Academic Writing 1 - IDA > HomeTGTU39/timetable/tgtu39-le03-academic_writing_I.pdf · 2009-10-08 1 Academic Writing 1 Juha Takkinen, [email protected] Department of Computer and Information

2009-10-08

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Academic Writing 1Academic Writing 1Academic Writing 1Academic Writing 1

Juha Takkinen, [email protected] Takkinen, [email protected] Takkinen, [email protected] Takkinen, [email protected]

Department of Computer and Information ScienceDepartment of Computer and Information ScienceDepartment of Computer and Information ScienceDepartment of Computer and Information Science

Linköping UniversityLinköping UniversityLinköping UniversityLinköping University

Outline

� The writing process

� Considerations in academic writing

� Introduction to summaries (assignment 1)

� Introduction to critiques (assignment 2)

� Introduction to research papers.

TGTU39: Academic writing I

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The writing process

AnalysisCollection

of materialSorting Selection

StructuringGetting

started

Transfer

thoughtsto text

Revision

Finished text


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Analysis

Problem

l What do I want to state/describe/reflect on/argue for?

l For whom?

l In what setting? Academic? Locally? Internationally?

l How go about to solve it? Methods?

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Collection of data

l Library & Internet: journals, books, conference proceedings, data-

bases …

l People: interviews, questionnaires

l Why?

� Acquire knowledge (missing)

� Check what you think you already know

� Get an overview

� Compare different views and facts

� …

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Sorting

l Dependent on reader and objective

� For whom am I writing

� And why?

l Right level of detail

l Restrictions? Number of pages? Costs? Time available?

l One or several versions?

For different readers?

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Preliminary plan

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Structuring

l Order the stuff in a

particular order

l Divide into sections and

chapters

l Determine proportions

l Decide preliminary

headings

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Structure

l Chronologically

l Spatially

l Problem-solving (logical)

l Thematic

l Contrastive

l Associative

l Journalistic (GS)

Ways of structuring textsWays of structuring textsWays of structuring textsWays of structuring texts

Considerations in academic writing


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1. Audience

2. Purpose

3. Organization

4. Style

5. Flow

6. Presentation


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Text 1 Text 2

People have been pulling freshwater out of the oceans for centuries using technologies that involve

evaporation, which leaves the salts and other

unwanted constituents behind. Salty source water is

heated to sped evaporation, and the evaporated water is then trapped and distilled. This process

works well but requires large quantities of heat

energy, and costs have been far too high for nearly

all but the wealthiest nations, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. (One exception is the island of

Curacao in the Netherlands Antilles, which has

provided continuous municipal supplies using

desalination since 1928.) To make the process more affordable, modern distillation plans recycle

heat from the evaporation step.

A potentially cheaper technology called membrane desalination may expand the role of desalination

worldwide, which today accounts for less than 0.2

percent of the water withdrawn from natural

sources. Membrane desalination relies on reverse osmosis – process in which a thin, semipermeable

membrane is placed between a volume of saltwater

and a volume of freshwater. The water on the salty

side is highly pressurized to drive water molecules, but not salt and other impurities, to the pure side. In

essence, this process pushes freshwater out of

saltwater. (Martindale, 2001)

Reverse osmosis (RO) membrane systems are often used for seawater and brackish water

desalination. The systems are typically installed as

a network of modules that must be designed to

meet the technical, environmental, and economic requirements of the separation process. The

complete optimization of an RO network includes

the optimal design of both the individual module

structure, and the network configuration. For a given application, the choice and design of a

particular module geometry depends on a number

of factors including ease and cost of module

manufacture, energy efficiency, fouling tendency, required recovery, and capital cost of auxiliary

equipment. With suitable transport equations to

predict the physical performance of the membrane

module, it should be possible to obtain an optimal module structure for any given application. (Maskan

et al., 2000)

1. Audience consideration –

what kind of audience are these

texts intended for? (Swales &

Feak, 2004, p. 8-9)


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2. Purpose

� What is the purpose (objective) of the text?

� Instruct?

� Convince?

� Present new findings?

� Challenge old results?

� Fulfill course requirements?

� ….

Purpose and strategy: Impressing with the conclusion (Swales & Feak, 2004, pp. 10-11)


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Purpose and strategy, cont’d

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That is, first, summarize results, connect them to some wider issue.

Then, admit and report problems:

3. Organization (Swales and Feak, 2004, p. 12)

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Organization, cont’d

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Organization, cont’d

Standard strategy in academic writing:

The problem-solution approach

1. Description of a situation

2. Identification of a problem

3. Description of a solution

4. Evaluation of a solution


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Organization: Problem-solution, example (Swales & Feak, 2004, pp. 14-15)

For over 20 years now biologists have been alarmed that

certain populations of amphibians have been declining. These declines have occurred both in areas populated by humans as well as areas seemingly undisturbed by

people

Description of situation

However, offering clear proof of the declining numbers of

amphibians has been difficult because in most cases there is no reliable data on past population sizes with which to compare recent numbers. Moreover, it is not

entirely clear whether the declines are actually part of a natural fluctuation in populations arising from droughts or a scarcity of food.

Identification of a problem

To address this problem biologists are changing the way

they observe amphibian populations. One good documentation method involves counting species over the course of several years and under a variety of climatic

conditions.

Description of a solution

This method should yield reliable data that will help

researchers understand the extent to which amphibian populations are in danger and begin to determine what can be done to stem the decline in populations.

Evaluation of a solution

Organization: Problem-solution, cont’d

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Organization: The general-specific (GS) approach (journalistic method)

� The GS approach involves moving from the

general to the more specific.

� Reasons:

� Common approach in graduate writing

� Often used in introductions of research papers/assignments

� Often used as background in an analysis section or discussion

� GS texts starts with either

� A short or extended definition

� A contrastive or comparative definition

� A generalization or purpose statement, or

� A factual statement.


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The shape of general-to-specific texts

General statement

Details in support of the general statement

More detailed

Broader statement


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Example of GS text (Swales & Feak, p. 45-46)

Selling cities: promoting new images for meeting tourism

Meetings tourism, which we define as travel associated with

attendance at corporate o association meetings, conferences, conventions or congresses or public or trade exhibitions, has emerged as a significant subsection of the tourist industry both in

terms of volume of travel and expenditure generated. “Meetings” demonstrate enormous variety, ranging from small business meetings of a few participants to large conventions of,

for example, professional associations which might attract in excess of 20,000 delegates.

General statement

Details in support

The range of locations within which these meetings take place is

also broad, including such sites as hotels, universities, sports venues, and specially built convention centers.

Details

The meeting tourism market has been vigorously pursued by

many former industrial cities in Europe and the U.S. as part of their strategies of post-industrial urban regeneration (Law, 1987, p. 85).

Details

This market offers a number of obvious attractions to such cities,

not least the rapidity of its growth…

More detailed

Figures for the U.S.A. suggest the business conference industry

almost doubled during the …

More detailed TGTU39: Academic writing I

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GS writing vs. topic sentences

Topic sentences

� Each paragraph should contain one topic sentence

around which the rest of the paragraph is built.

� The topic sentence is usually the first sentence of

the paragraph.


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Specifying paragraph

This leads to a two level hierarchy of the

descriptions. On the activity level we have

the actual manipulation of the task, while –

at the procedure level – we only have

information about the ordering of the activities.


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Exemplifying paragraph

In all interesting cases the Gauss-Seidel iteration converges at least as fast as the naive Jacobi iteration. For instance,

the latter needs five iterations to converge

for the rev/2-example whereas the former

method converges after only two iterations.

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Substantiating paragraph

The division of unification procedures into being either complete or incomplete sometimes seems too coarse. In particular this

is the case when the underlying theory is

underspecified, so that no sound and complete

unification procedure can exist.


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Modifying paragraph

The implementation of DCGs is correct with

respect to the declarative semantics outlined

above. However, because Prolog is used for

solving literals in rules, it is not complete.

4. Style

Keep it consistent and appropriate for the message

and audience

� Beware of grammar-checking tools

� Passive voice should be used in some cases

� Avoid

� contractions, e.g., ”don’t” and ”we’re”

� ”I” and use ”We” (but depends …)

� informal elements, such as beginning sentences

with ”But …”


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Style: active vs. passive voice

� Passive voice often in process

descriptions

• how something is done

• With active

voice, focus on

stages is lost

• process is backgrounded


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Style: active vs. passive voice, cont’d


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� Sometimesdifferent agents

are important for

the different steps in the process

� If agent is important

(uncommon), betterto describe the process as follows:

Style, cont’d

� Choose more formal alternative of verb, noun

or other part of speech:

� coming up with clear proof � offering clear proof

� looking into ways to … � reviewing ways to …

� keep up numbers � maintain numbers

� gone down in numbers � decreased in numbers

� really important for � an integral part of

� a lot of interest � considerable interest

� That is, reduce informality!


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5. Flow: Moving from one statement in a text to the next

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6. Presentation: a checklist

� Consider overall format

� Look like carefully prepared?

� Clear paragraphs?

� Line spacing appropriate?

� Standard fonts and sizes?

� Check for misspelled words

� Correct homophones?

� Spell-checker missed

anything?

� Proofread

� Subject-verb agreement?

� Appropriate verb tenses?

� Articles used when necessary? (a, an, the)

� Used ”the” too much?


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Presentation, cont’d


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Presentation, cont’d


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Writing summaries

� When used for preparation (exam, discussion,

research paper, thesis), and often not for

publication. � informal requirements

� When used as part of a more public

communication or as part of other academic work

(scientific summaries for your colleagues,

background material used in a course you will be teaching

� formal requirements


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Summaries

� Should focus on the most important and relevant

aspects of the original text.

� Should present the original article accurately.

� Should concentrate on the original material and be presented in the writer’s own words.

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Steps to write a summary (doing a good job)

1. Skim the text and divide the text into sections (possibly by the use of subheadings)

2. What is the purpose of the summary? Inclusion in a research paper? Show your instructor that you have understood a particular area? The answers to such questions may help you to select the relevant sections to focus on.

3. Read the text thoroughly, and take notes of the most relevant and important information.

4. Write in your own words the main message of each section. Try to write a one-sentence summary (topic sentence) for each section.

5. Write down the main supporting points for the major topic(no details)

6. Go through the process again, and revise.


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Writing critiques

� Critique means critical assessment (could be positive or negative, or both)

� Common types of critiques: book reviews, film reviews.

� Common structure: 1. short summary, 2. evaluation.

� Critiques are used in academic circumstances as

1. An attempt to ensure that students do reading assignments

2. An assessment of understanding

3. An attempt to develop analytical reading

4. A way to train students to integrate new knowledge with previous knowledge

5. A way to provide students with a better picture of what is expectedin their research field.

Summaries vs. Critiques

� Summaries should provide an accurate account of

the content of the source material.

� Critiques should contain evaluations within their “field’s accepted standards of judgment”.

� Critiques should be fair, i.e. don’t apply evaluation

criteria from other fields, keep it to the specific

tradition.

� Different emphases on critiques in different fields:

� Humanities: “interesting” arguments

� Social sciences: the methodology

� Natural science and engineering: the results and their

implications.

� More later! TGTU39: Academic writing I

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Research paper – different types

� Theoretical papers using logical argumentation

with GS structure (e.g. theoretical physics,

mathematics)

� Review articles (or meta-analysis papers in

medical research), structure:

� History, current work, theory/model, issue.

� Responses and reactions to earlier work (rare in

most fields)

� Short communications (brief reports or notes)

� Standard empirical research papers

� IMRD structure

� Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion


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Research paper structure

� Title

� Abstract

� Introduction

� Methods

� Results

� Discussion

� Acknowledgement

� References


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Overview of a Research Paper (RP)

Introduction (I)

Methods and

Materials (M)

Results (R)

Discussion (D)

General

Specific

Specific

General

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TGTU39: Your two assignments in the course (detailed instructions next week)

� Main idea:

� Locate an interesting research paper.

� Write a short summary of the research paper

(assignment 1) for the summary seminar (seminar 2)

� Write a critical review of the same paper (assignment

2) for the review seminar (seminar 3)

� You will be asked to hand in each assignment to

a specific e-mail address and at the latest one

week before each seminar series starts.

� The assignments are then discussed in groups during respective seminar.

What you can do right now

� Locate a research paper to write a summary and

also a review (critique) of. Requirements on the

paper:

� 5-10 pages long

� In a subject that you really feel passionate about

� The instructor will happily help you if you have questions

� Seminar schedule and leaders will be published shortly


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Next lecture: Academic Writing II

� More details on research paper writing

� Language issues

� Proofing and revision

� Citations and references

� Plagiarism and how to avoid it.

Documents

Academic Writing 1 - IDA > HomeTGTU39/timetable/tgtu39-le03-academic_writing_I.pdf · 2009-10-08 1 Academic Writing 1 Juha Takkinen, [email protected] Department of Computer and Information