What is Academic Writing?

• Communicative
• Fact-based argument
• Identify your audience
• Objective writing
  • Avoid biased language and generalizations
  • Don't bring in personal preconceptions or opinions

Writing Resources

• University library resources
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Student papers
  • Degree projects
• Introduce arguments
• Define and use discipline-specific terms
• Make use of previous research

Interpreting the task

• Essay guidelines(style sheet)

  1. What type of essay
  2. describe or...
  3. ...persuade
  4. assessment
  5. Grading

• Guidelines content

  1. Descriptive or argumentative
  2. Expected length
  3. Layout
  • Font style
  • Line spacing
  • Margins & text justification
  4. Separate title page
  5. Short summary(abstract)

• Guidelines structure

  1. Separate introduction?
  2. Text levels and headings
  • Headings?
  • Numbered?
  • Blank lines?
  • Indentation?

• Guidelines references

  1. Reference style e.g. APA
  2. Text structure

• Guidelines

  1. Essay type
  2. Layout
  3. Text structure
  4. Referencing style

• Guidelines terminology

  1. Indentation
  2. Flush left
  3. Full justification

The writing process and process of writing

• Process Writing
  1. Divide the task into stages
  2. Make additions and revise

Process Writing

Stage1

• Define your topic
• How to approach it
• Collect material
• Pre-writing(invention)stage
  1. write down a preliminary plan
  2. outline your presentation
  3. bullet points
  4. mind map, etc.

Stage 2 & 3

• produce a first draft

• add sections or aspects

• evaluate, rethink, and rewrite

• recognize the need for revision and development

• Process writing planning

  1. invention
  2. writing
  3. rewriting
  4. create a distance

Feedback and peer review

• Peer review

Evaluation of your work by people of a similar level or at a similar stage of their studies

• Receiving feedback
  1. How to use comments
  2. Evaluate feedback
  3. Criticism of your writing is not a criticism of you as a person
  4. Think carefully about each comment

Structuring an argument

"A heated and angry disagreement"

Convince your target reader of your position, and your idea

• The main claim

  1. Thesis statement
  2. sub-claims
  3. reasons
  4. evidence
  5. logical order

• Counter-claims

  1. what objections?
  2. underlying assumptions?

• Some considerations

  1. What does "argument" mean?
  2. How do you convince?
  3. What counts as convincing evidence?

Research questions and thesis statement

Academic essays

• Problems or questions
• Identify one more specific problem or questions
• Target audience
• Are your questions significant?
• Look for evidence that helps you answer your question

Research questions

• Identify a gap in knowledge
• lead to something that is new to the audience
• need to be problematic
  • lead to a claim that is debatable
  • assertions that could either be accepted or denied
• Respond to your problem
• Persuade the target audience

Answers

• Central idea(thesis statement)
  • A sentence that presents your position on the topic and predicts how the topic will be developed
• Roadmap to your essay
• Scope
• Purpose
• Direction

Structuring a text around the three-part essay

• Introduction
• Body
• Conclusion

Strict format

• Facts
• Research-based results
• Clarity
• Trustworthiness
• Transparency of text structure

Introduction

• Presents the topic
• Raises a question
• Presents the claim
  1. Research question
  2. Thesis statement

• Provides background and contextual information
• Introduces the argument
• Mapping statement

Body

• Paragraphs
• Sections
• Discussion
• Results
• Analysis

IMRaD

• IMRaD structure
  1. Introduction
  2. Method
  3. Results
  4. Discussion

Conclusion

• Sums up your arguments
• Conclusions are brief

5-paragraph essay

• 1 introductory paragraph
• 3 body paragraphs
• 1 concluding paragraph

Structuring information

General to specific

• Logical way of writing
• Begin with a general claim and move to more specific details

Chronological order

Causality

There is evidence that X contributes to causing Y...

Comparision & Contrast

X differs from (or is similar to) Y in certain respects

Noted!!!

Problem to solution

• Question or dilemma
• Answer

Headings & Subheadings

• Visual bookmarks

  • Specific instructions
  • Type of essay
  • Discipline

• IMRaD

  1. Introduction
  2. Method
  3. Results
  4. Discussion

Noted!!!

Structuring paragraphs

Paragraphs

• Each paragraph should only deal with one point
• Signalling a shift

Topic sentence

1. The main idea
2. Topic sentence
   2.1 First sentence
   2.2 States what the paragraph is about
   2.3 Says something about the manner in which the topic will be approached

Supporting sentences

1. Examples or illustrations
2. Explanations
3. Definitions
4. Comparison or contrast
5. Causal analysis
   It is a one coherent whole
   Relate directly to the topic sentence
   Relate back to the previous sentence

Concluding sentences

• Transition to the next paragraph
• Considered in relation to the whole

IMRaD - intro method result discussion

• Introduction
• method & result - BODY
• discussion conclusion

CARS

• Creating A Research Space
• Find a place to grow

CARS I

• Establish your territory
  • make a claim
  • Review previous work
  • Position yourself

CARS II

• Establish your own niche
  • Raise a problem
  • Indicate a gap
  • Continuing or developing an existing tradition

CARS III

• Occupy your space
  • Present a statement of purpose
  • provide an outline
    • Blueprint or mapping statement
  • Broader significance
  • Convince your reader

Method

• Materials collected following an agreed protocol
  what? how? what materials??? problems?

STAR

• Sufficiency
• Typicality
• Accuracy
• Relevance

Materials

• Support your claim
• Typical & Representative
• Accurate & up-to-date
• Relevant to the claims

Results

• Present your findings
• Your contribution
• What results to present and in what order
• Use visuals
• How to comment

Discussion

• Discuss & interpret your findings
• Connect to previous research
• Restate your main findings and ...
• broaden out...

**5 Stages of Discussion

1. presentation of background information
2. summarising of key results
3. discussion of results
4. limitations of the study

Variations

• Combine results & discussion
• Conclusion as a separate section
• Separate literature review

Reading strategies

Anatomy of a text

• Structure
• Related parts
• Functions
• Book volumes
  • Table of contents
  • Indexes

Introductory chapter

• Main topic & argument
• Structure

Scholarly journal articles

• Abstract
• List of keywords
• Introduction

Noted!!!

Predatory reading

• Identify central concepts
• Get a first overview

Close reading!!!

• Analytical level
• Make notes
• Write annotations
• What parallels
• Presentation of argument
• What references

Integrating sources - Positioning and stance

• Not a personal response
• Provide evidence for claims
• Building on the works of others

Referencing, why?

Demonstrating knowledge
Relating own ideas to other people's

Reliable sources

• Published sources subjected to
  • Editorial process
  • Peer review process
• Are objective
• Backed up by reliable evidence
• University library homepage
• tracking down databases(e.g. https://arxiv.org/)

Relevant sources

• Speak the language of y our discipline
• Appropriate to the level at which you are writing

Noted!!!!

Using other people's ideas

• Show knowledge of your subject area
• Positioning yourself
  • Survey of relevant research
  • literature review
  • background section

Presentation

• Align yourself
• Indicate a gap

Alignment reporting verb

"Smith hypothesizes that such and such is the case..."
"Smith proves this to be the case"

Distancing

"Smith's study was utter rubbish"
"Smith's study offered some interesting... but failed to recognize..."

Avoid leaving your argument open, and misleading the interpretation

References

Why references???

How

• Specify origins
• Guidance to your readers
• Paying respect
• Positioning yourself within the field

What

• Source
  • Article, book, or report
  • Ideas, data, or facts

noted!!!

leave out

• Common knowledge
• "It is well-known" ?

Plagiarism

• A form of cheating
• Your own previous work

When

• Quoting
• Paraphrasing
• Summarizing

References

• Paraphrasing: Re-writing material
• Summarizing
• A smaller, specific portion of a source
• Put the main ideas into your own works

The parts of a reference

Terminology

• Source reference
• Bibliographic citation

Content

• Title of the work
• Author
• Year of publication
• Edition number
• Publisher
• Place of publication

Books

• Title
• Author
• Year of publication
• Publisher
• Place of publication

Anthologies

• Title of anthology
• Title of chapter
• Authors
• Editors

Articles

• Title of article
• Authors
• Year of publication
• Name of journal
• Volume
• Issue number
• Page numbers
• Internet
  • Web address
  • Date
  • DOI - digital object identifier

Other sources

• Newspapers
• Blogs
• Reports

Noted!!!

Reference systems

• Parentheses or footnotes
• Harvard & APA
• Author's name
• Year of publication
• Oxford & Vancouver
• Elevated number or...
• (parenthesis) or [brackets]

Editing 50% of the time for doing so for an experienced author

• Improve quality
• Ensure contents make sense
• Structure and present information
• No contradictions
• Check for surface errors
  • Typos
  • Spelling
  • Grammar
  • Choice of words
  • Different word forms

Proofreading

• Punctuation
• Formatting
• Reference
  • In the right place
  • In the list of references
  • Properly formatted

Global editing and revision

issues

• See the bigger picture
  • Thesis or focus
  • Target audience
  • Structure & Organization
  • Development of ideas
  • Argumentation

Noted!!!!

Focus

• Find it in the introduction
• Highlight
• Revise the introductory section

content

• target audience
• background information
• definitions of terms

new information

• give references
• be more specific
• give more motivations
• add more examples

ideas

• related to the thesis
• server as evidence
• write a one-sentence description
• transitional expressions
  1. however
  2. one the contrary
  3. in addition
  4. consequently
  5. therefore
  6. on the other hand

revising

• one-sentence descriptions
• presentation order
  • general to specific