Welcome to my

class!

Lesson 1
Ivy Mie Sagang
Fundamentals of
Reading
Academic Texts
Identify the various passages
from various texts and
determine whether it came
from a formal publication or
from a fictional story.
 The Paris Climate deal which aims at reducing
greenhouse gas emissions in a bid to keep global
warming below 2 degree Celsius which has been
ratified by 146 nations is an essential step to save the
planet for our future generation. But with Trump
taking over as the President, there has been
speculations that the White house is planning to pull
itself off from being a part of this agreement.
 Everyday, the heron would fly the fishes
one by one. He would hold one gingerly
between his long beak and fly away. But
instead of taking them to any lake, he would
land on a rock some distance away and eat
them. Then he would rest till evening and
return to the lake.
 It was dark and stormy night. In
her attic bedroom Margaret Murry,
wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat
on the foot of her bed and watched
the trees tossing in the frenzied
lashing of the wind.
 Since there is no law in Pakistan
related to cannibalism, the police
arrested the duo under anti-terrorism
act declaring that their action feared
and threatened the people.
 Cyber bullying is also the latest
disadvantage of social media. It
includes mean text messages or
emails, rumors from the social media,
embarrassing videos, pictures and fake
profiles.
The texts you read in
school are different
from the texts you read
during your leisure
time.
 Academic Texts Description

Articles
• Published in scholarly journals

• Results of research and development

Presented in scholastic
Conference Papers
•
conferences
•

Reviews
• These provide evaluation or reviews of
works published in scholarly formats

Theses,
• These are personal researches written
by a candidate for college or university
degree.

Dissertations
READING
GOALS
● Why am I reading this text?

● What information or pieces

of information do I need?

● What do I want to learn?

Purposes for mic
Acade
reading an Text
academic text:

To better understand an To gain more information

existing ideas

To get ideas that can To connect new ideas to

support a particular writing existing ones
assignment
  Formal
 Clear structured
introduction, body,
and conclusion
Structure of
Academic Texts  Include information
from credible sources
which are properly
cited

 Include a list of
references
Content and Style of Academic Texts
 Academic texts include concepts and theories that are
related to the specific discipline they explore.

 They usually exhibit all the properties of a well-written text

i.e., organization, unity, coherence and cohesion, as well as
strict adherence to rules of language use and mechanics.
Authors observe the following when writing academic texts:

They state critical

questions and
issues.
 They provide facts and
evidence from credible
sources.
 They used precise and
accurate words while
avoiding jargon and
colloquial expressions.
 They take an objective
point-of-view and avoid
being personal and
subjective.
 They list references.
 They use hedging or
cautious language to
tone down their claims.
Types Examples As used in the sentence

Modal auxiliary verbs may, might, can could, would, The measure might have
should negative effects on the
patients health.

Modal lexical verbs to seem, to appear (epistemic The discussion appears to

doubting and verbs), to believe, to assume, to have a positive
evaluating rather than suggest, to estimate, to tend, to implications.
merely describing think, to argue, to indicate, to
propose, to speculate

Probability Adjectives Possible, probable, un/likely A number of significant

changes are possible.

Nouns Assumption, claim, possibility,

estimate, suggestion
Types Examples As used in the sentence
Adverbs Perhaps, possibly, probably, The proposal is practically
practically, likely , presumably, an answer to the confusion.
virtually, apparently

Indicators of degree, Approximately, roughly, about, Fever is present in about a

quantity, frequency and often, occasionally, generally, third of cases.
time usually, somewhat, somehow, a
lot of

Introductory phrases Believe, to our knowledge, it is The committee believes

our view that, we feel that that the issue needs to be
explored.

“If” clauses If true, if anything If anything, the opinion

holds a number of truths.
Compound
Double hedges: This probably
seems reasonable, looks indicates that the
probable; it may suggest that; it assigned personnel
hedges would indicate that; this
probably indicates
is misinformed

Treble hedges:
it seems reasonable to assume
that

Quadruple hedges:
it would seem somewhat
unlikely that, it may appear
somewhat speculative that
Critical Reading
Strategies
Determine which type of academic
text (article, reviews, thesis,
etc.) you are reading.

Determine and establish your

purpose of reading.

Identify the author’s purpose for

writing.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Predict or infer the main idea or
argument of the text based on its
title.

Identify your attitude towards

the author and the text.

State what you already know and

what you want to learn about the
topic.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Determine the target audience.

Check the publication date for

relevance. It should have been
published at most five years earlier
than the current year.

Check the reference list while making

sure to consider the correctness of the
formatting style.
Critical Reading
Strategies

Use a concept map or graphic

organizer to note your existing
ideas and knowledge on the topic.
 To do:
Read the title of the following study
by Murthy et.al. Based on the title,
make an inference on the content or
main idea of the study. Share your
inferences in the google slide.

Do We Tweet Differently From Our Mobile

Devices?

A Study of Language Differences on Mobile

and Web-Based Twitter Platforms
Critical Reading
Strategies
Annotate important parts of
the text.

Write key words or phrases on

the margins in bullet form.

Write something on the page

margin where important
information is found.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Write brief notes on the
margin.

Write questions on information

that you find confusing.

Write what you already know

about the ideas.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Write the limitations of the
author’s arguments.

Write notes on the reliability of

the text.

Comment on the author’s biases.

Critical Reading
Strategies
Use a concept map or nay
graphic organizer to note down
the ideas being explained.

React on the arguments presented

in the text.

Underline or circle meanings or

definitions.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Mark or highlight
relevant/essential parts of the
text.

Use the headings and transition

words to identify relationships in
the text.

Create a bank of unfamiliar or

technical words to be defined
later.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Use context clues to define
unfamiliar or technical words.

Synthesize author’s arguments at

the end of chapter or section.

Determine the main idea of the

text.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Identify the evidence or
supporting arguments presented
by the author and check their
validity and relevance.

Identify the findings and note the

appropriateness of the research
method used.
Sample
Annotated
Text
 Given that the influence of mobile technologies on tweeting patterns has been
understudied, we sought to bridge this gap by examining whether tweets from

mobile and web-based sources differ significantly in their linguistic styles . We

studied 6 weeks of Twitter Spritzer stream data, containing 235 million tweets. We
focused on the analysis of tweets by source-specifically mobile versus web-based
sources by time of day. This involved evaluating several categories or subsets in
which mobile sources may be similar to or different from web sources. We used
word lists from social psychology to test for levels of egocentricity, gender, style,
emotional, content, and agency in both mobile and web tweets.
 Ultimately, we found that mobile tweets are not only more egocentric in
language than any other group, but that the ratio of egocentric to nonegocentric tweet
is consistently greater for mobile tweets than from nonmobile sources. We did not find
that mobile tweets were particularly gendered. Regardless of platform, tweets, tended
to employ words traditionally associated as masculine. We did find that negative
language is used more frequently by mobile users at any point in time, a finding that
would benefit from further research. The ratio of negative to positive unigrams was
also found to be consistently greater for mobile tweets than web tweets. Lastly, we did
not find that mobile-based tweets are more agentic that web-based tweets. Rather, both
platforms tended to employ language that was associated with communal behaviors.
Critical Reading
Strategies
Reflect on what you learned.

React on some parts of the text

through writing.

Discuss some parts with your

teacher or classmates.

Link the main idea of the text to

what you already know.
 To do:
Based on the information you learned form the conclusion of the
study, answer the questions below. Use google slides for your
answer.

1. What do you think is the implication of this new knowledge

on how you use Twitter?
2. Do you think one’s personality affects the use of technology?
Or do you think technology affects one’s personality?
3. How does this knowledge affect your notions about Twitter
users?
Other Reading
Strategies
A. SQ3R
Method of
Reading
Survey Question Read

Recite

Review
 Stage Guidelines
● Skim the target text.

● Check the headings and

tables, diagrams, or figures
presented in the text.
● Survey
● Read the first few and last
sentences of the text to
determine key information.

● Get a feel of the text.

 Stage Guidelines
● Annotate the
headings with your
question.
● Question
● Develop questions on
the types of
information you
expect from the text.
 Stage Guidelines
● Look for answers to your
questions as you read the
text.

● Stop and slow down if the

● Read passage is not clear.

● Make sure to proceed

reading only when you
already understand the
previous texts.
 Stage Guidelines

● Recount the main points of

the text.
● Recite ● Recall by writing a summary
or synthesis based on what
you understand of the text.

● Highlight or underline the

important points you read.
 Stage Guidelines
● After finishing the text, go
back and re-read the
questions you wrote and see
if you can answer them; if
not, refresh your memory.
● Review
● Evaluate what you learned
to ensure that you are
convinced and satisfied with
the information presented in
the text.
Other Reading
Strategies
B. KWL Method
K W L
What I What I (W)ant What I have
(K)now to Learn (L)earned
 KWL chart
K W L
What I (K)now What I (W)ant to Learn What I have
(L)earned

• There is a connection • Are women really more • Women are reported

between language and talkative than men? to speak 20,000
gender. words a day while
men speak an
• Women and men are • What accounts for the average of 7,000
om different levels of difference in the frequency words.
talkativeness. of language use between
men and women?
Let’s check for
understanding!

Short Quiz!
Write T if the statement is
true and F if it is false.
________1. Academic reading requires
concentration and comprehension.
________2. Academic texts are completely
different from non-academic texts in terms
of structure, content and style.
_______3. Authors of academic texts
usually present facts to support their main
argument.
_______4. Completing academic reading
appears to be a challenge in which students
fail.
_______5. Critical reading strategies lead
the readers to a full understanding of the
text.
________6. Essentially, the language of
academic texts is precise and accurate.
________7. One has to determine his/her
purpose before reading.
________8. Reading strategies differ from
one person to another.
________9. Successful readers of academic
texts generally integrate valuable
information or ideas from one source to
another.
________10. Through writing annotations,
readers are guided on important ideas
presented in the text.