Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Academic Essay
Academic Essay
It is widely recognized that writing introductions is slow, difficult and troublesome for both native speakers and nonnative
speakers. The beginning is half the whole. (Plato). Writing the Introduction of an RP is particularly troublesome. In some
kinds of texts (term papers, case reports), it is possible to start immediately with a topic or thesis statement:
The purpose of this paper is to
This paper describes and analyses
My aim in this paper is to
In this paper we report on
Creating a research space (CARS model)
Table 1
Move 1
Move 2
Move 3
Claiming Centrality
Adapted from Swales, John M & Christine B. Feak, Academic Writing for Graduate Students (MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1994).
In ecology, a niche is a particular microenvironment: where a particular organism can thrive. In our case, a niche is a context where a particular piece of
research makes particularly good sense.
Nevertheless, these attempts to establish a link between secondary smoke and lung cancer are at present _____.
___ a. controversial.
___ b. incomplete.
___ c. inconclusive.
___ d. misguided.
___ e. questionable.
___ f. unconvincing.
___ g. unsatisfactory.
Task 2
What other linguistic means to indicate a gap can you think of?
Of course, not all RP Introductions express Move 2 by indicating an obvious gap. You may prefer, for various reasons, to
avoid negative comment altogether. Useful alternatives:
a) Contrastive statements:
The research has tended to focus on , rather than on
These studies have emphasised , as opposed to
Although considerable research has been devoted to, rather less attention has been paid to
b) Raising a question, a hypothesis or a need
However, it remains unclear whether
It would thus be of interest to learn how
If these results could be confirmed, they would provide strong evidence for
These findings suggest that this treatment might not be so efficient when applied to
It would seem, therefore, that further investigations are needed in order to
c) Continuing a line of research
These recent developments in techniques for validating multiple-choice tests clearly have considerable potential. In this
paper, we demonstrate
Move 3 -
more general
more integrated with the field
more concerned with implications and applications.
Move 1
Move 2
Move 3
USING THE WORK OF OTHER RESEARCHERS AND WRITERS AND TECHNIQUES FOR AVOIDING
PLAGIARISM
PROPER CITATION
a) footnoting format
the act of giving credit to the original author by providing the reader with the authors name, the original publication
name, and some other important pieces of information such as year of publication, place of publication, publishers name,
and page numbers. (Smith, Peter and John Kaplan, A Handbook for Writers. London: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd,
1996, 37.)
b) imbedded Harvard Style
Smith and Kaplan (1996, 37) define citation as the act of giving credit to the original author by providing the reader with
the authors name, the original publication name, and some other important pieces of information such as year of
publication, place of publication, publishers name, and page numbers.
Bibliography:
Smith, Peter and John Kaplan (1996), A Handbook for Writers. London: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd, 37.
1) DIRECT QUOTATIONS
2) PARAPHRASING (isolate the essential ideas in a text; restructure the sentences; and use synonyms or related words,
as well as change the form of words)
3) SUMMARISING
Tasks
1. Compare the passage below and the paraphrase of it. What language techniques were used to write the paraphrase?
Original passage
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking
notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in their final
research paper. Probably only about 10% of your final
manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter.
Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact
transcribing of source materials while taking notes.
Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.
2. Alternating word forms.
a)
to succeed (verb)
success (noun)
____________
to persevere (verb)
perseverance (noun)
_____________
The paraphrase
In research papers students often quote
excessively, and consequently quoted
material is not kept down to a desirable
level. Since the problem usually originates
during note taking, it is essential to
minimize the material recorded verbatim.
to write (verb)
writer (noun)
___________
Original sentence:
A writers success is often due to perseverance.
Possible paraphrases:
A writer often succeeds because of perseverance.
b) Paraphrase each of the following sentences by changing the italicized words or phrases:
1. A variety of definitions of Romanticism have been proposed over the years. (define)
2. The Gothic terror has long been considered one of the most important factors influencing
performance in film versions of Dracula. (perform)
3. Early research focused on traits, or personality characteristics, typically found in villains who had
achieved success. (typical; successful)
4. Later researchers recognized that terror also involves the relationship between a menacing villain and
a helpless heroine. (relate)
c) What can the following phrases be used to express?
X has expressed a similar view
3
As Widgren (1990: 759) has pointed out, a new class of displaced person (environmental refugees)
emerged in the 1980s as a result of soil degradation, desertification and deforestation.
2. Both lack of water and superabundance of water have contributed to the growing number of
environmental refugees in the world (Widgren, 1990).
3. In the article International migration and regional stability (International Affairs, 66, 4, 1990,
p.759), Jonas Widgren distinguishes a rapidly growing new class of displaced people, namely
environmental refugees.
4. Widgren (1990: 759) points out that while lack of water may be one reason forcing people to move, an
excess of water may also be responsible, with deforestation of upland watersheds the main factor
behind the growing severity of floods like the one which ravaged Bangladesh in 1988 leaving 25 million
homeless.
COHESION
What is the difference between a pile of stones and a stone wall?
between lines of words and a good piece of written English?
A. Here
are two versions of a fable from Aesop, one well written and the other badly written. In terms of
organisation and cohesion, what four things does the good writer do that the other doesnt?
A vixen who had four young cubs was walking down a road one
day when she met a lioness with her cub.
The vixen started to boast about her family, saying that she
had four cubs, whereas the poor lioness only had one.
Only one, replied the lioness, but hes a lion!