favour of or against a position, for example: nuclear energy should be abolished; Greece should leave the euro; Lectures on Academic Writing should be forbidden. You can take za position for or againts this, and persuade your reader to accept your position. In an expository essay, you wish to explain something to your reader, you are not asking him to accept your position. If you choose south America as your area, your reader wants to now why, but you don’t need to persuade him. All he wants is arguments why you opted for this choice. That is not to say that in an expository essay you do not give reasons, or arguments for your choice. Expository essays do contain arguments, but they are not persuasive in content.
Recap this and tell them it will also be announced on BB. Some people asked because in week of 5 November not all areas have been dealt with yet. This is true, we are aware of this. 2 options: First: you have chosen your area and can start writing your paper. Second: you are not sure yet. Still, you can write the assignment as practice. You draft an introduction, use a funnel structure, think about a thesis statement, write a conclusion that can go with the introduction and write one paragraph. In this, you can practice register, spelling, reporting verbs, punctuation, referencing etc. see it as a practice assignment. Again, not mandatory, but if you know you can use the practice, please hand something in. You are students, and you can assess for ourselves if you need the practice or not.
This is a definition which is not going to get us very far.
This is according to the British Council. Only official languages. In Malaysia, English is not an official language (bahasa Malay), but in practice it is the second language spoken in Malaysia (other languages begin dialect of Chinese for instance.).
As a first language: people who use as their predominant language of communication, or who use it together with one or two other languages. Do the green areas in the map coincide with group of people who use English as a first language? Generally yes. In these countries you will also find those people who were born and raised in an English speaking environment. These speakers are often referred as ‘native speakers’. This concept has received criticism. It suggests that if you learn a language at a later stage, you remain non-native whatever you do. Still, there are many examples of people who learn English as a second languages, but who become highly proficient users. Indeed, many of these use their ‘acquired’ language as their first language really. English as a second language: For instance, in Malaysia, many people learn a language from their parents, Malay in school (as it is the official language, set to be used by the government), and then learn English as a second language, also in school. In Quebec, in Canada, French is the official language, people use it predominantly, but in schools English is taught as a second language. As a foreign language: a language which is indigenous to another country Applies to the Netherlands English is a second language as everyone learns it in school, and just about the entire Dutch population above 18 years old manages to get by in English to some degree. Some people are highly proficient. The same is true for a country like Sweden. So what about the English in this course? Do we use it as a first language? No, many of you speak a different first language (although some speak English as a first language) As a foreign language? No, in our academic setting, it is a kind of ‘official’ language. We use it continously. So it is not foreign. As a second language? Yes, fits best for most of us. We use English to the exclusion of other languages, in this setting. The setting is academic, and this second language we use can be called Academic English. focus on Academic English. In this setting, this makes us learners and users of a specific variety of English: next slide
Generally acknowledged to be a ‘second language’ for people: definition: a language that you can speak but which is not your first language. So, we study English in order to enable us to undertake our studies, to process the information that we obtain, and for oral and written communication. We don’t study English as an object of study: we don’t look at the history, or study theories of english syntac or compare the phonology (sound system) of English as opposed to other languages. We also won’t study the literature of English. We study english as a tool to enable us to conduct our studies. We will make some excursions into, for instance, the history of English, because it will help you to put what we are studying into a context.
Work on tomorrow!
Most students find it difficult to begin writing. They do not know where to begin or how. Good writing starts with reading: researching your topic by reading widely and taking notes., so that you generate a lot of ideas.
During this course students will have to write a 2000-word expository essay. Within the constraints of one particular world area they are relatively free to choose a topic that interests them. Brainstorming can take many forms: a list, a spider diagram, a mind map, anything goes really. There is not one method that is best: students will need to find out what works best for them. They can do them alone, or bounce off ideas on another student. Scope: how much you actually need to explain in your expository essay will depend on how much you assume your reader already knows which in turn will depend on your topic: if something has been in the news regularly lately, they will already know quite about it. As you are writing for your fellow students and your instructor, you will have a well-educated audience.
On p. 64 you will find an overview of the 6 steps towards active reading. Students tend to think that they need to read everything, and whole articles. This is not always the case, though. Reading also needs to be selective as not everything will be relevant to their topic. Advice: Look at the title Look at the structure (headings) Read the topic sentences Read only those paragraphs that deal with your topic Take notes cf. p. 64
On p. 64 you will find an overview of the 6 steps towards active reading. Students tend to think that they need to read everything, and whole articles. This is not always the case, though. Reading also needs to be selective as not everything will be relevant to their topic. Advice: Look at the title Look at the structure (headings) Read the topic sentences Read only those paragraphs that deal with your topic Take notes
Sometimes it is so obvious to a university teacher that a student cannot possibly have written such a beautiful piece themelves, so try and google a sentence. – that’s what students do ! Many universities have plagiarism detection programmes on a computer which highlight all the sentences and phrases that have been lifted from other sources, so the best strategy to use is the last one. They usually allow up to 10 %; between 10 and 20% is regarded as suspicious and students will be given a warning; more than 20% and students will be expelled straight away. Paraphrasing is a skill in itself. The first strategy (finding synonyms and antonyms, and changing the grammar) will usually work for a single sentence, but not for a whole paragraph or more. The resulting paragraph may not demonstrate your full understanding of the text, may be stylistically awkward, and could still be considered plagiarism by some. Also, technical terms and specialised vocabulary cannot be substituted by synonyms. Many universities have plagiarism detection programmes which highlight all the sentences and phrases that have been lifted from other sources, so the best strategy for students to use is the last one. They usually allow up to 10 %; between 10 and 20% is regarded as suspicious and students will be given a warning; more than 20% and students will be excluded straight away. Sometimes it is immediately obvious to a university teacher that a student cannot possibly have written such a beautiful piece themselves, so try and google a sentence. – that is what students do !
Technically, you can plagiarise your own work. Technically you need to refer to your own work, especially if is was marked.
So: The world is round probably does not need a reference”. “ Universities nowadays are increasingly pressed for money” probably does need a reference.
There are thousands of regular verbs in Modern English, but less than 300 irregular ones. The irregular forms are the surviving members of the highly developed system of ‘ strong’ verb classes found in Old English. Students will remember them as the verbs listed at the back of their school textbooks. These irregular verbs also often form part of a phrasal verb (to cut down on, to get by, to make something up, etc.) but not always (to look up, to figure out, etc). I’d like to come back to this in a subsequent lecture, as I think that knowing more about this will help you to understand register better.
Peer feedback is an integral part of this Writing course, so ensure that students realise what kind of feedback they should give. Just saying that something is “ badly written” will not help the author towards a better alternative. Feedback needs to be specific and helpful. The critical reading of somebody else’s work does not mean finding fault. It means identifying what it is that does not make a good impression on the reader.
After the brainstorming session, it is now time to decide which ideas you are going to use, and to organise your ideas into groups. These will later form the individual paragraphs. This chapter focuses on the first paragraph: the introduction and its thesis statement – which is probably the most important sentence in an academic paper.
Introductions are very important for two reasons: They should make the reader want to read on, raise their curiosity Researchers often read them to make up their minds about whether within the scope of their own research it is worthwhile to read the whole article or not. In longer research papers, the introduction usually ends with a claim about needed research: the research gap.
Sometimes defining a term or a phrase that will be used throughout the essay is a good strategy. e.g. south-East Asia, that is, the area including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam and Laos, ………
Using question(s) to attract the attention of your readers is another useful strategy. In your essay you can then proceed to answer the question(s) you have posed in the introduction. e.g. what is so fascinating about religion in south-East Asia to warrant an expository essay?
This strategy involves starting with the idea, belief or opinion that is opposite of your own claim or thesis. You first present the opposite party's opinion, the turn about with a " but or however" , and present your own point of view. This strategy is especially useful in argumentation. Maby popel find South-East Asia difficult to write about because it encompasses so many cultures. However, this is precisely why I am attracted to it.
Using a short anecdote is another way to start your essay. If you have a relevant anecdote ready, using it in the introduction will make your essay more interesting and attract the attention of your reader. As a child I travelled around Bali and was struck by the numerous temples where monkeys lived and were wordshipped. Proceed to write about the symbolic force of these monkeys.
Using quotations in the introduction is another effective way to start your essay. If you have the right quotation that matches your thesis or summarizes what you want to say, it adds flavor to your essay.
Thesis statements should be carefully worded, and therefore need much thought. Initially, students could just use a working thesis statement which will probably be redefined later as they read more and start writing.
Debatable thesis statements often include the modal verb ‘ should’ The tax system should be simplified. Children should be encouraged to cycle to school … It is not necessary to use signalling language such as “ This paper will explain …..” or “ The purpose of this paper is to …..” to explicitly announce the thesis statement in an essay of some 2000 words. In longer research papers, such as theses and dissertations, this is necessary.
This textbook focuses on general to specific texts. However, there are more ways to organise a research paper: Problem - solution Cause–effect
In this method, the first sentence is broad and general. It introduces your thesis, and each following sentence is narrower and more focused. Finally, it narrows down to your thesis.
Method: again funnel: each sentence becomes more specific. (1) Overview of story (2) Some themes in general (3) Sets up the thesis by choosing three themes Ask students where the thesis statement is. Then go to next slide
(4) Thesis sentence Problematic in this paragraph: Use of first person singular ‘ I ’; first sentence: ‘ great story ’ Ask students how they would proceed: in the essay (follow link) each theme gets a paragraph in the body. source: http://academicenglishcafe.com/ModelEssay5.aspx Ask wtudents where the thesis statement is. Then go to next slide
Funnel shaped: (1) Background statement about the general topic of the essay. (2) More specific (3) Outline statement to signal what will be covered in the essay. source: http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/aso/aso-online/academic-writing/sample-essay.php Ask students where the thesis statement is? Is this argumentative or expository? I think argumentative: shows the reader they have a valid argument.
Funnel shaped: (1) Background statement about the general topic of the essay. (2) thesis statement to focus on the specific argument to be dealt with in the essay. (3) Outline statement to signal what will be covered in the essay. source: http://www.une.edu.au/tlc/aso/aso-online/academic-writing/sample-essay.php
Direct quotations are probably the least often used. In their essay students should use no more than one, or none at all. A very useful list of reporting verbs can be found on pp. 108 -9. Steps in writing a summary: Write down the (sub) headings Organisation: general to specific Write down important information, and the key support points Put the original away, and using your own words write down a one-sentence summary of each paragraph / section