QUEEN ANNE SCHOOL

ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES

Week 1

Reference Number:
Name: Grade and Section:
Subject Teacher: Ms. Renea Medina LRN:
I.OBJECTIVES
1. Determines the structure of a specific academic text CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-Ia-c-1
2. Uses various techniques in summarizing a variety of academic texts CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-Ia-c-5
3. States the thesis statement of an academic text CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-Ia-c-6
4. Paraphrases/ explains a text using one’s own words CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-Ia-c-7
5. Outlines reading texts in various disciplines CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-Ia-c-8
Learning Targets
 Define academic writing and distinguish it from other kinds of writing
 Identify the purpose, audience, language, and style of academic writing
 Situate academic writing in the Philippine context.
 Explain what critical reading is
 Define fallacy and identify the kinds of fallacy
 Critique a text by pointing out the different logical fallacies
 Illustrate the writing process and the re-writing is a part of that process
 Construct a clear thesis statement
 Write an academic paper following the writing process.
II. SUBJECT MATTER
TOPIC: Nature of Academic Text
Reading Academic Text Critically
Writing Academic Text
CONTENT:
1. The pre-writing process
2. Avoiding Plagiarism
3, Writing and Rewriting

III. LEARNING RESOURCES

English for Academic and Professional Purposes
IV. PROCEDURE
 study and analyze what is critical writing.
 Analyze how to read text critically by studying the example.
 Follow the steps on how to be a critical reader.
 Study the pre-writing process
 Read the story “Love is a Fallacy”
 Summarize the story “Love is a Fallacy”
 Answer worksheets
V. ASSESSMENT
Day 1. Analyzing the Text
Day 2 and 3. Story Analysis
VI. AGREEMENT ENRICHMENT
Read and answer the given activities & assessment for the week. Submit your output on specified date of retrieval
Noted by :

____________________________________
Name and Signature of parents/guardian

____________________________________
Date
DAY 1
NATURE OF ACADEMIC TEXTS
ACADEMIC WRITING
Is a process that starts with posing a question, problematizing a concept, evaluating an opinion, and ends in
answering the question or questions posed, clarifying the problem, and/or arguing for a stand. Just like other kinds of
writing, academic writing has a specific purpose, which is to inform, to argue a specific point, and to persuade. It also
addresses a specific audience; the audience is your teacher (for the most part), your peers who will read and evaluate your
work, and the academic community that may also read your work. The assumption is that your audience is composed of
people who are knowledgeable on the subject that you are writing about; thus, you have to demonstrate a thorough
understanding of your subject at hand. This makes academic writing different from a personal narrative or creative essay,
or a legal document, in which the knowledge of the writer is assumed to be greater than that of the readers.
Academic writing is thinking; you cannot just write anything that comes to your mind. You have to abide by the
set rules and practices in writing. You have to write in a language that is appropriate and formal but not too pretentious.
You also have to consider the knowledge and background of your audience. You have to make sure that you can back up
you statement with a strong and valid evidence. Writing academic papers requires deliberate, thorough, and careful
thought and that is why it involves research.
It was mentioned earlier that a formal but not pretentious language is require. It is a misconception, however, that
big and difficult words have to use because ultimately the purpose of writing is to engage the readers. You are just
expected to inform or to persuade but you are also expected to engage the readers in a conversation by giving them clear
ideas and points to evaluate and question. You have to make sure that your purpose is clear and that your language, style,
and tone are appropriate to convey your purpose to your target readers. Your audience is varied and you have to make
sure that when you write, you keep the readers in mind.
Your audience will determine the language of your paper. For example, your audience is a group of experts on a
language policy, it is acceptable that you can use jargons such as vernacular, mother tongue, first language, Englishes. If
your audience, however, you are fellow students, you have to make sure that the words you use are explained in layman’s
term.
Study the Sample texts below
Text A
Why Do They Say That Our English Is Bad?
(An Excerpt)
Grace M. Saqueton

(1) English teachers in the Philippines often find themselves in a very frustrating situation – no matter how hard they
try to teach the rules of written English to their students, the students still commit errors in word order, word
choice, subject-verb agreement, tenses, preposition, articles, punctuations and the like. Teachers get frustrated
when they hear or read sentence such as “They decided to get married,” “what did the students watched?” or “Ana
go to the canteen.” It is also alarming because the rules that apply to these sentences are supposedly simple rules
that the students should have learned in grade school. Yet, here they are in college, still committing those same
errors.
(2) Teachers and linguist alike have sought and (probably) are still seeking for ways and strategies to teach English
especially in the light of teaching English as a second language or as a foreign language. Different research
studies have been conducted and different theories have been used to address the situation. One of the topics that
the researchers have explored is the recurring errors in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse
of the second language learners. They believe that studying these recurring errors is necessary to address the
supposed grammar problems of the Filipino college students.
(3) In a paper titled “Why Does They Say That Our Sentence Is Wrong When We Knows English? An Analysis of
the Common Errors of Freshmen Composition,” Saqueton (2008) identified some of the common errors found in
the essay of first year college students. She provided explanations using error analysis, language acquisition
theories, and Fairclough’s paradigm on the appropriacy of “appropriateness,” as to what caused the “errors.” This
is in the hope of helping English teachers develop teaching materials and devise teaching strategies that are
appropriate for Filipino first year college students of different linguistic backgrounds.
(4) Saqueton found out that among the students” essay, errors in the use of verbs are the most common, followed by
errors in the use of prepositions, problems i[n the word choice, and problems in subject-verb agreement. There are
also errors in the use of articles, conjunction, pronouns; spelling problems are also evident.
(5) These “errors” are considered errors because of certain standards that language teachers want their students to
follow. These standards are the ones prescribed by grammarians. Educators want their students to master Standard
English as a second language of English. The problem here lies in the definition of “Standard” English. Is there
really a common standard? If there is, who uses it? Whose standard should be followed?
(6) Answering the question would entail a lot of problems. First, there should be a clear definition of what standard
is. What kind of standard is Standard English? Dr. Andrew Moody, when asked during the international
 Conference on World Englishes and Second Language Teaching on how to maintain correctness and consistency
when teaching English in the Philippines, said that it would be dishonest to teach Standard English as if it exists.
(7) That answer alone could raise a lot of issues. It only shows that the concept of standard is problematic. According
to Fairclough (1995), there is a need of a particular standard in order to rationalize policies on the teaching of
Standard English. He further stated that appropriateness figures within dominant conceptions of language
variations (234).
(8) Is there an implied claim that the students in English as second language or as foreign language speak a
substandard kind of English because they do not follow the standards of General American variety? What if they
(Filipinos, for example) have accepted English and appropriated it to fit their needs and the context of situation in
their own places?
(9) Andrew Gonzales (1985), in his paper, “When Does an Error Become a Feature of Philippine English?” pointed
out that until Philippine English is really creolized. English still a second language in the Philippines, and he
believed in teaching any second language, one must accept a standard. However, he also stressed that no matter
how hard the English teacher tries, a local variety will continue to develop (168).
(10) There will be always be different perspective on this matter, especially that language issue seems to be a
highly emotional matter. Should language education then go for mutual intelligibility rather than subscribe to a
certain standard? Educators and language policy planners could go back to Fairclough’s model of language
learning. They have to decide how relevant English to their students, and from there they have to decide what to
teach and how to teach it.
TEXT B
Mother Tougue
(An Excerpt)
Amy Tan
(1) I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English
language and its variations in this country or others.
(2) I am a writer. And by that definition. I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language
in daily life. I spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power pf language – the way it can evoke an
emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is a tool of my trade. And I used them all –
all the Englishes I grew up with.
(3) Recently, I was made keenly aware of the different English I do use. I was giving a talk to a large group of
people; the same talk had already given to half a dozen other groups. The nature of my talk was about my writing,
my life, and my book, The Joy Luck Club. The talk was going along well enough, until I remember one major
difference that made the whole talk sound wrong. My mother is in the room. And it was perhaps the first time she
had heard me give a lengthy speech, using the kind of English I have never used with her. I was saying things
like, “The intersection of memory upon imagination” and “There is an aspect of my fiction that relates to thus-
and-thus” – a speech filled with carefully wrought grammatical phrases, tenses, conditional phrase, all the form of
standard English that I had learned in school and through books, the forms of English I did not use at home with
my mother.
(4) Just last week, I was walking down the street with my mother, and I again found my self conscious of the English
I was using, the English I do use with her. We were talking about the price of new and used furniture and I heard
my self-saying this “Not use money that way.” My husband was with us as well, and he didn’t notice any switch
in my English. And then I realized why. It’s because over the twenty years we’ve been together I’ve often used
the same kind of English with him, and sometimes he even uses it with me. It has become our language of
intimacy, a different sort of English that relates to family talk, the language I grew up with.
(5) Lately, I’ve been giving more thought to kind of English my mother speaks. Like others, I have described it to
people as “broken”, as if it were damaged and needed to be fixed, as if it lacked a certain wholeness and
soundness. I’ve heard other term used, “Limited English,” for example. But they seem just a bad, as if everything
is limited, including people’s perceptions of the limited English speaker.
(6) I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mother’s “limited” English limited my perception of
her. I was ashamed for her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say, that is,
because she expressed them imperfectly her thoughts were imperfect. And I had plenty of empirical evidence to
support me; the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did
not give her good service, pretended no to understand her, or even acted as they did not hear her.
(7) My mother has long realized the limitations of her English as well. When I was fifteen, she used to have me call
people on the phone to pretend I was she. In this guise, I was force to ask for information or even to complain and
yell at people who had been rude to her. One time it was a call to her stockbroker in New York the next week, our
very first trip outside California. I had to get on the phone and say in an adolescence voice that was not very
convincing, “This is Mrs. Tan.
(8) And my mother was standing in the back whispering loudly, “why he don’t send me check, already two weeks
late. So mad he lie to me, losing me money.”
(9) And then I said in perfect English, “Yes, I’m getting rather concerned. You had agreed to send the check two
weeks ago, but it hasn’t arrived.”
(10) The she began to talk more loudly. What he want, I come to New York tell him front of his boss, you
cheating me?” And I was trying to calm her down, make her be quite, while telling the stockbroker, “I can’t
tolerate anymore excuses. If I don’t receive the check immediately, I am going to have to speak to your manager
when I ‘am in New York next week.” And sure enough the following week there were no front of this astonished
 stockbroker, and I was sitting there a red-faced and quite, an my mother, the real Mrs. Tan, was shouting at his
boss in her impeccable broken English.

TEXT C.

Dear Prof. Lanuza:

Congratulations for being chosen as one of the recipients of the ASEAN Educational Program Award. You are invited
to the 5th Annual ASEAN English Teacher’s Conference. Our sponsors, value the important work done by English
Language teachers and they are willing to support your professional endeavors by giving financial aid in the
conference.

The conference organizers and sponsors want to know more about your work and how the ASEAN English Teacher’s
Conference will be able to help you. May we ask you to complete the attached questionnaire to help us to provide
that information? Also, we would appreciate the opportunity for members of our Sponsorship Profile team to talk
with you about your work and the challenges and opportunities that you have identified in your study.

If you have questions, just send me email or check this link to the conference website. Tank you and we look
forward to meeting you.

Best regards,

Prof. Hanna Lee

TEXT D.
Republic of the Philippines
REGIONAL TRIAL COURT
Judicial Region
Branch , City

EX-PARTE MOTION FOR EXTENSION

TO SUBMIT COMPROMISE AGREEMENT
Defendants by the undersigned counsel and unto the Honorable Court Respectfully Stated that:
(1) On 5 January 2015, the Honorable Court, in open court, directed the parties to submit their Compromise
Agreement within ten days therefrom, or on 5 January 2015. Said day being a Sunday, the parties have until the
next working day, 16 January 2015, to submit said Compromise Agreement.
(2) Defendant Hanna Dy is presently abroad and needs to execute a Special Power of Attorney authorizing her
brother and Co-Defendant Ronald Dy to sign the Compromise Agreement on her behalf.
(3) Thus, The Defendant respectfully pray that the Parties be given additional fifteen (15) days from today, or until 30
January 2015, until which to submit their Compromise Agreement.
This motion is not intended to delay the instant proceedings but filled solely by reason of the foregoing. Moreover, the
filling of the same will not result in any injustice or prejudice to any of the parties herein.

DAY 2
READING TEXT CRITICALLY
What is Critical Reading?
Imagine that you are reading magazine and you see the following statements:
 Girls most likely do well in academics during high school years but boys get ahead of them in College.
 Female teenagers are more concerned with their physical appearance than male
Do you believe and agree with the statements after reading them? Would you question their veracity? How would
you react after reading the statement?
If you question the validity of the statements by asking the person to give the basis for his/her, then you are one
step closer to becoming a critical reader.
Critical Reading involves scrutinizing any information that you read and hear. Critical reading means not easily
believing information offered to you by a text. “Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for
granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider” as Francis Bacon stated in The Essay.
Critical Reading is an active process of discovery because when you read critically, you are not just receiving
information but also making an interaction with the writer. The interaction happens when you question the
writer’s claim and assertions and when you comment on the writer’s idea.
 Ramage, Bean and Johnson (2006) identified the following requirements in critical thinking:
 The ability to pose problematic questions
 The ability to analyze a problem in all its dimensions – to define its key terms, determine its causes,
understands its history, appreciate its human dimensions and its connection to one’s own personal
experience, and appreciate what makes it problematic or complex.
 The ability to find, gather, and interpret data, facts, and other information relevant to the problem.
 The ability to imagine alternative solutions to the problem, to see different ways in which the question
might be answered and different perspectives for viewing it.
 The ability to competing approaches and answers, to construct arguments for and against alternatives, and
to choose the best solution in the light of values, objectives, and other criteria that you determine and
articulate.
 The ability to write an effective argument justifying your choice while acknowledging counter-arguments.
The following are some suggested ways to help you become a critical reader.
1. Annotate what you read.
One of the ways to interact with the writer is to write on the text. You can underline, circle, or highlight words,
phrase, or sentences that contain important details, or you can write marginal notes asking questions or
commenting on the ideas of the writer. There are no clear and definite guidelines to annotating a text; you can
create your own style. For instance, you can circle unfamiliar words or underline ideas that you think are
questionable. You can use the sample annotated essay below as your guide.
2. Outline the text.
In order to fully engage in a dialogue with the text or with the writer of the text, you need to identify the main
point of the writer and list them down so you can also identify the ideas that the writer he raised to support his/her
stand. You don’t necessarily have to write a structured sentence or topic outline for this purpose; you can just
write bullet or in numbers.

Look at the example below

Thesis Statement
Supporting details:
Point 1:
Point 2:
Point 3:

If we outline the essay, “Why Do They Say That Our English Is Bad?” we can come up with something like this

Thesis Statement: The concept of Standard English is problematic because there is no clear definition of what
standard is
Supporting details:
Point 1: The author gives a scenario in the Philippine classroom in which English Teachers ger
frustrated because of student’s grammatical errors.
Point 2: The author mentioned the researcher studies are being conducted in order to improve Teaching
English as second language but failed to mention what those specific studies are.
Point 3: the common errors that Filipino college students commit in their writings are mentioned.

3. summarized the text. Aside from outlining, you can also get the main point of what you reading and write its gist
in your own words. This will test how you have understood the text and will help you to evaluate it critically. A
summary is usually one paragraph long.
4. Evaluate the text. The most challenging part in critical reading is the process of evaluating what are you reading.
This is the point where the other three techniques – annotating, outlining, summarizing – will be helpful. When
you evaluate the text, you question the author’s purpose and intentions, as well as his/her assumptions in the
claims. You also check if the arguments are supported with the evidence and if the evidence are valid and are
from credible resources.

DAY 3
WRITING ACADEMIC TEXT
The Pre-Writing Process
1. Brainstorming
 When you respond with ideas and concept related to the broad concept that your teacher gave you, you were
already generating possible topics for your paper. The activity aims to generate as many topics as you can in 10 to
15 minutes so that these random topics can be made into a focused topic later on.

2. Freewriting
Aside from brainstorming, you can also use freewriting to generate ideas. Freewriting is similar to brainstorming
in that you just write any ideas comes to your mind. The catch is to put into writing the ideas that you think of so
that later on you will be able to generate ideas and narrow them down into a single topic for your paper.
3. Clustering
This technique provides a topic representation of your ideas, allowing to visualize the connections and/or the
relationship of your ideas. Write the main topic on the center of your paper then circle of box it. Think of subtopic
and place them around the center until you feel you have developed all subtopics fully.
The next step is to make sure that you focused in one idea that you are going to discuss thoroughly in your paper. For
example, the topic, gender stereotypes and bias are broad topic since there are a lot of issues that can be assumed in that
tropic. You can narrow it down by focusing on an aspect of gender stereotypes and bias that you are interested in
developing in your paper.
Once you have narrowed your topic, you ponder on the reason why you are writing. Or better yet, you understand what
the writing assignment is for since most writing assignment is important because it will you focus your ideas on the
assigned task. If you are asked to write a report paper, you are expected to give factual account of events, phenomena,
discoveries. Here, you are informing your reader and you have to be as objective as possible in relating what you have
read, seen, or heard. If you are tasked to write a reaction paper, on the other hand, you would know that you are writing an
initial or gut reaction to something that you have read, watched, and head then you develop that into a critical evaluation
that is balanced.
The last step in pre-writing is one of the most crucial steps, knowing your purpose and identifying your reader or
audience. Determining your purpose will help you communicate clearly your ideas to your readers, which is the goal of all
writing. Once you have determined your purpose, knowing your audience comes next. The knowledge, needs, attitudes,
and interests of your reader will give you an idea as to how you will organize your points and claims in such a way that
you can establish a common ground with your readers. In order for you to effectively engage in a dialogue with your
reader, you have to make sure that you consider them when you write. Knowledge of your audience is, what they need,
and what their interests are will help you adjust your language, tone, and style in writing.
Avoiding Plagiarism
You are right to say that you cannot just copy the paragraph and incorporate it in your paper; doing so would be
considered as plagiarism. Plagiarism has become a buzzword not only in the academe but also in the other fields like
literature, photography and fine arts. Perhaps you have heard news about people who where stripped off their diploma,
license, or award because they were found to have plagiarized other people’s work.
Plagiarism could be any of the following:
 deliberate copying of somebody else’s work and claiming to be his/her own,
 using somebody else’s work or ideas without proper acknowledgement or citation
 copying the text without paraphrasing it.
Paraphrasing is one of the ways of avoiding paraphrasing. It is rendering the essential ideas in text using your own
words. Paraphrased materials usually shorter than the original text. It is more detailed than the summary. When you
paraphrased, it is advised that you first understand what the text is about and then you write your rendition of the text
without to as is you write. The tendency when you have the text in front of you is to copy the structure of the text and just
change some of the words, will still qualify as plagiarism.
Another way to avoid plagiarism is to directly quote the sentence of the paragraph the you used in your paper. Quotations
must be identical to the original text. A direct quotation is preferred to a paraphrase when the author’s idea is very
important that paraphrasing them will change the essence of those ideas.
Writing and Rewriting
The Writing Process
Developing a Thesis Statement
What you have written in the after-reading part in the earlier activity could already be developed as your thesis statement.
A thesis statement is the claim or the strand that you will be developed in your paper. It is the controlling idea of your
essay. It gives your readers idea of what your paper is all about.
A strong thesis statement usually contains an element of uncertainty, risk, or challenge (Ramage, Bean and Johnson
2006:34). This means that your thesis statement should offer a debatable claim that you can prove or disapprove in your
essay. The claim should be debatable enough to let your readers agree or disagree to you.
Your thesis statement should not merely announce something or sate a fact. “Women and men are born to perform
specific roles” is not a good thesis statement because there is nothing to contest in that statement; it is just stating that
women and men have specific roles to perform. You should give your thesis tension by introducing ideas that may
challenge your reader’s views. Your analysis of your readers will be help here. For instance, the sample thesis statement
given earlier could be improve into: “Although there seem to be specific roles assigned to women and men, the roles
should never dictate nor limit women and men to do other things that are beyond their assigned roles”. This thesis
statement challenges the stereotypical roles assigned to women or men, and not everyone may agree to it so this is
something that you can explore in your paper, also, you will have to gather evidence in order for you back up your thesis
statement.
Organizing Your Paper
Your next task as a writer is to support your thesis statement with sufficient evidence, data, and example. Some people
think that this is where the “real” writing begins because this is where you will support your thesis statement and expound
on it as well.
As a writer, your main aim is to organize your ideas in a logical order. Organizing ideas means finding the connections of
one point to another and establishing a link from one idea to another. The challenge for you as a writer is to be able to
“weave back and forth between generalizations and specifics” (Ramage, Bean, and Johnson 2006;40).
Some writers start organizing their draft by making an outline. Outlining is an effective way of ensuring the logical flow
of your ideas. You may opt to use the standard outline complete with roman numerals and indentions or you may use lists,
diagrams, or maps.
You start your essay with writing the introduction. The introduction for academic essay provides a background of your
topic, poses a question regarding the topic, explains how the question is problematic and significant, and gives the writer’s
thesis statement.
After this one-or two-paragraph introduction to your essay, develop the body of your essay. This is where the bulk of the
essay is found and where you develop an answer or propose a solution to the thesis statement that you have given in the
introduction. You can outline your main points before writing the body of the essay. In the body, you have to support your
main points and include the other details that would support your thesis statement.
Your conclusion bring together the points made in your paper and emphasize your final point. The conclusion may also
leave a thought-provoking idea that you wish your audience to consider. Do not just summarize your main points; make
sure that you synthesize your main points and emphasize your thesis statement. Remember not to open a new topic in the
conclusion.

Max Shulman: Love is a Fallacy

(1) Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all of these. My brain was as
powerful as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only
eighteen.
(2) It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the
university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing
upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable. Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of
reason. To be swept up in every new craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because
everybody else is doing it—this, to me, is the acme of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey.
(3) One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such distress on his face that I immediately
diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative. I’ll get a doctor.”
(4) “Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.
(5) “Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.
(6) “I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.
(7) I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?”
(8) “I should have known it,” he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known they’d come back when the
Charleston came back. Like a fool I spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can’t get a raccoon coat.”
(9) “Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?” “
(10) All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”
(11) “In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.
(12) He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “I’ve got
to!”
(13) “Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too
much. They’re unsightly. They—”
(14) “You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you want to be in the swim?”
(15) “No,” I said truthfully.
(16) “Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”
(17) My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly.
(18) “Anything,” he affirmed in ringing tones.
(19) I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father
had had one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey
 had something I wanted. He didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly
Espy.
(20) I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in
nature. She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I
wanted Polly for a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason. I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I
would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s
career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception, married to beautiful, gracious,
intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
(21) Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already
had the makings. Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of
bearing, a poise that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at
the Kozy Kampus Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy,
chopped nuts, and a dipper of sauerkraut— without even getting her fingers moist.
(22) Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she
would smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to
make an ugly smart girl beautiful. “
(23) Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”
(24) “I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”
(25) “Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like
that?”
(26) “No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”
(27) “Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”
(28) “Not that I know of. Why?”
(29) I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?”
(30) “I guess so. What are you getting at?”
(31) “Nothing , nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.
(32) “Where are you going?” asked Petey.
(33) “Home for weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag.
(34) “Listen,” he said, clutching my arm eagerly, “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your old
man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?”
(35) “I may do better than that,” I said with a mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.
(36) “Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy,
gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.
(37) “Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy
Toledo!” he repeated fifteen or twenty times.
(38) “Would you like it?” I asked.
(39) “Oh yes!” he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes.
(40) “What do you want for it?”
(41) “Your girl.” I said, mincing no words.
(42) “Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”
(43) “That’s right.”
(44) He flung the coat from him. “Never,” he said stoutly.
(45) I shrugged. “Okay. If you don’t want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.”
(46) I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was
a torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and
set his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away,
but with not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning.
Finally he didn’t turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.
(47) “It isn’t as though I was in love with Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like that.”
(48) “That’s right,” I murmured.
(49) “What’s Polly to me, or me to Polly?”
(50) “Not a thing,” said I.
(51) “It’s just been a casual kick—just a few laughs, that’s all.”
(52) “Try on the coat,” said I.
(53) He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like
a mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily.
(54) I rose from my chair. “Is it a deal?” I asked, extending my hand.
(55) He swallowed. “It’s a deal,” he said and shook my hand.
(56) I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just
how much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I required. I took her first to dinner. “Gee, that was
a delish dinner,” she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to a movie. “Gee, that was a marvy movie,”
she said as we left the theatre. And then I took her home. “Gee, I had a sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me
good night.
(57) I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl’s lack of
information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information. First she had to be
taught to think. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to
Petey. But then I got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and
the way she handled a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort. I went about it, as in all things,
 systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was taking a course in logic
myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips.
(58) “Poll’,” I said to her when I picked her up on our next date, “tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.”
(59) “Oh, terrif,” she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.
(60) We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me
expectantly. “What are we going to talk about?” she asked.
(61) “Logic.
(62) ” She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said.
(63) “Logic,” I said, clearing my throat, “is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn
to recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight.”
(64) “Wow-dow!” she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
(65) I winced, but went bravely on. “First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.”
(66) “By all means,” she urged, batting her lashes eagerly.
(67) “Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For example: Exercise is good.
Therefore, everybody should exercise.”
(68) “I agree,” said Polly earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything.”
(69) “Polly,” I said gently, “the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance,
if you have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You
must qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people.
Otherwise you have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?”
(70) “No,” she confessed. “But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!” “It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve,”
I told her, and when she desisted, I continued.
(71) “Next we take up a fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can’t speak French. Petey Bellows
can’t speak French. I must therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French.”
(72) “Really?” said Polly, amazed. “Nobody?”
(73) I hid my exasperation. “Polly, it’s a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances
to support such a conclusion.”
(74) “Know any more fallacies?” she asked breathlessly. “This is more fun than dancing even.”
(75) I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still, I am nothing if not
persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let’s not take Bill on our picnic. Every time we take
him out with us, it rains.”
(76) “I know somebody just like that,” she exclaimed. “A girl back home—Eula Becker, her name is. It never fails.
Every single time we take her on a picnic—”
(77) “Polly,” I said sharply, “it’s a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn’t cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain.
You are guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker.”
(78) “I’ll never do it again,” she promised contritely. “Are you mad at me?”
(79) I sighed. “No, Polly, I’m not mad.”
(80) “Then tell me some more fallacies.”
(81) “All right. Let’s try Contradictory Premises.”
(82) “Yes, let’s,” she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.
(83) I frowned, but plunged ahead. “Here’s an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He
make a stone so heavy that He won’t be able to lift it?”
(84) “Of course,” she replied promptly.
(85) “But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone,” I pointed out.
(86) “Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, then I guess He can’t make the stone.”
(87) “But He can do anything,” I reminded her.
(88) She scratched her pretty, empty head. “I’m all confused,” she admitted.
(89) “Of course, you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument.
If there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no
irresistible force. Get it?”
(90) “Tell me more of this keen stuff,” she said eagerly.
(91) I consulted my watch. “I think we’d better call it a night. I’ll take you home now, and you go over all the things
you’ve learned. We’ll have another session tomorrow night.”
(92) I deposited her at the girls’ dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif evening, and I
went glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at
his feet. For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear
that my project was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.
(93) But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere
in the extinct crater of her mind a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow, I could fan them into flame.
Admittedly it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more tries.
(94) Seated under the oak the next evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.”
(95) She quivered with delight.
(96) “Listen closely,” I said. “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies
that he has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no
clothes to wear, no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.”
(97) A tear rolled down each of Polly’s pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed.
(98) “Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed, “but it’s no argument. The man never answered the boss’s question about his
qualifications. Instead he appealed to the boss’s sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do
you understand?”
(99) “Have you got a handkerchief?” she blubbered.
(100) I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a
carefully controlled tone, “we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at
their textbooks during examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have
briefs to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why,
then, shouldn’t students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?”
(101) “There now,” she said enthusiastically, “is the most marvy idea I’ve heard in years.”
(102) “Polly,” I said testily, “the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and carpenters aren’t taking a test to see
how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether different, and you can’t make an analogy
between them.”
(103) “I still think it’s a good idea,” said Polly.
(104) “Nuts,” I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. “Next we’ll try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.”
(105) “Sounds yummy,” was Polly’s reaction.
(106) “Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of
pitchblende, the world today would not know about radium.”
(107) “True, true,” said Polly, nodding her head “Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter
Pidgeon is so dreamy. I mean he fractures me.”
(108) “If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point out that statement is a
fallacy. Maybe Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. Maybe somebody else would have
discovered it. Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can’t start with a hypothesis that is not true
and then draw any supportable conclusions from it.”
(109) “They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures,” said Polly, “I hardly ever see him any more.”
(110) One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. “The next
fallacy is called Poisoning the Well.”
(111) “How cute!” she gurgled.
(112) “Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, ‘My opponent is a notorious liar. You can’t
believe a word that he is going to say.’ … Now, Polly, think. Think hard. What’s wrong?”
(113) I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligence—the
first I had seen—came into her eyes. “It’s not fair,” she said with indignation. “It’s not a bit fair. What chance has the
second man got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?”
(114) “Right!” I cried exultantly. “One hundred per cent right. It’s not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before
anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent before he could even start … Polly, I’m proud of you.”
(115) “Pshaws,” she murmured, blushing with pleasure.
(116) “You see, my dear, these things aren’t so hard. All you have to do is concentrate. Think— examine—evaluate.
Come now, let’s review everything we have learned.”
(117) “Fire away,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.
(118) Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had
told her. Over and over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without letup. It was
like digging a tunnel. At first, everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the light,
or even if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of
light. And then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.
(119) Five grueling nights with this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her to
think. My job was done. She was worthy of me, at last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many
mansions, a suitable mother for my well-heeled children.
(120) It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the contrary. Just as Pygmalion loved the
perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I decided to acquaint her with my feelings at our very next meeting.
The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.
(121) “Polly,” I said when next we sat beneath our oak, “tonight we will not discuss fallacies.”
(122) “Aw, gee,” she said, disappointed.
(123) “My dear,” I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along
splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.”
(124) “Hasty Generalization,” said Polly brightly.
(125) “I beg your pardon,” said I.
(126)“Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five
dates?”
(127) I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. “My dear,” I said, patting her hand in a
tolerant manner, “five dates is plenty. After all, you don’t have to eat a whole cake to know that it’s good.”
(128) “False Analogy,” said Polly promptly. “I’m not a cake. I’m a girl.”
(129) I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to
change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment
while my massive brain chose the proper word. Then I began:
(130) “Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space.
Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish. I
will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.”
(131) There, I thought, folding my arms, that ought to do it.
(132) “Ad Misericordiam,” said Polly.
(133) I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically I
fought back the tide of panic surging through me; at all costs I had to keep cool.
(134) “Well, Polly,” I said, forcing a smile, “you certainly have learned your fallacies.”
(135) “You’re darn right,” she said with a vigorous nod.
(136) “And who taught them to you, Polly?”
(137) “You did.”
(138) “That’s right. So you do owe me something, don’t you, my dear? If I hadn’t come along you never would have
learned about fallacies.”
(139) “Hypothesis Contrary to Fact,” she said instantly.
(140) I dashed perspiration from my brow. “Polly,” I croaked, “you mustn’t take all these things so literally. I mean
this is just classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in school don’t have anything to do with life.”
(141) “Dicto Simpliciter,” she said, wagging her finger at me playfully.
(142) That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. “Will you or will you not go steady with me?”
(143) “I will not,” she replied.
(144) “Why not?” I demanded.
(145) “Because this afternoon I promised Petey Bellows that I would go steady with him.”
(146) I reeled back, overcome with the infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand!
“The rat!” I shrieked, kicking up great chunks of turf. “You can’t go with him, Polly. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a
rat.”
(147) “Poisoning the Well,” said Polly, “and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too.” With an immense
effort of will, I modulated my voice. “All right,” I said. “You’re a logician. Let’s look at this thing logically. How
could you choose Petey Bellows over me? Look at me—a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with an
assured future. Look at Petey—a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who’ll never know where his next meal is coming from.
Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Bellows?”
(148) “I certainly can,” declared Polly. “He’s got a raccoon coat
 Self-learning activities/Assessment in English for Academic and Professional Purposes
Quarter 1/Week /August 24-28, 2020

Name: _____________________________ Grade and Section: __________________

Subject teacher: Ms. Renea Medina Score:

Activity 1. Study the texts on page 1 to 4 and complete the table.

Text A Text B Text C Text D

What is the text
about?
(subject/focus)
What is writer’s goal
in writing the text?
(purpose)
Who is the target
reader of the text?
(audience)
What is the point of
view used in the text?
(First person, second
person, third person)
How much does the
writer know of the
subject? (writer’s
knowledge)
How did the writer
organize the text?
(style)
Did the writer write
in a formal or
informal manner?
(tone)
How did the writer
choose the words and
organize the
sentences? Was the
language formal,
informal, or casual?

Activity 2. Read the story “Love is a Fallacy” and pay attention to its development as well as to the contradictions and
ironic twist that may find. Apply the four ways of reading critically. Annotate as you read then write a summary after
reading.
Activity 3. Based from the story “Love is a fallacy”, Answer the following question.
1. How would you describe the narrator in the story?

2. How was Petey Bellows described in the story? How about Polly? Do you think that they are really as dumb as
they were described?

3. What is the narrator’s reason for wanting polly?

4. From whose point of views is the story? Is the telling of the story logical? Why or why not?

5. In which part of the story did the narrator commit fallacies? Can you identify the other instances that the
committed fallacies other than those that Polly has mentioned? For example, in the first part of the story, what
fallacies are committed?

6. Using the annotation and summary, identify the following:

a. Purpose/intention of the author
b. Assumption of the author
c. Claims of the Author
7. The story is satirical and ironic at the same time. Can you show how irony was used in the story?

8. Is the author successful in accomplishing his purpose? Why or why not?

9. If you were Polly, would you fall for the narrator of for Petey?

10. Do you agree that love is a fallacy? Why or why not?