ENGLISH FOR

ACADEMIC AND
PROFESSIONAL
PURPOSES
ACADEMIC
VS NON –
ACADEMIC
 Academic writing
• is a process that starts with posing a question,
problematizing a concept, evaluating an
opinion, and ends in answering the question
or question posed, clarifying the problem,
and/or arguing for a stand
• Academic writing has a specific purpose,
which is to inform, to argue a specific point,
and to persuade.
• 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 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
your statement with a strong and valid
evidence.
• Writing academic papers requires deliberate,
thorough, and careful thought and that is why
it involves research.
 Consider the following areas as
you write:
• Content: clarity of the purpose and the thesis
statement, relevance of the supporting points
to the thesis statement, knowledge on the
subject matter.
• Structure: coherence and logical sequence of
the ideas
• Language and style: word choice, sentence
construction
• Mechanics: grammar, punctuations,
capitalization, formatting, documentation
1. Academic writing has a
specific ______, which is
to inform, to argue a
specific point and to
persuade.
 2. Writing academic
requires deliberate,
_______ and careful
thought and that is why it
involves research.
3. Academic writing is
_____, you cannot just
write anything that
comes t your mind.
4. You have to write in
language that is
______ and formal but
not too pretentious.
 5. You have to make sure
that you can back up your
statement with a ____
and valid evidence.
 ANSWER
1. Purpose
2. Thorough
3. Thinking
4. Appropriate
5. Strong
 Critical reading
• “Critical reading is an active process of
discovery”
• Critical reading involves scrutinizing any
information that you read or 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”
• 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 claims and assertions and when
you comment on the writer’s ideas.
 Ramage, Bean, and Johnson (2006) identified
the following requirements in critical thinking:
• The ability to pose problematic questions.
• The ability to analyse a problem in all its
dimensions—to define its key terms, determine
its causes, understand its history, appreciate its
human dimension 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 analyze 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.
Four ways to be 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, phrases, or sentences that contain
important details or you can write marginal
notes asking questions or commenting on the
ideas of the writer.
• 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 points
of the writer and list them down so you can
also identify the ideas that the writer has
raised to support his/her stand.
• 3. Summarize the text. Aside from outlining,
you can also get the main points of the text
you are reading and write its gist in your own
words. This will test how much you have
understood the text and will help you evaluate
it critically. A summary is one paragraph long.
• 4. Evaluate the text. The most challenging
part in critical reading is the process of
evaluating what you are reading. This is the
point where the other three techniques—
annotating, outlining, summarizing—will e
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
by evidence and if the evidence are valid and
are from credible sources.
 THE PRE-WRITING PROCESS
• Three steps in choosing the topic:
• Brainstorming. When you responded with ideas and
concepts 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 focus topic later on.
• Freewriting. It is similar to brainstorming in that you just
write any idea that comes to your mind. The catch is to put
down 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.
• Clustering. Also called ballooning or mapping. This
technique provides a graphic representation of your ideas,
allowing you to visualize the connections and/or
relationships of your ideas.
Plagiarism – is the wrongful appropriation
and stealing and publication of another
author’s language, thoughts, ideas or
expressions
Plagiarism could be any of the following:
• Deliberate copying of somebody else’s work
and claiming that work to be his/her own;
• Using somebody else’s work or ideas without
proper acknowledgement or citation; and
• Copying the text without paraphrasing it.
 Two ways to avoid plagiarism:
• Paraphrasing. It is rendering the essential ideas
in a text (sentence or paragraph) using your own
words. Paraphrased materials are usually shorter
than the original text. It is more detailed than a
summary.
• Directly quote the sentence or the paragraph.
Quotations must be identical to the original text.
A direct quotation is preferred to a paraphrase
when the author’s ideas are so important that
paraphrasing them will change the essence of
those ideas.
 Example of Paraphasing
ORIGINAL TEXT:
– Willy Wonka was famous for his delicious
candy. Children and adults loved to eat it.

PARAPHASE:
- Willy Wonka was known throughout the
world because people enjoyed eating the
tasty candy he made.
ORIGINAL – Flu symptoms include nasal congestion
and fever.
PARAPHASE – High temperature and a stuffy feeling
are signs of flu.

ORIGINAL – He needs to throw a lot of things.

PARAPHASE – He has a lot of stuff to get rid of.

ORIGINAL – Uploading a Youtube video can help

your business be exposed even further to the
online community.
PARAPHASE – Your business highly be exposed to
the online world if you post your video on
Youtube.
 The Writing Process
Developing Your Thesis Statement
• Thesis statement is the claim or stand that you will
develop 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 datable claim that you
can prove or disprove in your essay. The claim should
debatable enough to let your readers agree or disagree
with you.
 Organizing Your Paper
• Organizing your ideas means finding the connections
of one point to another and establishing a link from
one idea to another. The challenge for you as the
writer is to be able to “ weave back and forth between
generalizations and specifics.”
• Outlining is an effective way of ensuing 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.
• 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.
 The Post-Writing Process
Two processes involved in post-writing:
• Revising. Revising is “re-seeing the entire draft so
that the writer can deal with the large issues that
must be resolved before he or she deals with the
line-by-line, word-by-word issues involved in
editing.
• Editing. Sometimes known as proofreading, is the
more meticulous process of clarifying
• meaning by revising each word and line of your
draft.
 Reaction Paper
• Is a type of written assignment, which require
s personal opinion and conclusions on a given
article or abstract.
• Should contain your own thoughts on the pro
blem, discussed in the original text
 THURSDAY “PRACTICAL RESEARCH 1 LONG
QUIZ”
10:30 – 11:15 BATCH 1 (11 – C & 11 – B
GIRLS)
11:16 – 12:00 BATCH 2 (11 – A & 11 – B
BOYS)

FRIDAY “ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC LONG QUIZ”

10:30 – 11:15 BATCH 1 (11 – A & 11 – B
BOYS)
11:16 – 12:00 BATCH 2 (11 – C & 11 – B
GIRLS)
Dream awake (from Ismaelillo)

Day and night

I always dream with open eyes
And on top of the foaming waves
Of the wide turbulent sea,
And on the rolling
Desert sands,
And merrily riding on the gentle neck
Of a mighty lion,
Monarch of my heart,
I always see a floating child
Who is calling me!