DEVPEARRSTIETMAESN PPEENNDDIIDDIIKKAANN N GAASNIOENAL NI SH U A UNDIKSHA ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES AN ACADEMIC WRITING MODULE FOR MATRICULATION COURSE Luh Putu Artini ENGLISH EDUCATION STUDY PROGRAM POST GRADUATE PROGRAM GANESHA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION  2012, all rights reserved. i TABLE OF CONTENT CHAPTER 1: WRITING AT TERTIARY LEVEL 4 What is academic writing? 5 Characteristics of an academic writing 8 Requirements for academic writing 9 Structure of an academic writing 10 Developing academic writing 11 Techniques in developing academic writing 13 CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPING PARAGRAPHS 18 Facts and opinions 19 Characteristics of a good paragraph 21 Kinds of paragraph 23 The use of cohesive devices in building a paragraph 29 CHAPTER 3: PARAPHRASING 36 What is paraphrasing? 37 What do you need to paraphrase? 37 Why do you paraphrase? 38 When do you do paraphrasing? 38 How to paraphrase a text? 38 The importance of paraphrasing 41 Additional information 42 Paraphrasing, summarizing, annotating, and quoting 43 CHAPTER 4: SUMMARIZING 44 What is a summary? 45 What can be summarized? 45 The importance of summarizing 47 What should the student do in writing a summary? 47 How to summarize? 49 Some common mistakes found when summarizing 52 Things we need to do when summarizing 52 CHAPTER 5: WRITING FROM DATA, CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS 54 Writing from data 55 Definitions of chart, diagram, graphic and table 55 Kinds of chart 57 Considerations before drawing chart of graph 66 Transforming data into chart 68 How to describe a chart 71 CHAPTER 6: CRITICAL REVIEW 73 i What is critical review? 74 Structure of a critical review 74 How to write critical review 76 How to write a review 77 General criteria of a critical review 77 Language features of a critical review 78 Differences among critical, evaluation and analysis 80 CHAPTER 7: LITERATURE REVIEW 82 Notion of literature review 83 Citing and referencing 84 Direct and indirect citation 86 The importance of source materials 87 Basic sctructure of a literature review 89 How to write a literature review? 90 Sample of a literature review 92 CHAPTER 8: WRITING AN ABSTRACT 95 What is an abstract? 96 Types of abstract 96 Characteristics of a good abstract 97 Some considerations before writing an abstract 99 Sample of an abstract 99 References 102 *** ii Preface Students of English Education Study Program, Post Graduate Program, UNDIKSHA, are expected to produce essays, papers, journal articles and theses in English during the two- year period of their study. Prior to their candidacy, a special training on academic writing in English is provided in the form of 20-hour matriculation course. In addition to guided writing practices in the course, this module is expected to provide more opportunities for the students to improve their writing ability at their convenient time. This module can anticipate students‘ expectation for intensive editing of their written work from their academic advisors. The material coverage includes plagiarism and how to avoid that. I do hope that this module will be useful for English-major students and any others who are learning to write in academic English. Any constructive comments and criticism are the most welcome. Singaraja, October 14th 2012 Author iii 1 ii Preface Students of English Education Study Program, Post Graduate Program, UNDIKSHA, are expected to produce essays, papers, journal articles and theses in English during the two-year period of their study. Prior to their candidacy, a special training on academic writing in English is provided in the form of 20-hour matriculation course. In addition to guided writing practices in the course, this module is expected to provide more opportunities for the students to improve their writing ability at their convenient time. This module can anticipate students‘ expectation for intensive editing of their written work from their academic advisors. The material coverage includes plagiarism and how to avoid that. I do hope that this module will be useful for English- major students and any others who are learning to write in academic English. Any constructive comments and criticism are the most welcome. Author i Chapter 1 WRITING AT TERTIARY LEVEL In this chapter, you will learn: 1. What is academic writing? 2. What are characteristics of academic writing? 3. What are types of academic writing? 4. Why is academic writing different from other kinds of writing? 1.1 WHAT IS ACADEMIC WRITING? Academic writing is a type of writing which is based on structured analysis of ideas to be presented for improvement of one‘s knowledge (Jones, 2008). In an academic writing, the writer usually uses deductive reasoning, that is, breaking down general ideas into specific points and then concludes them at the end of the discourse. Another feature of an academic writing, which we will discuss in the next chapters, is the presence of 1 literature review. Literature review is critical and reasonable judgments of previously shared research, theories or ideas in the scope of their weaknesses and strengths. The judgment is used to support or strengthen a course of argument in the academic writing. Academic writing is different from other genres of writing, at least for three reasons. First, it is commonly expository, or in other words, it is a kind of elaborative judgment or analysis of a phenomenon viewed from a particular objective viewpoint of the writer. In order to formulate objective perspective or judgment, the writer must provide his/her writing with credible references and citations from previously related research or books about the topic, which either support or deny the phenomenon. So, an academic writing can either merely analytical or persuasive. However, an academic writing can also aim to give detailed descriptions of a phenomenon or clarify vivid chronological events. Second, as mentioned previously, it is characterized by objectivity. An academic paper should present a balanced discussion from different point of views and avoid subjectivity of judging if an idea from a quote is right or wrong, good or bad. One of the ways to maintain objectivity is by avoiding the use of personal pronoun. According to Smyth (1996), the use of personal pronouns is unnecessary, and can lead to biases or unsupported assumptions (p.2). Third, it is a concise writing which involves the use of carefully selected words, technical terms or specific genres so that the idea is effectively expressed without ‗too many words‘. Thus an academic writing is usually ‗to the point‘, using effective sentences and technical terms and avoid lengthy and unnecessary utterances. Academic writing plays a major role in the field of higher education and is the primary form of communication within individual subject disciplines. In recent years however, concerns have arisen regarding student ability in this area. Many researchers and academics are now investigating the current and future role of academic writing within 21st century educational institutions. This chapter will therefore discuss the current theories implemented by practitioners and the practical ways in which such debates can be developed. 2 Academic writing is used to express acquired knowledge in a specific subject area. Such writing tends to be serious in nature and often demonstrates particular theories or arguments in relation to a specified discourse. Academic writing is mainly undertaken for learning development or course assessment purposes and the same principles apply to publication of academic papers. Internationally, academic writing and its theories are evident in Australia, South Africa, and Northern Europe; however it is the United States that has developed most substantially in the field. American institutions have been providing their students with writing support since the late 19th century. In response, theories and developments in academic writing have been discussed and published in the USA since the 1960‘s (Grabe and Kaplan, 1996). Consequently academic area also needs to implement a range of approaches to academic writing to reflect the increased size and diversity of the student population. Academic writing plays a major role in higher education, both in student understanding of course content and the consequent assessment of student knowledge. Recent studies have highlighted that academic staff are aware of the importance of writing, with one survey highlighting that almost 90% of staff felt that it was necessary to teach writing skills to university students (Ganobscik Williams, 2004. p.28). Maintaining standards of academic writing has significant implications for both teaching, and learning in higher education. From teaching perspectives, students‘ academic writing could be considered as a measure for teaching excellence because a successful teaching should bring an impact to students‘ motivation and enthusiasm to develop knowledge and skills. This could be achieved through socialization of the teaching objectives and also through systematic and multi tasking. From learning perspectives, quality academic writing could be an indication for self-directed learning outcome as guided by the tasks assigned by the teacher/lecturer. An academic writing produced by a student, therefore, can be considered a demonstration of achievement a course. Students learn from the lectures and enrich their learning through reading recommended or suggested readings and finally demonstrate their understanding through an academic writing (in the form of papers, essays, articles, or reports). The ability to express ideas effectively is very important for students. This ability can be expected to develop throughout their university education. In order for students to 3 learn and progress in academic writing ability, they should have good language proficiency. Experience in academic language use and ability to use or communicate in a language academically, contribute to ability in academic writing. It is not unusual to see introvert students who do not seem to involve much in friendly conversation with classmates could actually produce a quality academic paper. This is probably caused by their experience of reading and their subject field, an understanding of the language used and the ability to communicate in such dialogue is essential. From a practioners viewpoint, marking becomes far less laborious when the work is well written and displays arguments clearly and concisely. It consequently falls to the role of teaching staff to initiate students into their discipline and to support them during their academic progress. The development of effective academic writing support clearly offers reciprocal benefit to both students and staff. Nevertheless, the ways in which it is integrated into subject disciplines creates a challenge for the higher education sector. Key thinkers involved in the field of academic writing come from a range of disciplines and many have taught and are still teaching in a higher education environment. As academics themselves, writers in this field have documented their attempts to negotiate a path between the limited resources of the education sector and the escalating demands placed upon them. Most of the current research undertaken tends to focus primarily on small scale projects that examine individual experiences as opposed to a whole institution approach to academic writing. Consequently, the findings of such small scale research cannot be easily applied on a national scale. The skills model (often referred to as the deficit model), involves the teaching of study skills, (including writing) through individual one to one support sessions or group workshops. Such classes are usually based in the student support centre and are conducted by non academic staff. Sessions focus on generic based support outside of the subject discipline and tend to focus on individual projects or assignments with which students may be struggling. Due to the nature of such support it is often viewed as a service provided for students experiencing academic difficulties and therefore has a relative level of stigma attached. In previous years the thinking behind student writing and study support has identified academic writing as a student centred problem (Lea and Street, 1998). Consequently the skills model offers practical solutions 4