UNIT 1

Academic writing

It is the kind of writing that is produce within the academy (university), generally meant to be read by an informed and scholarly audience.

There are different kinds of academic writing:

The essay, the research paper, the dissertation or the journal article.

[This forms of writing argued, using evidence and analysis, and following an accepted style for structure and citations.]

[A thesis statement tells your reader what you will be proving in your essay]

Analysing an essay question is an important step??/

Most essay questions being with a key word that gives you a clue as to kind of question is being asked. To help you figure out what kind of information or sources you will need to answer the question, and help you to structure the essay itself.

Compare paper

Means, find the similarities between two topics

Compare and contract

Means, to find the similarities and to find differences between two topics.

Organized essay supplies signposts or markers that tell your reader what to expect and where your essay is going by using transitions, providing evidence from the sources used and analyzing that evidence.

 

Discuss means;

First, to analyse and evaluate a subject.

Then, draw a conclusion about it.

New terms and concept

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UNIT 2

Defining the term is an important early step in any academic essay you write?

Because many of the terms and concepts that are used at the university level are very complex and often have more than one meaning or slight or subtle differences to their meanings.

So it is always important to tell your reader what exactly you mean when you use certain complex or difficult term or concept, even if it familiar.

It also important to define new or foreign terms; to be sure what your reader understands what you mean

   What is a bibliography?

It is a list of source (articles, books, websites, stories, movies, painting, etc) used in the writing of an academic essay.

The list is usually in alphabetical order by the author's last name, and includes information such as the title of the work, where it was published and when it was published.

 

Bibliographies are a necessary and important part of any academic essay?

-Without a bibliography an essay is incomplete.

-It tell your reader what sources you used in writing your essay, and if you chosen wisely, these sources will help to convince your reader of your point of view.

-It also acknowledges the hard work of others who have come up with great ideas, god insight or done research on a certain topic.

Plagiarism

In academic is like cheating or stealing

Collecting material

There are two main sources that are available to students:

1- Print sources.

2- Electronic sources.

Print sources

-Printed or published (like books, articles, poem, plays, etc)

-Electronic sources found on the internet.

Other kind:

Films, music, painting and architecture.

Electronic sources

Sources that you access online or electronically.

- Soft version of printed material.

- Online only journals or books

- Other internet sources (article and paper that are posted by professors>>>etc)

Assessing material

How to start assessing your source?

They are:

- Really about the topic you are researching.

-accurate, current and reliable.

-not identical or too similar to your other sources.

Primary vs. secondary source

Primary sources are for example the data that you gather for a linguistics study or the actual poem or novel that you will be discussing and analyzing in your essay. (The book)

Secondary sources are the articles and discussions about primary sources, or the ones that you use to help you support your argument and analysis.

Using the internet for research

The internet is probably the most popular choice for research of students. It is a rich resource for finding general information on tour topic, as well as accessing more specialized and even scholarly publications. There are, however, some special precautions that you must take when using the internet. First of all, unlike a printed text, most materials on the internet are posted without undergoing any kind of review process. Most printed articles or books are checked by other scholars or experts before they are published. Often the articles appear in refereed journals. A journal is like a magazine for professors where their articles and essays are published; referred means that articles are reviewed by experts in the field before being accepted for publication.

Critical reading

Means paying attention to small details of a text and thinking about what they might mean or imply.

There are two kinds of reader:

Non-critical and critical

To non-critical readers text provides facts

To critical reader, any single text provides but one portrayal of the facts take on the subject matter

Critical readers are not only interested in what a text says but also in how to say it.

Critical writing

Writing which builds up the information you have discovered and analysis made in the earlier stages of critical reading and critical thinking.

Using facts and information to present your own understanding and interpretation of a subject.

Using sources is support your own thinking.

Critical writing involves the processes of comparing, contrasting and evaluating source material and ideas.

You will be expected to be able to summaries the main ideas of a reading to analyse and evaluate the reading and to find a relationship between one reading and another.

The values of highlighting and underlining

- focusing your attention on the text.

- making you pick out and think about main ideas.

-leaving a race on the page of the sense you have made of the text.

What is summaries?

- a summary is a short description of he thesis and main ideas of a longer piece of writing.

The idea of a summary is to paraphrase(write in our own words) enough information to make reader understand what the article is arguing, what kind of evidence it is using and what conclusion it reaches.

A summary should not contain your opinion or analysis it should only be neutral; analysis and evaluation are part of the synthesis and critique.     

How do you write a summary?

1- read the article or story carefully.

2- reread the article, using note taking and annotating techniques; be sure to identify the thesis statement; evidence/example; conclusions.

3- on a separate piece of paper or new word document, write a sentence with the author name, the title of article, and the main idea or argument of the article.

4- write a one-sentence summary of each of the main ideas or sections of the article and another for the conclusions.

5- add the sentences from step4 to your step3 sentence- this is the first draft of your summary.

6- return to the article to make sure that your summary is accurate and that you haven’t missed anything important.

7- now revise your summary, adding transitional words for flow and further detail if needed.   

  What is a critique?

Is a short paper about an article or book that starts with a summary, but then continues to include an evaluation of the original text.

This means looking at not only what was written but also how it is written.

If the work you are reading is non-literary, then you will want to think if the argument hold together.

If the work you are reading is literary, then you will want to consider and evaluate other things.

The point of a critique is not only to summaries the piece of writing from the author's point of view but also to add your own evaluation of it.

What is synthesis?

Is a third kind of writing that you will be expected to master during your studies.

It puts together the ideas of two or more sources into one piece of writing.

It usually contains a short summary of each the pieces being discussed and then an evaluation that combines or integrates the ideas from the various sources into a logical and organized short essay.

How d you write a synthesis?

By finding the relationship between the sources.

The best way to figure out the relationship between articles is t start by getting a good understanding of each article separately.

You must be selective in choosing what details or information to include from each of your sources.

New terms and concept

راجع ص 30

 

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UNIT3

To try to very quickly come up with ideas or solutions to a problem.

Some of the main brainstorming techniques:

- listing or bulleting

- clustering

- journalistic questions

- Free writing

Listing or bulleting

It is exactly how it sounds; you write a list of words, ideas, phrases that come into your mind.

Clustering

Tries to establish relationships right away between ideas.

A cluster is a group of things that gather around something, n the way that moons orbit around planet.

Journalistic questions

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

How?

This technique does have categories and specific questions that you asking yourself to help you think about your topic in different ways.

Free writing

Take a piece paper and just start writing.

Pick the main ideas out of your free written work and organise them into groups or categories.

Why use an outline?

It is one of the most useful tools for any writing assignment – whether a take home essay research project or an in-class essay commonly found on final examinations.

Outline helps to organise  your ideas before you actually start to write , keeps you focused while you are writing, and helps you to know where you need to do further research or analysis to fill in any gaps in your essay.

Basic outline

It similar to a list and made of roman numerals.

Topic sentence outline

Use full sentence for each major point to be made in the essay, rather than brief phrases that are generally used in the basic outline.

Each of topic sentences expresses a central idea that will be developed in the essay.

Each of these ideas must supported by example and analysis.

Topic vs. thesis

A topic in essay is the subject or focus of the essay.

A thesis is the angle or argument about the topic.

Three parts of a thesis statement

For academic writing at the university level, we need a thesis that is a bit more developed.

1- tells your reader what you will be demonstrating or arguing in your essay.

2- it tells your reader what you will be using as the source of your argument.

3- it answers the all important question.

  

New terms and concepts

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UNIT4

Opening paragraph

The opening paragraph has one key goal- to interest your reader to keep on reading your paper.

Strategies for opening paragraph

The opening paragraph allows you to set the stage of your essay by creating a certain tone or atmosphere that makes your paper special and unique.

1-Quote

A very common way that writers start any writing project is with quote.

A  quote is the exact words said or written be someone else.

The reason that a quote is often used to start a paper or a book is that it sets a certain tone or atmosphere for what follows.

2-Unusual fact or statistic

Starting with unusual fact or statistic has some similar effects to starting with a quote.

For example unusual piece of information can attract a readers interest in the same way that a controversial or thought-provoking quote can.

3-Question

Asking question is another great way to start a paper

.

By doing this you automatically engage your reader with what you are writing, because you have addressed him or her directly by asking a question.

Similar conditions that are mentioned for beginning with a fact or statistic apply to beginning with a question:

-It ask some thing interesting, unusual or thought-provoking

-It relates to your specific topic

-It helps to create the right tone or atmosphere for your paper as a whole

The opening  paragraph for any of three strategies can simply include more explanation or details about what opening sentence or two have suggested.

4-General to specific

By opening your essay in a general way and then moving more specifically into you topic.

5-Specific to general

By opening your essay in specific way and then moving more generally into you topic.

6-Anecdote

Means a story or personal account of a event.

The reason behind starting with an anecdote is that like stories about other people because as humans we can find a way to connect or relate to the story.

What is peer review?

Way of gaining valuable feedback to your work.

A peer is something who is similar or equal to you.

Peer review means hat something in you class a fellow student will be reading and commenting on your writing.

By being a peer review you will be reading the work of another student and giving feedback on its strengths and weakness as well as suggestions for ways to improve it.

New terms and concept

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UNIT 5

Why do you need sources?

Academic writing is writing which provides or analysis knowledge. Scholars and postgraduate students, because of their research experience, are engaged n production of knowledge. As an undergraduate student, in your writing you are learning how to analyse knowledge and take up a position or stance in relation to it.

How should you use sources?

When you are doing a close reading you will be paying attention to details such as:

Vocabulary

Sentence construction

Imagery

Themes

How the story is told

The view of the world it offers

In addition to close readings in which you focus on the source itself during your essay, you will also be asked to use sources to support your own analysis.

The main reason you will be expected to use sources is to establish credibility with your reader.

This means to gain the trust and confidence of your reader that you are a reliable and believable writer.

Here are many different ways that you can and should use sources o back up your analysis:

Support of your views

Examples or evidence of your ideas

Hard evidence

Expert opinions

Multitude of voices

What if you find conflating ideas?

There are different or conflicting opinions of a topic you are researching . it is also important to be aware of the different opinions even if you don’t agree with them.

Summarizing sources

The summary you include in your essay shod be very short much shorter than the kind of summaries you learnt.

Often the summary of a text that you include in an essay is only one or two sentences long.

When you include a summary within your essay you will include only enough information to help the reader understand why you are quoting or paraphrasing from this source.

Providing a clear and selective summary not only helps the reader to understand things better but it also helps to establish your credibility by shoeing that you understand your source very well.

What are quotes?

When you quote from a source you are repeating the exact words that someone else has written.

Citing your source means telling your reader where you have found these words or phrases.

A quote is usually introduced to the reader by starting it within quotation marks.

When should you quote?

Quoting should be only when your own ideas are not enough to demonstrate or prove your point or to support your ideas, when rewriting the ideas of another in your own words will not work or when you want to give your reader a taste of the exact words or phrases of another author.

1- when your own ideas are not enough to demonstrate a point or to support your ideas.

A quote can be as short as a key word or phrase; in fact at the early levels of academic writing, you should primarily use short quotes of words or phrases and very occasionally use longer quotes of full sentences or more.

If you use too many long quotes or string together too many quotes n a row then it will seems as if you have nothing to say on the topic.

2- when rewriting the ideas of another in your own words will not work

Paraphrasing is the preferable way to deal with ideas in sources, because if you can put something into your own words.

   

3- when you want to give your reader a taste of the exact words or phrases of another author.

Using short quotes

Short quotes are the best kind of quotes to use in academic papers.

A short quote can be as short as a single word or phrase but cannot be longer than three lines of text.

A short quote allows you the benefits f quoting without losing your own voice.

The basic rules in quoting:

1- all quotes must be included within a full sentence.

2- the source of the quote must be cited immediately after the quote.

3- use quotation marks to open and close each quote.

4-short quotes are sometimes set off from the signal phrase by punctuation- usually a comma(,)

4-if certain citation information is included in the signal sentence, then it is not necessary to repeat the same formation in citation itself.

5-be careful about proper placement of punctuation marks. For double quotation marks:

a-periods/full stops(.) and commas(,) go inside quotation marks.

b-semi-colons(;) and colons(:) go outside quotation marks.

c- question marks (?) and exclamation point(!)go inside when they are part of the original quote or title; and outside when they are part of the larger signal sentence.

Using long quotes

Although long quotes are very popular with students, they not be used very often at undergraduate level.

A long quote, one that takes more than three lines of typed text, must be indented on the left-hand side, but keep the same margin on the right.

Like short quotes, long quotes need to be introduces by a full sentence(subject + verb); but unlike short quotes which are sometimes introduced by a comma, long quotes are introduced by a colon(:).long quotes do not start with a quotation mark; they are already set apart by being indented in a block format.

Adding or omitting words in quotations

When you omit part of the original quote, you note this by putting three full stops in place of what you have omitted. This three full stops are called an ellipsis. If you want, you can put them within square brackets [ … ] with a space before and after the brackets; or you can simply put the  three full stops, again with a space before and after.

If you need to ad something to or change something in a quote, note the changes by placing them within square brackets[ changed or added text ]. If you notice a mistake in the original quote, for example the name of a character in a story spelled wrong, you can note the mistake by adding [sic] after the mistake. Sic is the from Latin and translates into English as thus. This is important because it will increase your readers confidence in you.

MLA formatting and quotes

 MLA is short for modern language association, a group stared a long time ago by teachers and scholars to promote the study and teaching of language and literature. The purpose is to make things clearer and easier for the reader and the author.

MLA format uses in-text citation, and a list of sources used and referenced in your essay at the end on the works cited page.

MLA uses an in-text citation method; that means that citation materials appear within the body of the text. The basic information needed is the author's name and the page number where the quote or paraphrase originated.

The works cited page should list your sources in alphabetical order based on the last name of the author. If you have more than one work by the same author , then list the works alphabetically by title under that author's name.

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