English for Academic and Professional Purposes

LESSON 1 o Articles
Writing Non-Academic Text
 A form of communication that is shaped by  Written for the mass public
the ff. factors:  Published quickly and can be written by
o Topic (what is the text about?) anyone
o Role (what and who am I?)  Language is informal, casual and may
o Audience (who will read my piece?) contain slangs
o Purpose (why am I writing this?)  Expected to be:
 Formal Language – academic, serious texts o Personal
(official docu, books, news reports) o Impressionistic
 Non-formal Language – non-academic, o Subjective
everyday conversations o Emotional
 When using social or informal in daily  Examples:
convo, it’s possible to use slang and without o Personal journal entries
a grammatically correct way in o Memoirs
communicating o Letters
 You can be understood w/o using: o Emails
o Articles o Short stories
o Prepositions Academic Writing
o Pronoun reference  Process that starts with posing a question,
o Sophisticated vocabulary problematizing a concept, evaluating an
Academic Language opinion, and ends in answering the question
 Formal posed, clarifying the problem, and arguing
 More specific/sophisticated vocab for a stand.
 Less common  Addresses a specific audience
 Variety of words  Knowledge of writer is greater than that of
 Start with transition words the readers
 No slang  “thinking”, you can’t just write anything that
Non-Academic Language comes to mind
 Repetition of words  Specific purpose of:
 Sentences start with or, but, and o To inform
 Slang: guy, cool, awesome o To argue a specific point
o To persuade
Formal Informal  Make sure to back up your statement with
Cogitate Think strong and valid evidence
Purchase Buy
Beverage Drink
Penurious Poor
Abominate Hate Features of Language
1) Formality- requires precision in language
LESSON 2 /avoid slang
Academic Text a) Use expanded modal forms vs
 text that is specifically written for use by contracted
college instructors or students Ex. Cannot instead of can’t
 text your instructor has assigned because of Do not instead of don’t
its usefulness in your college course
b) Use one-word verb vs two-word verb
Ex. Damage instead of mess up
 It is expected to be: Emits instead of gives off
o Precise c) Expand abbreviations
o Impersonal Ex. ASAP- as soon as possible
o Semi-formal FYI – for your information
o Objective d) Avoid colloquial, idiomatic
 Examples: expressions
o Thesis Ex. as a matter of fact
o Reviews Only time can tell
o Essays 2) Objectivity – requires special knowledge
o Conference Papers and use of more complex
 language
- Writing must be impersonal
and maintain a certain level of
social distance
a.) Avoid the use of personal pronouns
(use third person)
b.) Avoid rhetorical questions
c.) Avoid emotive language that shows
biases
d.) Jargons – special words that are used
by a specific profession
3) Explicitness – requires the use of signposts
that allow readers to trace the
relationships in the parts of a
study
- If you intend to show a
change in your line of
argument, use however.
- If you intend to give extra
info, use in addition.
4) Caution – requires care since knowledge is
built from proven theories and
concepts
- Is needed to avoid sweeping
generalization
Sweeping Generalization
 Applies a general statement too
broadly.
Caution needs to be observed in the ff:
 When hypothesis needs to be tested
 Drawing conclusions
 Referencing other’ work
5.) Precision – be a point closer to the exact
point
6.) Accuracy – to be correct or conventionally
correct
7.) Complexity – written language is more
complex than spoken language
8.) Organization – flows easily from one section
to the next
LESSON 3
Hedging
 “vague language”
 Use of linguistic devices to express
hesitation or uncertainty as well as to
demonstrate politeness and indirectness
 It is necessary to make decisions about your
stance on a particular subject
Language used in Hedging
1.) Introductory Verbs
 Seem, tend, look like, appear to be,
think, believe, doubt, be sure,
indicate, suggest
2.) Certain lexical verbs
 Believe, assume, suggest
3.) Certain modal verbs
 Will, must, would, may, might, could
4.) Adverbs of frequency
 Often, sometimes, usually
5.) Modal Adverbs
 Certainly, definitely, clearly,
probably, possible, perhaps,
conceivably
6.) Modal adjectives
 Certain, definite, clear, probable,
possible
7.) Modal nouns
 Assumption, possibility, probability
8.) That clauses
 It could be the case that…
 It might be suggested that…
 There is every hope that…
Structure
 A level of complexity that reflects the
sophistication of an academic writer
 Order of ideas
 Ways to achieve structure fit for academic
writing:
 Nominalization – turns verbs or
adjectives into nouns
 Passivation – active form to a
passive form
Common Errors
1.) Always use the third person
2.) Refer to the thesaurus for more formal and
impact words
3.) Never use idiomatic expressions, colloquial,
slang words
4.) Always expand acronyms
5.) Never contract words
6.) Avoid using rhetorical questions
7.) Avoid asking questions in introductions
8.) Always observe Subject-Verb agreement
9.) Be careful to spell the words correctly
10.) Use significant sources and rephrase them
properly
Steps in Pre-Writing
1.) Choosing a Topic
 Brainstorming – responding with
ideas /concepts that generates
possible topics
 Freewriting – similar to
brainstorming, but ideas are being
written down until you narrow them
 Clustering – called “ballooning or
mapping”; provides a graphic
representation of your ideas,
allowing you to visualize the
connection of your ideas
2.) Focusing on one idea
 Narrowing down a broad topic
3.) Knowing your purpose/Identifying the
reader/audience – the knowledge, interests,
and needs of your readers will give you an
idea as to how you will organize your points
Plagiarism
 “Wrongful appropriation” , “stealing and
publication” of another author’s language,
 thoughts ideas or expressions and the
representation of them as one’s work
 Presenting someone else’s work as your own
 Representation of another’s words, thoughts
or ideas
 A serious form of academic dishonesty
 Could be any of the ff:
o Deliberately copying of somebody
else’s work and claiming that work
to be their own
o Using someone else’s work/ideas
without proper acknowledgement or
citation
o Copying the text w/o paraphrasing it
Strategies to avoid Plagiarism
 Isolate the reasons why plagiarism occurs
 Identify the types of plagiarism
 Integrate plagiarism preventation
Unintentional Plagiarism
 Paraphrasing poorly – changing a few words
without changing the sentence structure of
the original, or changing the sentence
structure but not the words
 Quoting poorly – putting quotation marks
around part of a quotation but not around all
of it, or putting quotation marks around a
passage that is partly paraphrased and partly
quoted.
 Citing poorly – omitting an occasional
citation or citing inaccurately
Intentional Plagiarism
 Passing off as one’s own pre-written papers
from the internet or other sources
 Copying an essay or article from the
internet, online source without quoting
 Cutting and pasting from more than one
source to create a paper without quoting
 Borrowing ideas or words from other
students or sources without giving credit
Plagiarism Prevention: Be Authentic
 Develop a topic based on previously written
material but write something new and orig
 Rely on opinions of experts on a topic but
improve upon these opinions
 Give credit to researchers while making
your own contribution
 Follow a standard documentation method
Types of Plagiarism
1.) Plagiarism of Words – use of another’s
exact words without citing the author
2.) Plagiarism of Structure – Paraphrasing
another’s words by changing sentence
construction or word choice with citation
- Paraphrasing while maintaining
original sentence construction
with acknowledging the source
3.) Plagiarism of Ideas – Presenting another’s
ideas as your own without giving the person
credit
- Submitting a paper without
citing or incorrectly citing
another’s ideas
4.) Plagiarism of Authorship – Submitting a
paper that you got off from internet or from
a friend and presenting it as your own
5.) Plagiarism of Self – Although these were
your original words and thoughts, receiving
credit for a previous assignment is
considered cheating
Using an online translation service engine is an
acceptable way to complete a French composition –
FALSE
Plagiarism is wrong because it deprives someone
else of due credit for their work – TRUE
An acceptable excuse for committing plagiarism is
that you ran out of time and forgot to put all of your
citations in the bibliography – FALSE
If I take a passage from one of my sources and
rework the ideas into my own words, I don’t have to
give the original source credit – FALSE
LESSON 4
Paraphrasing
 A rewording of something spoken or
written, usually for the purpose of making
its meaning clearer
 The use of this as a literary or teaching
device
 An approximate rendering of a quotation,
saying, etc., whose exact words cannot be
cited or recalled
 Skillfully paraphrasing source material can
improve the clarity and flow of your writing
and may even more directly convey the
original author’s intended meaning.
 Consider the nature of your source and the
audience of your work
Paraphrase is…
 A restatement
 Having the same or diff length as the
original
 Written with diff words
 Often reorganized
 Faithful to the author’s intended meaning
 Reader-friendly
Paraphrase is NOT..
 Changing a couple of words
 Deleting a couple of words or phrases
 Rearranging the order of the words
Techniques in Mastering Paraphrasing
1.) Choose words deliberately – think about
how the author uses language
2.) Look up synonyms
3.) Replace words with definitions – useful
when translating jargon for a less specialized
audience
 4.) Use different word forms – altering word
choice can alter the meaning of a phrase
5.) Play with numbers – use different way to
express a time period
6.) Vary sentence structure
7.) Integrate or separate sentences
8.) Remember to use citations
Quoting
 Uses exactly the same words and put them
in quotation marks
 If the quotation is more than 2 lines, you
should put it in a separate paragraph and
indent it from both sides.
When do we use quotations?
 When the author’s words are very powerful
and that you can’t paraphrase them without
changing their meaning or impact to the
readers
 However, do not overuse them
Useful Terms
 Academic Integrity – all work which is
presented is produced by the student alone,
with all sources and collaboration fully
acknowledged
 Cheating – gaining unfair advantage from
other students intellectually
 Collusion – submitting work as if it had
been done individually when it has been
done jointly with one or more person
 Collaboration – working together with other
students as directed by your teacher, which
each student contributes equally to the end
results
 Hidden memory – presenting what is
thought as an original idea while it is
actually a result of a forgotten past reading
 Patchwriting – artificial make-over of other
people’s sentences in your writing, might be
a form of a bad paraphrase
Summarizing
 Should contain the main points from the
author’s text
 Presents only the most important ideas of a
passage
 Summarize a passage when you want to give
a brief overview of a text
 Summarized texts must be cited too
 Author’s fam name, date of publication,
page no.
Citations
 A quotation from or reference to a book or
any source
3 Reasons to cite
 To give credit to others’ work and ideas
 To show readers the materials on which you
base your analysis or conclusions
 To guide readers to the materials you have
used so they can examine it for themselves
3 Major citation styles
1.) Chicago (or Turbanian), used in many
fields
2.) MLA, used in humanities
3.) APA, used in social sciences, education,
engineering and business
MLA
 Modern Language Association
 Contains the author, title and publication
data
 Author’s name. Underlined title. Publication
place, publication date.
APA
 American Psychological Association
 Author’s name. (Publication date.) Italicized
Title. Publication place.
Do I need to cite everything I use in paper?
 Cite anything you rely on for data or
authoritative opinions. But do not cite
sources for facts that are well-known to your
audience.
How many citations does a paper have?
 It varies and there is no exact number.
How many different sources should I use?
 That depends on how complicated your
subject is.
LESSON 5
Reaction Paper
 Written in response to either a guest speaker,
a film or a field trip.
 A response, or reaction, to some sort of
prompt.
Uses of Reaction Paper
 To present an individual’s own ideas/views
on a certain topic
 To develop the critical thinking skills of the
individual
 To develop the writing ability of the
individual
Parts of a Reaction Paper
1. Introduction
 State the article, author, publication
 Give a brief summary of what you
read
 State your thesis statement
2. Body
 Should contain paragraphs that
support your thesis statement
 Each idea should have one paragraph
 Flow of paragraph can either be
“author’s and your idea” or “author’s
idea in contrast to yours”
 Topic sentence of each paragraph
should support the thesis statement
 Last reference should lead to the next
paragraph
 3. Conclusion
 Restate what you said in your paper
 Comment on your overall reaction
 Predict the effects of what you are
reacting to
 Should not introduce new ideas
A reaction paper must:
 A reaction to what you have read or seen
 Be organized
 Have citations and references also
 Include some of your opinions, which are
carefully supported by evidences
 Summarize what you are reacting in the
beginning of the paper
 Explain your reactions to the topic, and why
you think this way about the topic
 Judge, analyze or evaluate the issues of the
topic
 Identify and discuss the polarizing issues of
the topic
A reaction paper must not:
 Be a stream of consciousness paper
 Include a lot of “I think”
 Use the pronoun you
 Be autobiographical papers about why you
like or do not like something
 Be a repetition of what the author has said
Concept Paper
 A short summary that tells the reader what
the project is, why it is important, and how it
will be carried out
 A summary of project or issue that reflects
the interests, experience, and expertise of the
writer or organization
Purpose of a Concept Paper
 To help applicants develop more
competitive proposal and to save time by
eliminating proposals that are not likely to
be funded
 To capture the interest of the funding agency
and demonstrate that the idea they are
proposing is worthy of further consideration
Elements of a Concept Paper
1.) A clear description about the research topic,
including a summary of what is already
known about the topic
2.) A one-sentence statement of the research
question that the project will week to
answer. The concept paper should connect
this question to the existing literature –
something that almost always takes more
than one sentence to accomplish
3.) A demonstration of why it is important to
answer this research question. What good
comes of this answer? Why is this project
worth anybody’s time?
4.) Description of how the researcher plans to
answer the research question. This includes:
a.) A description of the data that the
researcher plans to gather or use
b.) A description of how the
researcher will analyze these data
c.) A demonstration of how these
data and this analytic method will
answer the research question
d.) A summary of any ethical issues
that may arise in the research
process
5.) A statement of the limitations of this
research, specifically the things that it
cannot discover
Parts of a Concept Paper
1. Introduction
o Should include some info about the
funding agency
o Identify the agency you represent
and how the missions of your agency
and the funding agency mesh
o Describe any partner agencies that
will be involved and their interest in
the project
2. Purpose
o Describe the question, problem or
need that needs to be addressed
o Briefly provide supporting
documentation for the importance of
addressing this question, problem or
need
3. Project Description
o Describe your project: what your
agency plans to do, why this is a
unique approach, and who will
benefit
a.) Goals and objectives/Research
questions
b.) Methodology and Timelines
c.) Benefits/Anticipated Outcomes
4. Support needs and cots
Other Important Matters
 Be brief, concise, and clear
 Consider your audience
 Appearance is important
Steps in Writing a Concept Paper
1.) The writer must ensure that the mission,
requirements, and other specific info match
those of the organization.
2.) Summarize the project by stating the
problem to be solved.
3.) The writer must develop a list of references
4.) There should be a budget developed for the
project, if applicable
5.) Obtain the necessary approvals by
individuals authorized to do so prior to
submission.