Academic Writing

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Academic Writing

• First semester English and English SIS Fall 2007

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Course webpage

• www.hum.aau.dk/yding/academicwriting_e07/

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Why this course?

• See the aims at p.1 in the compendium
• To improve your awareness of form and function in
  written texts
• To improve your awareness of the writing process
• To improve your awareness of genres
• To improve your writing in English
• To give you a vocabulary for describing your
  writing and its processes.

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This course is useful for

• Language and communication skills 1
  (Sprogforståelse og sprogproduktion 1)
• Project work
• Home assigment in Humanistic and Social Theory
  and textual analysis assignments
• Future translation courses
• All your future written works!

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Exam language portfolio FALL 07

• Content
• En opgave fra kurset i grammatik med
  underviserens kommentarer
• En opgave fra fonetik
• Den individuelle afleveringsopgave fra kurset i
  academic writing med underviserens kommentarer
• En individuel afleveringsopgave fra kurset i
  Discourse and Society med underviserens
  kommentarer
• Et antal øvrige arbejdspapirer fra kurset i
  academic writing (max 15 sider)
• den studerendes redegørelse for porteføljens
  indhold (højst 3 sider).
• ( Det er samme opgave der afleveres i begge
  kurser, men underviserkommentarerne vil vedrøre
  forskellige aspekter af opgaven.)

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How important is language and communication
skills?

• I bedømmelsen af samtlige skriftlige arbejder,
  uanset hvilket sprog de er udarbejdet på, indgår
  en vurdering af den studerendes stave- og
  formuleringsevne. Til grund for vurderingen af
  den sproglige præstation lægges ortografisk
  korrekthed og overensstemmelse med normerne for
  formelt, akademisk skriftsprog samt stilistisk
  sikkerhed. Den sproglige præstation skal altid
  indgå som en selvstændig faktor i den samlede
  vurdering. Dog kan ingen prøve (medmindre andet
  er anført) samlet vurderes til bestået alene på
  grund af en god sproglig præstation, ligesom en
  prøve normalt ikke kan vurderes til ikke bestået
  alene på grund af en ringe sproglig præstation
  (medmindre andet er anført).

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Course structure

• Lectures
• Study time
• Workshops
• Homework
• Evaluation.

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The academic genre

• Is documentation
• of an examination or a study
• of an academically relevant problem
• by means of academic theories and
• methods
• with the aim of convincing
• peers
• of the accuracy of
• the studys results and conclusions
• in a presentation which is
• acceptable within the academic
• discourse community.

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What is academic language NOT?

• Pompous and pretentious
• Complicated and complex
• Confusing and chaotic
• Unintelligible and incomprehensible.

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What IS academic language?

• Clear
• Coherent
• Concise
• Correct.

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clear

• comprehensible
• objective and unbiased
• simple
• distinct
• Unambigous
• timeless
• - instructive and guiding.

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coherent

• well-ordered
• logically structured
• reasoned
• well-argued.

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concise

• specialist language
• to-the-point
• Avoids unnessary words or phrases.

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correct

• Orthography and spelling
• Grammar
• Punctuation.

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speech acts

•  
•  
•  
•  
• Workable speech acts in the academic genre

• Not workable speech acts in the academic genre

• analysing
• arguing
• categorising
• citing
• constructing
• contextualising
• critisising
• defining
• describing
• discussing
• evaluating
• examining
• interpreting
• paraphrasing
• prioritising
• problematising
• proving
• reasoning
• reflecting

• agitating
• reviewing
• confessing
• lecturing
• presuming
• telling
• feeling
• praising
• believing
• proclaiming
• degrading
• experiencing
• popularise
• postulate
• plagiarising
• entertaining
• (Adapted from Rienecker Stray Jørgensen m.fl.
  2005).

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Task 1 - compendium
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Genres text 1

• There's seldom anything funnier than the
  self-obsession that precludes self-knowledge.
  (POSTULATING) As Labour meets for its 10th
  conference since winning the 1997 election, it's
  fair to say (PRESUMING) that the party has
  attained that state and all the fuss of the
  coming days would indeed be a comical if its
  record on foreign policy and liberties had not
  been so damaging to the interests of the British
  people.
• But the people are the very last thing to
  concern Labour at the moment. Sustained by a
  sense of entitlement and removed from reality by
  the habit of power (DEGRADING), Labour
  deliberates succession with all the bewildering
  violence of an immune system attacking itself
  (METAPHORICAL LANGUAGE). What lies at the bottom
  of this sickness is not principle, policy, or
  ideological vision, but love of power
  (POSTULATING, LECTURING)- the calculated
  necessity to dump the man who raised their sorry
  asses in the first place and who is now
  considered an electoral liability.
• Comment in The Observer (24 September 2006)

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Genres text 2

•  A poem is the very image of life expressed in
  its eternal truth. There is this difference
  between a story and a poem, that a story is a
  catalogue of detached facts, which have no other
  connection than time, place, circumstance, cause
  and effect the other is the creation of actions
  according to the unchangeable forms of human
  nature, as existing in the mind of the Creator,
  which is itself the image of all other minds.
  (LECTURING, PRAISING, POSTULATING)
• But I digress. (DIGRESSING)
• Poetry is indeed something divine. It is at once
  the centre and circumference of knowledge it is
  that which comprehends all science, and that to
  which all science must be referred. It is at the
  same time the root and blossom of all other
  systems of thought it is that from which all
  spring, and that which adorns all and that
  which, if blighted, denies the fruit and the
  seed, and withholds from the barren world the
  nourishment and the succession of the scions of
  the tree of life.
• Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended
  inspiration the mirrors of the gigantic shadows
  which futurity casts upon the present the words
  which express what they understand not the
  trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what
  they inspire the influence which is moved not,
  but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged
  legislators of the world. (LECTURING, AGITATING,
  PRAISING, PROCLAIMING)
• Percy Bysshe Shelley A Defence of Poetry (1819)
  (ESSAY)

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Genres text 3

• IN THE DECADE SINCE Roddy Doyle published The
  Woman who Walked into Doors I have often wondered
  (EXPERIENCE, CONFESS) about its heroine, Paula
  Spencer.
• Did she wake peacefully in the mornings now that
  the terrifying Charlo was dead and could beat her
  no more? Did alcoholism take hold of her and drag
  her down so far that her liberation had come too
  little and too late. (PRESUME)
• So shes back, in a new novel, this time entitled
  Paula Spencer. Ten years older and still
  ambiguous about the dead Charlo. She has been off
  the drink for four months and five days. As she
  says A third of a year, half a pregnancy
  nearly. And its very hard.
• Time has passed and this is a different Ireland
  but not for Paula Spencer, whose teeth will never
  come back and whose joints will always ache. She
  is only 48 years old.
• And yet its an amazingly cheerful story
  (REVIEW), full of real resilience. For Paula to
  have got to this stage is survival on an epic
  scale. Her language is appalling, she seems
  constantly to score own goals by saying the wrong
  thing, then realising that she has and, in trying
  to improve it, making things worse still.
• But she is so utterly likeable that we cheer for
  her (OPLEVE, BEKENDE), and every tiny victory for
  her is a triumph for us as well (LECTURE,
  POPULARISE, PRAISE).
• She is like the kind of exasperating friend that
  everyone has known (POPULARISE, EXPERIENCE), the
  friend who has been through so much and taken so
  much abuse that you cannot really blame her for
  the next thing, but you still do. (ENTERTAIN)
• And Roddy Doyle has done the impossible he has
  made Paula Spencer even more unforgettable the
  second time round (REVIEW, PRAISE), .
• The Times September 2, 2006 (BOOK REVIEW)

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Genres text 4

• She looks around. Shes the only white
  woman.Someone smiles. She catches herself,
  smiles back. She turns to face the front. She
  remembers she finds her seat belt and puts it
  on. She has to push and shove. Shes like a
  cranky kid.Sorry.She knows. Therell be no
  crack on the way. And no singsong coming home. No
  one speaks. It takes about an hour and stops
  being familiar after twenty minutes. Ranelagh,
  Milltown, Windy Arbour. She doesnt know them.
  Dundrum. She knows the name of course she does
  but shes never been there before. She looks up
  at the new bridge for the Luas, where the tram
  goes right over the road. Its like a different
  city.She doesnt feel uncomfortable but its
  weird. Shes the only white woman. And the only
  Irish woman she supposes. The only one born
  here. The drivers white but he says nothing. He
  mightnt be Irish either, although he looks it
  from where shes sitting
• Extract from PAULA SPENCER by Roddy Doyle (2006)

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Genres text 5

• This article discusses (DISCUSSING) postwar
  efforts to document (SUBSTANTIATING) the survivor
  experience,
• which continue to the present time
  (CONTEXTUALISING). Many historians today
  acknowledge the importance
• of these primary source materials to their work
  as well as the necessity for
• careful analysis of them ( REASONING). These
  materials could not be used without both physical
• accesswhich reinforces the need for preservation
  regardless of mediaand recognized
• cataloging standards and vocabulary.(REFLECTING)
  The article includes examples of the uses
• made of testimonies in various disciplines
  (UNDERSØGE) and challenges present and future
  researchers (RELATING, CONTEXTUALISING,
  CRITICISING)
• to expand the use of such resources with a view
  to obtain a more complete history
• of the Holocaust.(REASONING)
• ACADEMIC WRITING

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Genres text 6

• To return to Boders work mentioned previously
  (DISCUSSING), Boder titled his book
• I Did Not Interview the Dead. This is a profound
  recognition of a major limitation
• of witness testimony. (INTERPRETING) Primo Levi
  (2001 122) reminds us as well All
• of us survivors are, by definition, exceptions
  because in the Lager you were
• destined to die. If you did not die it was
  through some miraculous stroke
• of luck.You were an exception, a singularity, not
  generic, totally specific. (CITING)
• The Holocaust is about being killed, not about
  surviving (ARGUING). Although (QUALIFYING) Levi
  observed that the story has been almost
  exclusively written by those who
• have not fathomed the depths of human
  degradation.Those who did have
• not come back to tell the tale (ibid. 30),
  (CITING) it is incumbent on us to try to
• reconstruct those stories, using all the
  resources we have. (PROVING, SHOWING, JUSTIFYING)
• Joanne Weiner Rudof, Research Use of Holocaust
  Testimonies. Poetics Today 272 (Summer 2006)

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The writing process
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• Traditional views on writing(think and make plans
  first, write later)

• Process-Oriented view on Writing (write first,
  revise later)

• Choose topic
• Construct an outline of the text
• Search for literature
• State problem
• Write
• Revise
• exam

• Choose topic
• Pre-writing activities (freewriting, mindmapping,
  webbing, fragment writing, clustering, the
  Journalists six questions)
• Research your topic for an overview
• Make a preliminary problem statement
• Make a tightly focused literature search
• Read and write a draft
• Feedback and revision
• Make final problem statement
• Feedback and revision
• Plan your essay
• Revise
• exam
• (Adapted from Rienecker Stray Jørgensen m.fl.
  2005).

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The writing process

• Pre-writing activities (freewriting, mindmapping,
  webbing, fragment writing)
• Drafting (concentrate on your ideas and do not
  try to produce perfection immediately. Leave
  spelling and grammar for later)
• feedback and revision (peer response and teacher
  response. Revision is not only correcting
  grammar, spelling and punctuation it means
  substantive revision, perhaps re-structuring your
  paper completely, perhaps adding paragraphs,
  perhaps cutting away sections whatever it takes
  to make the text better)
• evaluation and grading

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A bit about pre-writing activities

• Writing makes you think.
• Free-writing and other kinds of pre-writing is
  for yourself.
• The aim of pre-writing is to generate ideas and
  thinking - not to produce texts for fellow
  students or teachers to read.

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Pre-writing activities

• Brainstorming
• Mindmapping
• Free-writing
• Fragment writing
• Displays (graphical illustrations of the
  assignment and its coherence)

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Brainstorming

• Write down all thoughts, ideas, and associations
  you get from thinking about a topic.
• Do not evaluate or think too much!
• Set a time limit (for examle 5 minutes)
• Make lists, diagrams, keywords, time lines etc.

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mindmapping

• Mindmapping is a graphic network of thoughts,
  ideas and associations you get in relation to a
  topic.
• Compared to brainstorming, mindmapping is more
  systematic in terms of connections and relations.
  
• Write down a topic in the middle of a piece of
  paper.
• Write down associations in rays or circles from
  the topic in the middle.
• Develop sub-topics in the same way.
• Set a time limit, for examle 10 minutes.

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Free-writing

• Write about a topic without planning or revising
  for for example 15 minutes. Do not stop, think,
  plan or correct. Do not take your hands of the
  keyboard or lift your pen from the paper.
• Write coherently text no bullets or a), b), c).
• Keep writing!
• Do not go back in your text to revise or delete.
• Continue writing even if you do not have anything
  to write about the topic repeat your last
  sentence again and again,or write blablablabla,
  until you again have something to write about the
  topic.

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Fragment writing

• Write short, unorganized texts within the topic
  area.
• Feel free to jump from one sub-topic to another
  one.

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Displays

• A cross between a mindmap and the actual
  structuring of the underlying idea of the
  assignment.
• Illustrations of bubbles or boxes joint by
  keywords
• Time lines
• Diagrams.

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Study time activities

• Task 1(compendium p. 7)
• Task 2 (compendium p. 9)
• Begin your homework for next week use your
  freewriting text.

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HOME WORK for next week

• A paragraph (ca. 8 sentences) on the topic Why
  study English.
• Bring a paper copy to class!