Transcript Academic Writing Workshop (1)

Academic Writing Workshop (3)
Organisation and planning
Institute of English, University of Silesia
May 5th, 2009
Plans for AWW meetings
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In-text citation, list of references
Main text editing, quotations
Organisation and planning
Peer reviewers’ comments
Helpful sources:
Arnaudet, Martin L. and Mary E. Barrett. 1984. Approaches
to academic reading and writing. Englewood Cliffs,
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Murray, Rowena. 2005. Writing for academic journals.
Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press.
Swales, John M. and Christine B. Feak. 2004. Academic
writing for graduate students: A course for non-native
speakers of English. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press
Swales, John M. 1990. Genre analysis: English in academic
and research settings. Cambridge: CUP.
„Język utworu science fiction realizuje ciążącą na nim
funkcję kreacyjną nie tylko poprzez paralelne do
prezentowanego novum innowacje w zakresie swej
własnej materii. Może tę funkcje realizować również przez
zmianę znaczeń tworów zachowujących na poziomie
leksyki swój dotychczasowy kształt. Będziemy tu mieli do
czynienia z klasycznymi niejako neosemantyzmami i
przypadkami, kiedy zmiana znaczenia nie odbywa się na
linii nazwa – desygnat, lecz w rezultacie
współwyznaczania treści i zakresu znaczenia przez dwa
lub więcej zestawione ze sobą składniki wypowiedzenia.”
(H-1969)
Culture-based approaches to academic writing?
• I have something interesting
and/or important to say.
• I want you to understand that
this matter is extremely
complex and it did take some
ingenuity to unravel the
problem.
• It is understood that I am the
expert here, so you’d better
brace up and pay attention,
and if you get lost on the way,
you go back to the reading
room.
Culture-based approaches to academic writing?
• I understand that you
appreciate the fact that I have
written down these insightful
thoughts that are now here for
you to absorb.
• I understand that you read this
text in order to learn from
somebody who knows more.
• I hope I have shown
conclusively how things stand
and there is no reason to split
hairs now.
• I understand that if you do not
see the point I am making,
you are either a poor learner
or a poor reader, or both.
Culture-based approaches to academic writing?
• I have something interesting
and/or important to say.
• I want you to understand that
the matter is extremely
complex and it did take some
ingenuity to unravel the
problem.
• It is understood that I am the
expert here, so you’d better
brace up and pay attention and
if you get lost on the way, you
go back to the reading room.
• I want to tell you something
you may find interesting
and/or important.
• I ask you for your time and
attention and promise not to
take more of these than truly
necessary to present my point.
• Since it is MY point I am
making, and I understand that
you do not necessarily read
my thoughts, I take it upon
myself to provide you with all
the data I believe you need to
see my point.
Culture-based approaches to academic writing?
• I understand that you
appreciate the fact that
someone has written down all
those profound observations
that are now here for you to
absorb.
• I understand that you read this
text in order to learn from
somebody who knows more.
• I hope I have shown
conclusively how things stand
and there is no reason to split
hairs now.
• I understand that if you do not
see the point I am making,
you are either a poor learner
or a poor reader, or both.
• I understand that if you embark
on reading, you will do it with
good will so as to see the point I
am making.
• I do expect you to have your own
thoughts on the matter, which
may be different from mine. I
hope that what I have to say will
bring you closer to my way of
thinking.
• I hope that presenting my point
does not close the topic but that it
may inspire you to investigate it
further.
• I understand that if you do not
see the point I am making, I am
either a poor scholar or a poor
writer, or both.
• Author and Reader are partners;
• A and R are fellow scholars who negotiate points
of view 1. to develop their own understanding of a
problem and 2. to contribute to the development of
their discipline or area;
• Knowledge is created in a dialogue, it is a process
rather than an object one may possess or transfer.
Formal outline: Division into sections
BOOK
PART
CHAPTER
SECTION
SECTION
SUBSECTION
SUBSECTION
SECTION
CHAPTER
CHAPTER
PART
Based on Arnaudet and Barrett (1984: 107).
Title
Abstract
Outline of a research paper
Keywords
1. Introduction
2. Section
2.1 Subsection
2.2 Subsection
2.2.1 Subdivision
2.2.2 Subdivision
2.3 Subsection
2.3.1 Subdivision
2.3.2 Subdivision
3. Section
4. Section
4.1 Subsection
4.2 Subsection
4.3 Subsection
5. Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Appendices
References
The IMRD structure of a RP
• Introduction
– “to provide the rationale for the paper, moving from general
discussion of the topic to the particular question or hypothesis
being investigated” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 156);
– “to attract interest in the topic – and hence readers” (Swales and
Feak, 2004: 156).
• Methods
– to describe the theoretical approach, the material analysed and the
procedure applied (Swales and Feak, 2004).
• Results
– to describe the findings with “variable amounts of commentary”
(Swales and Feak, 2004: 157).
• Discussion
– to offer “an increasingly generalized account of what has been
learned in the study” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 157), usually
through references to issues raised in the introduction and points
established in the results. May subsume concluding remarks or be
followed by a separate concluding section.
Title
Sections of a RP
Abstract
Keywords
1. Introduction
2. Theoretical background
2.1 Subsection
2.2 Subsection
2.3 Subsection
3. Methods
4. Results
4.1 Subsection
4.2 Subsection
4.3 Subsection
5. Discussion with
concluding remarks
Appendices
References
Title
• A working title helps to focus on the goal;
• It is practical to start with the keywords and to
decide which keywords MUST appear in the title;
• The Title: Subtitle structure
– Catchy part: Descriptive part
– Jocular part: Serious descriptive part
– A quote or an example: Descriptive part
(Murray, 2005)
Introduction
• “to provide the rationale for the paper, moving from general discussion of
the topic to the particular question or hypothesis being investigated”
(Swales and Feak, 2004: 156);
• “to attract interest in the topic – and hence readers” (Swales and Feak,
2004: 156).
Create-a-Research-Space Model (Swales, 1990)
Move 1: Establishing a research territory
a. by showing that the general research area is important, central, interesting,
problematic, or relevant in some way (optional)
b. by introducing and reviewing items of previous research in the area
(obligatory)
Move 2: Establishing a niche
a. by indicating a gap in the previous research, raising a question about it, or
extending previous knowledge in some way. (obligatory)
Move 3: Occupying the niche
a. by outlining purposes or stating the nature of the present research (obligatory)
b. by announcing principal findings (optional)
c. by indicating the structure of the RP (optional) (Swales and Feak, 2004: 176).
• Move 1 Establishing a research territory
A note on tense (Swales and Feak, 2004: 182-184):
– Past: researcher activity as agent
X (2000) investigated Y.
– Present Perfect: researcher activity not as agent
Such investigations have been carried out under several different
labels, including ‘evaluation’ (Hunston, 1994; Humston & Thompson,
2000), ‘intensity’ (Labov, 1984), ‘affect’ (Ochs, 1989), ‘evidentiality’
(Chafe, 1986; Chafe & Nichols, 1986), ‘hedging’ (Holmes, 1988;
Hyland, 1996a, b), and ‘stance (Barton, 1993; Beach & Anson, 1992;
Biber & Finegan, 1988, 1989; . . . [B-2006]
– Present: no reference to researcher activity
Currently there are over 62 Sudanese medical schools and research
institutions, conductiong most of their research in collaboration with
international medical organisations (NERH, 2000). [TEN-2008]
– Citational present
Li and Flowerdew (2007) also report how Chinese writers of scientific
papers are often requested by editors and reviewers to enlist the help of
native-speakers . . . [F-2008]
• Move 2 Establishing a niche
• establishes the motivation for the study by indicating that the research so far is
incomplete
However, previous research in this field has concentrated on x; disregarded x;
failed to consider x; ignored x; been limited to x; overlooked x; been restricted to
x; 1. underestimated x (selected from Swales and Feak, 2004).
Nevertheless, these attempts to establish a link between x and y are at present
controversial; incomplete; inconclusive; unconvincing; unsatisfactory (selected
from Swales and Feak, 2004).
Little information/ attention/ work/ data/ research . . .
Few studies/ investigations/ researchers/ attempts . . .
No studies/ data/ calculations . . . (Swales and Feak, 2004)
Yet while studies point to the considerable variation of bundles in different genres
(e.g. Biber, 2006 . . .), how far they differ by discipline remains uncertain. [H2008]
Recent recearch (Clark, 1992; . . .), however, suggests a growing trend away from
the traditional notion of academic writing as distant and impersonal, towards a
recognition that academic writing need not be totally devoid of the writer’s
presence. The issue of how writers create identities for themselves in their
academic writing thus emerges as a very pertinent area of research. [TJ-1999]
• Move 3 Occupying the niche
• to make an offer to fill the gap that has been created in Move 2 by
outlining purposes or stating the nature of the present research (Swales
and Feak, 2004).
Purposive variant
– The author specifies his or her main purpose.
Descriptive variant
– The author specifies the main features of his or her research.
The aim of the present paper is to give . . . This paper reports on the
results obtained . . . In this paper we give preliminary results for . . . The
main purpose of the experiment reported here was to . . . This study was
designed to evaluate . . . The present work extends the use of the last
model by . . . We now report the interaction between . . . The primary
focus of this paper is on . . . The aim of this investigation was to test . . .
It is the purpose of the present paper to provide . . . (Swales and Feak,
2004)
Secondary goals or sub-goals:
In addition, . . . Additionally, . . . A secondary aim . . . A further reason
for . . . (Swales and Feak, 2004)
Text organisation
• Yet while studies point to the considerable variation of bundles in
different genres (e.g. Biber, 2006 . . .), how far they differ by discipline
remains uncertain. This is the isuue I address in this paper, examining
a 3.5 million word corpus to identify the forms and functions of 4word bundles across four contrasting disciplines. [H-2008]
• Recent recearch (Clark, 1992; . . .), however, suggests a growing trend
away from the traditional notion of academic writing as distant and
impersonal, towards a recognition that academic writing need not be
totally devoid of the writer’s presence. The issue of how writers create
identities for themselves in their academic writing thus emerges as a
very pertinent area of research. Recognising that a writer’s identity in
any text is created by and revealed through a combination of his or her
many discoursal choices, we have decided to focus on just one of these
aspects – the writer’s use of first person pronouns. [TJ-1999]
• The present study extends previous research in two ways: 1) it
compares and contrasts the use of a wide range of lexico-grammatical
features used for the expression of stance (rather than focusing on a
particular feature), and 2) it describes major patterns of register
variation within the university, comparing the marking of stance in
academic and ‘student management’ registers, within both speech and
writing. [B-2006]
Text organisation
The rest of this study will be structured as follows. In
section 2, we will present an overview of our basic
findings about the marking of counterfactuality in simple
clauses in our sample. In section 3, we will try to interpret
these findings, focusing mainly on the different types of
combinations of markers, and the question how the feature
of polarity reversal has become associated with this
combination of markers. In section 4, finally, we will draw
some more general conclusions about the nature of
counterfactuality, and discuss how our findings about
counterfactuality in simple clauses might be extended to
other counterfactual contexts, specifically in conditional
constructions. [VLV-2008]
Methods
• to describe the theoretical approach, the material analysed
and the procedure applied (Swales and Feak, 2004).
– is explicit about what the author(s) did;
– gives reasons for actions, explains procedures,
specifies categories etc., may give examples;
– procedures normally written in the past tense;
– packed with terminology, which is often repeated;
– sometimes subdivided into sections.
4. Methodology
4.1 Macro-Functions
4.2 Other features (CTRJ-2008)
4. Corpus and procedures (D-2004)
2. Methodology
2.1 The construction of the corpus
2.2 Approach to the analysis of rhetorical structure / move structure
2.3. Approach to the analysis of linguistic realizations of moves and authorial stance (P-2008)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------this study is based; data for the study consist of; this study takes a conservative approach
we examined; we included; we counted; each occurrence was identified; the category was
interpreted; it was designated; it was classified (Swales and Feak, 2004)
WordSmith Tools 4 (Scott, 1996) was used to generate
were sampled from; were categorised in terms of;
is shown in Table 1; is given in Appendix 1
were chosen to represent
I decided to focus on . . . because they are far more common
[H-2008; B-2006]
Results
– to describe the findings with “variable amounts
of commentary” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 157).
• It goes beyond factual recount of the findings;
• It often merges into discussion;
• It may involve:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Justifying the methodology;
Interpreting the results;
Citing agreement with previous studies;
Commenting on the data;
Admitting difficulties in interpretation;
Pointing out discrepancies (Swales and Feak, 2004: 171).
The overall distribution of; There were 240 different . . .
In general, . . . but
At the same time,
In particular,
In contrast,
On the other hand,
At the other end of the table, . . .
Although both . . . tend to occur with inanimate subjects, they differ
There are, however, some interesting disciplinary differences
Again, the reasons for for these differences are unclear, but . . .
More interesting is the difference between . . .
In classroom teaching, . . .
In classroom management, . . .
As noted above, . . . are by far the most common . . .
As can be seen
Fig. 1 shows that; Table 1 above shows
[H-2008; B-2006]
Discussion (Conclusions)
– to offer “an increasingly generalized account of what has been learned
in the study” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 157).
• must address the research question(s) asked in the introduction;
• focuses on points rather than facts;
• is interpretive rather than descriptive.
As Swales and Feak (2004: 196) observe, it should be
more theoretical
or
more abstract
or
more general
or
more integrated with the field
or
more connected to the real world
or
more concerned with implications or applications
Concluding moves:
• Move 1: consolidate your research space (obligatory)
"phrases of generality”
Overall, . . . In general, . . . On the whole, . . . In the main, . . . (Swales
and Feak, 2004)
The overall results indicate . . . The results indicate, overall, that . . . In
general, the experimental samples resisted . . . (Swales and Feak, 2004)
The basic purpose of this paper was twofold: first, to find out how
counterfactuality is marked in simple clauses across languages, and
second, to discuss what these patterns of marking tell us about the nature
and origins of counterfactuality. [VLV-2008]
My main purpose in this study has been to explore the extent to which
phraseology contributes to academic writing by identifying the most
frequent 4-word bundles in the key genres of four disciplines. [H-2008]
• Move 2: indicate the limitations of your study (optional)
It should be noted that this study has examined only . . ., This analysis has
concentrated on . . ., The findings of this study are restricted to . . ., This
study has addressed only the question of . . ., The limitations of this study
are clear: . . ., We would like to point out that we have not . . ., However, the
findings do not imply . . ., The results of this study cannot be taken as
evidence for . . ., Unfortunately, we are unable to determine from this data .
. ., Notwithstanding its limitations, this study does suggest . . ., Despite its
preliminary character, the research reported here would seem to indicate . . .,
However exploratory, this study may offer some insight into . . . (Swales
and Feak, 2004)
The results need to be treated with some caution, of course. I have not
discussed . . . [H-2008]
• Move 3: identify useful areas of further research (optional)
It remains our conviction that more descriptive and explanatory work needs
to bedone on even the basic overall structures of RAs, and that text analysis
still has aplace in this enquiry. Finally, it can be hard to reconcile clear
accounts with broadcoverage, but we still think it is important to do justice
to the range of genre productsfound within a single field, not least that of
applied linguistics itself. [RA-2004]
Sources of examples (other than Swales and Feak, 2004):
B-2006
Biber, Douglas. 2006. Stance in spoken and written university registers.
Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5: 97-116.
F-2008
Flowerdew, John. 2008. Scholarly writers who use English as an Additional
Language: What can Goffman’s “Stigma” tell us? Journal of English for
Academic Purposes 7: 77-86.
H-2008
Hyland, Ken. 2008. As can be seen: Lexical bundles and disciplinary
variation. English for Specific Purposes 27: 4-21.
RA-2004
Ruiying, Yang and Desmond Allison. 2004. Research articles in applied
linguistics: Structures from a functional perspective. English for Specific
Purposes 23: 264-279.
TEN-2008
Tambul ElMalik, Abdullahi and Hilary Nesi. 2008. Publishing research in
a second language: The case of Sudanese contributors to international
medical journals. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7: 87-96.
TJ-1999
Tang, Ramona and Suganthi John. 1999. The ‘I’ in identity: Exploring
writer identity in student academic writing through the first person
pronouns. English for Specific Purposes 18: S23-S39.
VLV-2008
Van Linden, An and Jean-Christophe Verstraete. 2008. The nature and
origins of counterfactuality in simple clauses. Cross-linguistic
evidence. Journal of Pragmatics 40: 1865-1895.
Thank you!