1. 2.

WRITING
WRITING WAYS TO
PROCESS SUPPORT
WRITING

3. 4.

SUMMARISE PRACTICAL
AND TOOLS
SYNTHESISE

YOUR BEST ROUTE TO UNIVERSITY

 WEDNESDAY 1. 2.
2022.07.27 WRITING WAYS TO
Dr. Hasan PROCESS SUPPORT
How to contact me? This is my WeChat:
WRITING

3. 4.

SUMMARISE PRACTICAL
AND TOOLS
SYNTHESISE

YOUR BEST ROUTE TO UNIVERSITY

 WEDNESDAY 1. 2.
AIMS OF THIS LECTURE
2022.07.27
WRITING WAYS TO
BY THE END OF THIS LECTURE, YOU WILL:
PROCESS SUPPORT
• LEARN THE WRITING PROCESS AND THE ASSOCIATED WRITING
SKILLS,
• LEARN HOW TO PARAPHRASE AND SYNTHESISE
IDEAS INTO YOUR OWN WRITING 3. 4.
• BUILD CONFIDENCE IN WRITING USING YOUR OWN
WORDS. SUMMARISE PRACTICAL
AND TOOLS
SYNTHESISE

YOUR BEST ROUTE TO UNIVERSITY

Academic qualifications:
1. Juris Doctor – (with Distinction) University of New South Wales, Australia
2. Master of Laws (with Honour) University of Canterbury, New Zealand
3. Master of Education Birmingham City University, the United Kingdom
4. Bachelor with two majors (Physics and Law) University of Canterbury, New Zealand
5. Foundations Diploma of University Teaching University of New South Wales, Australia

Teaching experience:
6. I have taught physics, international business, law and academic study skills at different
universities in Australia, New Zealand and overseas for more than 10 years.
7. I have been teaching in China since January 2020
 Writing as a Process
Writing at university can be a daunting task for many
students. There is much to learn:
• different genres of writing (reports, essays, abstract,
review, literature review….),
• how to write in an acceptable academic style,
• how to synthesise and paraphrase
• How to develop your “voice”
• using references to avoid plagiarism.

Despite the difficulties, writing can be made easier if you

break the task down by following the writing process.
 Writing as a Process
At different stages of the process, you need different set of skills

develop an

plagiarism
argument
structure

avoid
tools

support

Develop
your voice
techniques
 Writing as a Process
Unlike creative or fictional writing, academic writing follows
specific rules with respect to its flow and structure.
• Structure: understand and use a variety of sentences, clauses, paragraph structure and styles
• Techniques: understand and use planning, drafting, writing, editing, proofreading and re-writing
• Tools: understand how to use writing tools: dictionaries, grammar check, thesauruses, teachers feedback
• Support: understand and use paraphrasing and synthesising to support your academic writing
• Develop an argument: recognise that what counts as an ‘argument’ varies across disciplines and understand
the importance of coherence
• Develop your voice: develop an informed critical and reflective voice/response in written work
• Avoid plagiarism: cite and reference texts correctly, understand plagiarism and how it can be avoided
 One: reading for a specific purpose

Reading as a source
Reading to
of information
understand author’s
(facts ideas,
argument
theories..)
• Need to • Paraphrase
summarise • Find or build a
• Need to find a link connection to your
then synthesise argument
 Two: critical reading

Questioning Evaluating
the text the evidence
• Who said it • How strong is the
(motivation, bias…) evidence?
• How it was said • What assumptions the
• When, where and writer has made?
why • Are citation used?
Are they trustworthy?
 • The frame
summaris •
Reminder phrases
e
• Transition signals

• Finding a link
synthesis
• Analysing and
e
unpacking
 Summaris
e
The frame
The frame is the main idea of the
article. This is usually included in the
first sentence, with a reference to
the author and the main idea or
argument of the text..
According to Brown (2014), ...
•Brown's (2014) article on global
warming discusses...
•Brown (2014), in his article "The
Global Warming Crisis", argues
that...
Reminder phrases
It is useful to remind the reader,
especially in a longer summary, that
you are summarising another text..
The author goes on to say that...
The article further states that...
(Author's last name) also states/
maintains/ argues/ believes that...
(Author's last name) concludes
that...
Transition signals
Pay attention to the organisation of
the original text, and use
appropriate transition signals when
organising the ideas in your
summary.
For example, you may
need comparison and
contrast signals, cause and
effect signals, classification signals,
and so on.
 Synthesis
e
A summary is an objective, short
written presentation in your own
words of ideas, facts, events, in a
SINGLE PIECE OF TEXT.
A synthesis is a “combination” of
SEVERAL TEXTS into a single one,
which aims to create an
understanding or original perspective
of the information in those texts.
• An advanced reading technique.
• Pulls together information not only to highlight the important points,
but also to draw your own conclusions.
• Combines and contrasts information from different sources.
• Not only reflects your knowledge about what the original authors wrote,
but also creates something new out of two or more pieces of writing.
• Combines parts and elements from a variety of sources into one unified
entity.
• Focuses on both main ideas and details.
• Achieves new insight.
Use hedging and
discourse markers
efficiently

Edit your writing

carefully
 Hedging
In academic writing, it is prudent to be cautious in one’s statements so as to
distinguish between facts and claims. This is commonly known as “hedging.” 

Following are a few hedging words and phrases that can be used to achieve this.

•Introductory verbs – seem, tend, look like, appear to be, think, believe, doubt,
be sure, indicate, suggest
•Certain lexical verbs – believe, assume, suggest
•Modal verbs and Adverbs – may, might, could, possibly, perhaps, conceivably,
arguably, presumably ….
•That clauses – It could be the case that…, it might be suggested that…, there is
every hope that…
 Discourse
Markers
Some words and phrases help to develop ideas and relate them
to one another. These kinds of words and phrases are often
called discourse markers. Can you think of examples?

Note that most of these discourse markers are formal and used
when speaking in a formal context or when presenting
complicated information in writing.

I will send you a list of some formal discourse

markers
 Edit your writing carefully

A. Use online tools

• Hemingway app (free version can spot complex and difficult to follow sentences.
It does not catch grammar and spelling mistakes) https://hemingwayapp.com
• Grammarly (free version can spot and fix misspelled words, imperfect grammar,
and punctuation mistakes) https://www.grammarly.com/plans
B. Plan
By planning your writing early, you will have time to edit your work. You will be
surprised to see how much mistakes you can correct by yourself after editing. Also
you will be able to improve cohesion and task response.
 1. 2.
SUMMARY OF THIS LECTURE
WRITING WAYS TO
YOU HAVE :
PROCESS SUPPORT
• LEARNED THE WRITING PROCESS AND THE WRITING
ASSOCIATED SKILLS,
• LEARNED HOW TO PARAPHRASE AND SYNTHESISE
IDEAS INTO YOUR OWN WRITING 3. 4.
• BUILT CONFIDENCE IN WRITING USING YOUR OWN
WORDS. SUMMARISE PRACTICAL
AND TOOLS
SYNTHESISE

YOUR BEST ROUTE TO UNIVERSITY

 PRACTICE
Write a summary of the passage that you will receive today on your WeChat account.

Hand it in (through WeChat) any time before the next lecture 2022.08.03 at 10:10am
THANK
YOU!