A LECTURE IN ACADEMIC WRITING By/ kamo araz ahmad

WHAT IS ACADEMIC WRITING?

• “Academic Writing Skills is a three volume series that develops students' abilities to compose college-level essays.”

• http://www.cambridge.org/us/cambridgeenglish/catalog/skills/academic-writing-skills

WHAT IS WRITING?

If you really want to know yourself , start by writing a book.

“Shereen el feki”

Writing skills

Writing process

Step1:prewriting

Step2:writing

Step3:editing/

revising

Step4:Publishing

Writing styles Referencing

PREWRITING

• The best and most successful writing start with pre writing, Prewriting is a term that describes any kind of preliminary work that precedes the actual paper writing.

• http://slc.berkeley.edu/you-start-writing-paper-guide-prewriting-techniques-0

PREWRITING TECHNIQUES ::

• 1.Brainstorming:

• Brainstorming refers to quickly writing down or taking inventory of all your thoughts as fast as they come to you. In this sense, your ideas are like a gigantic storm swirling around in your brain, and it's your job to get them out of your head.

EXAMPLE OF BRAINSTORMING ::

• Example: Brainstorming for Toni Morrison's Beloved.

• Sethe's relationship with her children.

• Significance of milk and the breast. Possible connection to mother/child relationship.

• Familial relationships under slavery. Perhaps Morrison is examining (or complicating) this through Sethe's extreme relationship with her children. Possible connection to milk and breast imagery. Breastfeeding her children may be so important because mother/child relationshps are often destroyed under slavery.

• Motherly love. Sethe seems to think murder can be taken as an act of motherly love. Maybe she's rewriting the role of the mother under slavery.

• Return of Beloved and inability to explain/justify murder. Even though Sethe claims that the murder was right, she seems conflicted.

• 2.freewriting:

• Freewriting is very similar to brainstorming in that it gets all your thoughts out onto

paper. However, where brainstorming often looks more like a list of ideas, freewriting usually takes the shape of more formal sentences. Even so, grammar, punctuation, and the like should be far from your mind.

• Example: Freewriting for Beloved.

I have to write a paper on Beloved for my English class. There's a lot to write on in this book. When I first read it, I noticed a lot of things about Sethe and her relationship with her kids. Her motherly relationship with her children seemed important to her, especially in terms of breastfeeding them. Perhaps this is symbolic of something. Like milk and the breast represent motherhood itself. This might be why it was so important for Sethe to get milk to her baby; she may have wanted to retain that motherly bond. Perhaps that's important because of the fact that slavery interferes with the mother/child relationship. In slavery, Sethe and her children are just her master's property, so she's not the ultimate guardian/owner of them. Maybe breastfeeding is her way of reestablishing the bond that slavery attempts to destroy by making humans into property.

• 3.mindmapping or clustering ::

• Once again, clustering and mindmapping, like brainstorming and freewriting, allow you to take inventory of your ideas. However, they both focus you on a central word, which you then work out from by associating other words, thoughts, and ideas to that central word. These may be very useful techniques for extremely visual people.

• 4. Question-Asking ::

• This is one of the best and most useful approaches to get yourself started on writing a paper, especially if you really have no idea where to start. Here, you write down all the questions that seem relevant to your material.

• Example: Question-Asking for Beloved.

• Why does Morrison focus on Sethe's relationship with her children?

• What is the significance of mother/child relationships in Beloved?

• Is milk and breastfeeding important? Why? How does it connect to other themes in the book? Could it be symbolic? If so, what does it symbolize?

• How does slavery affect Sethe's relationshp with her children? Is Morrison addressing this? If so, how?

• What does Sethe's murder of her baby signify? Is it clear by the end of the book? Or is it unresolved? How does it connect to slavery, mother/child relationships, and other themes?

SOME TIPS ABOUT PARAGRAPH

Indent or skip a line.

One central idea.

Avoid repetition.

Source : this two slides source is a “Introduction to Academic Writing” by Catherine Mitchell, Learning Development Lecturer

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR WRITING?

• 1. do not use contractions:

• 2. Avoid using there is/ there are :

• There is an exhibition at the hotel.

• The hotel holding an exhibition.

• There are many problems in her class.

• her class is facing problems.

• 3. Avoid using very, really, a lot :

• Many students think literature is very hard.

• Many students think literature is very hard difficult.

• The movie was really controversial.

• The movie was really controversial.

• A lot of students failed. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, a lot of time is wasted.

• A lot of many students failed. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, a lot of much time is wasted.

•4. Passive voice VS Active voice:

• Health care reforms were implemented by Obama.

• Obama implemented health care reforms.

• The war was won by the French.

• The French won the war.

•5. Use strong verbs:

•Weak: he gave assistance to my friend.

• Strong: he assisted my friend.

•Weak: she conducted an investigation

• Strong: she investigated.