English-APP Record Reading sept. 27 - oct. 8
Unit 1: The Nature of Academic Texts
In the lesson 1 titled Structure of Academic Texts I learned that Structure of Academic Texts is all about Structuring Paragraphs, Structuring the Three-Part Essay and Structuring IMRaD. First, I learned about Structuring Paragraphs which is one of the essential features of academic writing, and we all know that a paragraph is a group of sentences that deal mostly with one topic or idea at a time. There are also three parts of a paragraph which are, first, is the Topic Sentence. The Topic Sentence is the main point of the paragraph while Supporting Sentences supports the main idea of the paragraph, and Transitional Sentences is used to end a paragraph and prepare the next paragraph for the introduction of the next concept. Illustration, definition, classification, comparison and contrast, and process is the different kinds of patterns of development found in a paragraph. Also, In Structuring the Three-part Essay there are the 3 parts of an essay which are the Introduction, body, and conclusion. Structuring IMRaD or also known as Structuring Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion, with a Conclusion. The context of the study and what the study will entail are typically included in the Introduction, while the Methods are part of this particular structure that explain how the research questions and objective were met and answered. The results section presents the results and how they were collected in the methods, It is also recommended to use graphs and charts to present data for a better understanding. Captions are also essential in presenting data because the readers may not read the entire text. Furthermore, the data or figures should not be repeated in the text.
In the lesson 2 I learned about Academic Texts across the Disciplines and it explains about The Academic Disciplines, Connections across Disciplines, and Articulating Different Positions in Academic Writing. In The Academic Disciplines I learned that the academic disciplines has various branches under them which are the accounting, economics, finance and management marketing for Business. Art, creative writing, languages, literature, etc. for Humanities. Natural and applied sciences also have biology, chemistery, computer science, engineering, etc. and anthropology. education, geograpy, history, and law for the Social sciences. Each discipline and its branches have its own communities with their own languages, communication styles, and ways of communication. Connection across Disciplines is all about the disciplines that are not so different in development and purpose. Disciplines are developed and designed to help us make sense of our world and phenomena. We can also gain more knowledge about the world when a practitioner can build on a perviously established body of work from his or her discipline. research are often used on this cause discipline requires you to make use of sources in form of past papers, journal entries and experiments. This helps not only your own research but also the discipline itself, as you are helping expan and add to the previous studies in your choosen discipline. Furthermore, With more knowledge in different disciplines, you will become better at knowing how your own specialization can fit with the rest of the world.
Lastly, on the lesson 3 titled Articulating Different Positions in Academic Writing talks about that any discipline you to choose to enter already has a number of debates, studies, controversies, and expirements that have been going on for years, if not decades or centuries. There are long-standing binary oppositions in each discipline that can help you make more sense of the different issues, themes, and topics you might encounter when reading academic texts and conducting your own research in the future. Production-consumption and labor capital are the binary oppositions of Business, while Humanities have artist-culture and text-context, Natural and applied sciences also have empiricism-rationalism and observer-subject, and nature-nurture and free will-determinism for Social sciences. These are just a few examples of the many binaries found in each discipline. with time and effort you’ll be able to pinpoint these binaries in the academic texts you read as well as determine other binaries within the disciplines.
Unit 2: Thesis Statement and Outlining
In this topic I learned that in a academic paper Thesis Statement is very important because it is the main idea that will dictate the purpose and flow of your arguments in the rest of your paper. There are some characteristics in thesis statement and one of them is that, it shows where you stand regarding the subject matter you are discussing. Your academic paper should be persuasive because in writing academic paper or research our goal is is primarily convince our readers to consider our stand, and by that to convince them, the rest of our paper should contain evidence that will help back up you thesis statement in order to pursuade others to take your stand. Furthermore, the body of your paper should then support and defend your thesis.
In Outlining Academic Texts I learned that creating an outline is one of the last steps of the prewriting stage, it helps the writer to categorize the main point of the topic, organize the paragraphs and to make sure that the paragraphs are fully developed. An outline acts ultimately helps the writer to not get stuck while he or she is writing an essay. When writing a topic outline only phrases or main ideas are needed. There is no need to write the full sentences it also utilizes wording that is parallel to one another which is means that the same format is used for headings and subheading for organization. Sentence outline makes use of sentences, that means all headings and subheadings must be in sentences form.
Unit 3: Writing a Summary
I learned that a summary is a brief statement or the main points of a paragraph or in research. Summarizing should reproduce the key ideas and points of a text, identifying the general concepts that prevail throughout the entire piece, and to express these concepts and ideas with precise and specific language. There are two techniques in writing a summary which are the previewing, skimming and scanning. In writing a summary it is essential to add the title and the author’s name in the first sentence and the author’s thesis too, so that it is easy to recall what the key points are, it also makes it easier to navigate through your summary. We should also avoid opinions or personal responses in our summary and be more mindful to avoid plagiarism. Furthermore, a proper summary can be used to help you to relevant information you might need for your academic writing.
The aims of summarizing texts are to reproduce the overarching ideas in order to identify the general concepts and to express the overarching ideas using precise and specific language. There are steps in summarizing texts and one of them is, the author’s thesis statement should be indicated in the first two sentences. It also should be break down the text or research into the main ideas before summarizing the whole texts and leave out the ideas that are not relevant to the whole text.
Unit 4: Writing from Sources
I learned that in paraphrasing it doesn’t require you to quote from the source text, paraphrasing is a restatement of a text, passage, or work to express the meaning in another form. A good paraphrase shows how the writer understand what he or she reading. There are different kinds of paraphrasing which are the change of parts of speech, change of structure, clause reduction,and synonym replacement and there are also kinds of plagiarism which are, first, the verbatim plagiarism, word order plagiarism, and the idea plagiarism.
In techniques in paraphrasing I learned that there are several techniques that can be used to paraphrase effectively, which are the change of words and the change of sentence structure. In change of words we can change the part of speech, use synonyms, and change numbers and percentages to different forms. While changing the sentence structure we can change the word order, use different definition structures, use different attribution signals, and change the sentence structure and use different conjunctions. In paraphrasing we should not change the proper nouns and technical terms and we should maintain the meaning of the text when we’re paraphrasing a texts.
Lastly, paraphrasing vs. quoting, I learned that Quoting includes taking what the writer stated and repeating it word-for-word. This method is commonly used for terms or quick sentences. As mentioned in preceding lessons, copying an author’s phrases verbatim is typically categorized as plagiarism. To keep away from this, it's far critical to enclose the copied textual content in citation marks (“ “) whilst quoting and characteristic the phrases to the authentic author. When we are going to use quotation in our writing we should first introduce, cite, and explain (ICE method) the quotation we will be using.
Unit 5: Citing Sources of Information
In citation styles I learned that a citation is manner to offer credit score to the authors, scientists, researchers, and so forth whose innovative and intellectual work you used to guide or supplement your very own research and A citation style dictates what data is important to include in a citation, how that data have to be organized, what punctuations are used, and different formatting concerns. There are three different citation styles which are the American Psychological Association (APA) which is often used in education, psychology, and the social sciences and Modern Language Association (MLA) is normally used in the humanities while Chicago/Turabian style is often used in business, history and fine arts. In writing in-text citations, endnotes, and footnotes I learned the format for in-text citations in APA uses the author-date-page number(s) while the format for in-text citations in MLA uses the author-page number(s) and the format for AD for CMOS ises author-date-page number(s), however CMOS also allows writers to utilize NB, where all references are found in either the footnotes or endnotes. Furthermore, Footnotes and endnotes for APA and MLA should be limited and are usually used for additional content for other references. Lastly, In writing a bibliography I learned that a bibliography lists all of the sources you used for your research and additional background reading. This includes even works that you did not end up referencing in your paper and a reference list or a works cited page is similar to a bibliography, but it only contains the sources you explicitly cited in your paper. Furthermore, The three citation styles organize and format their bibliographies and their bibliographic entries differently.
