What have you written so far?

Have you started thinking of what research are you going to pursue in
your Practical Research 1?

This subject will be your guide on how to start your research journey. So, you have to embrace and love
this subject, that is your only choice.

So let’s start with our discussion, here’s our most essential learning competencies…
DEFINE ACADEMIC TEXT
DETERMINE THE TEXT STRUCTURE OF AN ACADEMIC TEXT FROM VARIOUS DISCIPLINES

Now, what is academic text?

Academic text is defined as critical, objective, specialized text written by experts or professionals in a
given field using formal language.

Take not of the word FORMAL. We discussed that formal language is totally different from daily or
conversational language…

We don’t use contractions or informal vocabulary- don’t we need to write the two words

Academic text is objective because it is based on facts and not on opinions.

It is technical because there are words or phrases – specific words or vocabulary – which are only suited
for a specific discipline. We also call it Jargons - special words or expressions that are used by a
particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.

For example the word virus has a different meaning for ICT and STEM students…
In order for you to be good in academic writing you have to take into special consideration the style and
technical words in each discipline. Talking about that, in all fields, academic writing is used to elaborate
research based findings which are very helpful in different ways. But we will not delve on that now,
there will be more of some kind of explanation on that topic as we go along with our discussions in our
subject.

Academic writing is like building a house – you need a solid foundation to create a well structured
house. And just like in writing, a well-structured text enables the reader to follow argument and
navigate the text.

One of the topics we have discussed in Reading and Writing, Properties of a Well-written text, is very
important – also this is considered to be the basic foundation a well-structured academic text. It must be
logical and organized. If you follow all these properties, your output is more comprehensible and can be
easily digested by the readers.

If the flow of the text is well – structured, logical and organized – your text is easier to understand.
So you have to include that in producing a well-written text following the 3 parts or basic structure of a
paragraph –
We have the introduction, body and the conclusion.

The intro at conclusion are shorter than the body.

In an ordinary paragraph, 2 or three sentences are appropriate.

For longer thesis – may be 1 or 2 pages
For thesis and dissertation – research there will be more pages as to explain the details and ideas.

We also follow the IMRAD – introduction, method, results, and discussion

Of course, there are other parts which you will learn in your Practical Research 1. So, better listen closely
because all these things that I will be sharing you will be of great help to your subjects EAPP and PR 1.
While there are other parts, IMRAD is the basic structure
Introduction – what question was asked
Methods – How was it structured?
Results – What was found?
Discussion – what do the findings mean?

This is just the overview, I am sure your teacher in PR 1 will discuss that deeper.

Since we are finished discussing the structure of academic text, lets proceed to the academic discipline..
In SHS, we have different tracks –
Jumbled letters – BUSINESS, HUMANITIES, NATURAL AND APPLIED SCIENCES, SOCIAL SCIENCES

Major Disciplines – in PSAT we have HUMANITIES – Arts, History, Languages, Literature, Music,
Philosophy, Religion and Theater
SOCIAL SCIENCES – Anthropology, Education, Geography, Law, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology
Nat Applied sciences – Bio, Chem, Comp Sci, Engg, Geology, Math, Physics, Medicine
Business – Accounting, Economics, Finance, Management, Marketing

Why do we need to know the academic disciplines? While we have basic structure of academic writing,
yet each acad discipline has its own focus, learning the conventions of each of them will make our
output more relevant.