1

CAES9920
Academic Communication for Business and Economics
Week 3: Academic writing language features
§ By the end of week 3, you will have:
§ identified and better understood the linguistic features of academic
writing
§ provided feedback and received feedback in relation to these features

§ provided and received feedback on your group CSR essays and an

exemplar CSR essay
§ a better understanding of social media and the assessment 1 task

2
 ACADEMIC
LINGUISTIC FEATURES
You will receive the Academic Linguistic Features document.

§ In groups, provide examples from your group CSR essay

§ Afterwards, provide examples from the exemplar CSR essay on

Moodle Preterm section

3
 ACADEMIC
LINGUISTIC FEATURES
1. Were there any linguistic features missing in places where they
would be appropriate, in both your group essay and the
exemplar?

2. How did this affect your opinion of the writing in those places?

3. Were there any linguistic features that showed up that you

thought SHOULDN’T be there? (e.g. overly complex
sentence/noun phrase, boosting, figurative language, etc.)

4. How did this affect your opinion of the writing in those places?

4
§ One person from each group will answer a question

§ You’ll be shown a sentence(s) and answer:

§ which genre of writing the sentence(s) was likely taken from
§ what linguistic feature(s) helped you determine the answer

§ The first person to grab the marker from the teacher will be able to
answer the question

§ The group with the most points will be able to choose their timeslot to
meet with their teacher to discuss Assessment 1 during the group
conferences

(more details on Group conferences later)

5
1. But there has been increasing pressure from local companies such as
Luckin Coffee, which has expanded rapidly on the back of a
supercharged growth plan based on cheap delivery, online ordering,
big discounts and premium pay for its staff.

2. Andrew Atkinson, marketing manager at Shanghai-based research

and marketing consultancy China Skinny, said on Wednesday that
such a partnership was a “natural response to one of (Starbucks’) first
major challenges” in China.

3. Although strategic human capital is reflected in the “human” assets

in the organization, it is created and managed through the
organizational system reflected in the HR architecture.

4. Investment bankers are now undoubtedly circling the company,

hoping to win a mandate for the sale of at least some businesses.

6
5. This new direction reflects an evolution in a number of opposing
arguments during the past decade.

6. China has been achieving rapid technological progress, thanks in no

small part to its massive investment in research and development,
which totalled some 2.2 per cent of its gross domestic product last
year. Yet China is nowhere near the technological frontier.

7. Pfeffer (2005) argued strongly in favor of HR systems that minimize

status differences among employees.

8. We live in a world in which those who have got to the top have got
there not out of great merit, but because they often had a few unfair
advantages to start with, such as being born male, white and rich,
because they had many lucky breaks on the way up, and often
because they were willing to stomp on others’ chances as they rose.

7
9. The second channel of impact would be via supply-chain
spillovers. Take iPhones as an example. China, as the final
assembly line of the product, accounts for less than 2 per cent of
the profit a phone generates.

10. The first is a simple filtering model that implies that expressed
attitudes in a world of full information will lead to significantly less
revealed behaviour. In other words, people say more than they do.

Based on the number of correct questions in the, your teacher will

assign a 20-minute slot in Week 6 to your group for the teacher and
your peers to answer your questions regarding your Assessment 1.

8
CSR has many parts. The parts are social, economical, and cultural. Pat (2005)
said there is definitely no relationship between CSR and company
performance. Wong (2007) also thinks this. Other research has also been
done. For example, Johnson (2008) collected data and analyzed it using the
micro-macro correlation social model. The financial doom and gloom of 2008
was a result of a lack of CSR.

Using the academic linguistic features and the feedback

procedures, provide feedback to the above paragraph

§ Reminder of feedback procedures:

1. clarifying the writer’s intention (may not be
applicable if intention is clear)
2. identifying the problem
3. explaining the nature of the problem
4. making specific suggestions
9
10
 1. Is effective
argumentation/
cohesion built only
through linking
phrases?
Within Moodle, go to the Mini-lectures section and
open the video titled “Cohesion”
2. The video
highlights the
claim at the top of
the paragraph.
What feature
would this claim
belong to in the
academic
linguistic features
PDF file that you
read out-of-class?

11
The sentences below are from a part of a paragraph in the exemplar CSR essay. Highlight
the different cohesion strategies. Some example highlights have already been done:

1. The practice of CSR can improve the company's performance by improving the work
attitude of employees.
2. The CSR and Employee-Company (E-C) Identification Conceptual Model presented by
Kim, Lee, Lee, and Kim (2010) demonstrates the causal relationship between CSR and
employees' work attitude and improved company performance, whereby employees'
recognition that the company is attending to social problems can raise their perceived
external prestige, which has a positive influence on E-C identification, and such
identification helps to strengthen their commitment to the company.
3. Furthermore, the implementation of internal CSR activities might make workers
acknowledge that the company values them as one of its important stakeholders.
4. This validation could act as a motivation for them to work harder and strive for greater
company progress.
5. Supporting this idea is an empirical research conducted by Ruf, Muralidhar, Brown,
Janney, and Paul (2001) indicating that the increase in employee's morale and motivation
would have a causal effect on cost cutdown amounting to $50 million.

12
§ During peer, teacher, or self-evaluation, feedback on the clarity or logical
flow of your writing may be resolved through highlighting the different
cohesion features

§ If there is a lack of highlighted cohesion, you’ll need to use some cohesive

strategies

§ It is possible to notice breaks in logical flow through highlighting

cohesive features. For example:
§ A number of scholars have claimed that CSR is correlated to company
performance. For example, Smith (2010) reports on data from the S&P showing
a correlation between the company earnings and market capitalization
value.

§ Through this highlighting, a student might notice that the citation does not
actually support the claim regarding CSR

13
§ Feedback procedures + academic linguistic features

§ In your group CSR essay, copy and paste your work until your
shared document has 3 additional copies of the essay
§ Provide feedback to 1 paragraph that your groupmate wrote in a new
copy of your essay
§ Share your group document with 2 other groups

§ Split the work among your group so that 1 groupmate provides feedback
for 1 paragraph from another group on a new copy of the other group’s
essay
§ Repeat this for the 2nd group on a new copy of their essay

§ You should always be providing feedback for a paragraph that has not
been commented on

14
§ Have you ever used such feedback procedures to analyze language
features with such detail?

§ Did giving and receiving feedback help you realize anything new
about your own paragraph?
§ If yes, how would giving and receiving feedback benefit your own
writing and self-evaluation?

15
 Is social media beneficial to a company’s performance?

What approach should companies therefore take towards

social media?

Illustrate your answer with reference to at least two

companies within one particular industry.

§ Read the chapter “Does Social Media Marketing Improve Business

Performance” (available in Moodle)
§ Split the chapter among your group so that no group member is reading
too much
§ Come to the next 1-hour class highlighting potential answers from your
part of the reading for the assessment 1 question:

16
 Is social media beneficial to a company’s performance?

What approach should companies therefore take towards

social media?

Illustrate your answer with reference to at least two

companies within one particular industry.
Discuss and collate potential answers to the above questions from your part of
the reading; this should help you outline your own argument

1. Where can you find credible source support for the 3rd part of the question? What
sources might you want to stay away from?
2. In what order will you answer the 3 parts of the question? (e.g. every paragraph
responds to a part of the question)
3. Create an outline of a potential argument for the question
1. Based on the article
2. Based on other sources that your group has found
17
§ On Moodle,
§ watch the Mini-Lecture on Introductions

§ watch the Mini-Lecture on Developing criteria

§ By the 2nd session of Week 4, bring in a WELL-ATTEMPTED

introduction to receive and give feedback

18