Getting to specifics in a general writing course

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Getting to specifics in a general writing course

• Randi Reppen
• Northern Arizona University

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Multicultural writers

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What does it mean to teach writing?

• Raise audience awareness
• Teach appropriate conventions
• Write for different purposes
• Writing to learn
• Focus is on information NOT interpersonal!!

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Who are we teaching?

• Majors
• Engineering
• Natural Science
• History
• Literature
• Communication
• Education
• ?????????

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What do we teach?

• Using and citing sources
• Avoiding plagiarism
• Critical thinking
• Information packaging
• Conventions (formatting, citations)
• Discourse conventions

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• Linguistic characteristics of academic writing
• A word about corpus linguistics

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General characterisitcs

• use of nominalizations
• government, ability, demolition
• nounnoun
• dial caliper, cable television show
• prepositional phrases
• valid for a period of two years from
• original purchase
• Technical / specialized use of terms
• chain

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• pronouns
• I, we, you, they
• use of passive (be past participle)
• was discussed, is claimed

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Active vs. Passive voice

• Two Ecology research articles
• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• From Biber, D. Conrad, S. Reppen, R. (1996)
• Corpus linguistics Investigating language
  structure and use.
• Cambridge Cambridge University Press

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Lexical bundles

• the nature of the
• in the case of
• as a result of
• on the basis of
• in terms of the

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• What about specific disciplines?

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Engineering Natural Sciences

• as shown in figure
• an increase in the
• the rate at which
• the ratio of the
• as a function of

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Humanities Social Sciences

• the fact that the
• by the fact that
• are likely to be
• are more likely to

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Frequent passive preposition constructions

• aligned with
• based on
• coupled with
• attributed to
• subjected to.

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Teaching how to learn

• Strategies for looking at texts
• Discovering disciplinary norms
• Students as researchers
• Look at texts for conventions
• Look for specific linguistic features

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Some things to look for

• Does the article have an abstract, diagrams,
  pictures, charts, etc?
• Are there references in the text?
• What types of sources are presented in the
  bibliography?
• Are there explicit research questions or
  hypotheses?
• Does the article identify a gap in the
  literature?
• Are there technical terms?
• Are data presented?

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Feedback

• Cant fix everything at once
• Start with big issues that impact understanding
• Involve students text comparisons

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Break out sessions

• Try some of these ideas
• Set of articles from three disciplines
• Economics, Geology, Art
• Nursing, Engineering, Education
• Sheet with suggestions of things to look for
• Plus a task

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Selected References

• Biber, D. 2006. University language. Amsterdam
  John Benjamins.
• Biber, D., Conrad, S., and Reppen, R. 1998.
  Corpus linguistics Investigating language
  structure and use. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press.
• Biber, D., Conrad, S., Reppen, R., Byrd, P., and
  Helt, M. 2002. Speaking and writing in the
  university A multi-dimensional comparison. TESOL
  Quarterly 36, 948.
• Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., Conrad, S.,
  and Finegan, E. 1999. The Longman grammar of
  spoken and written English. Harlow, Essex
  Pearson Education.
• Biber, D., and Reppen, R. 2002. What does
  frequency have to do with grammar teaching?
  Studies in Second Language Acquisition 24,
  199208.
• Conrad, S., and Biber, D. 2009. Real grammar A
  corpus-based approach to English. Harlow, Essex
  Pearson/Longman. 
• Donley, K. M., and Reppen, R. 2001. Using corpus
  tools to highlight academic vocabulary in SCLT.
  TESOL Journal 10, 712.
• Horst, M., Cobb, T. and Nicolae, I. 2005.
  Expanding academic vocabulary with an interactive
  on-line database. Language Learning and
  Technology 9 (2), 90110.
• Hyland, K. and Milton, J. 1997. Qualification and
  certainty in L1 and L2 students writing. Journal
  of Second Language Writing 6, 183205
• OKeefe, A., McCarthy, M., and Carter, R. 2007.
  From corpus to classroom. Cambridge Cambridge
  University Press.
• Nesi, H., and Basturkmen, H. 2006. Lexical
  bundles and discourse signaling in academic
  lectures. International Journal of Corpus
  Linguistics 11, 283304.
• Reppen, R. 2010. Using corpora in the language
  classroom. Cambridge Cambridge University Press.
• Robinson, M., Stoller, F., Constanza-Robinson,
  M., and Jones, J. 2008. Write like a chemist. New
  York Oxford University Press.
• Useful online corpora and tools
• Antconc concordance program www.antlab.sci.waseda
  .ac.jp/software.html
• www.americancorpus.org
• corpus.byu.edu/time/

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Thanks!