LESSON 1

Academic text- specifically used by college

- Semi-formal
- Objective

Example: Journal Thesis

Conference paper Reviews

Blog article Essay

Non-academic text (Ex.)

- Short stories
- Personal journal

* Academic and non-academic usually differ in FORMAT, PURPOSE and TONE.

* Third person or objective voice and tends to depend on heavily on research, factual
experemantation and evidence and the origins.

Three parts of academic : Introduction , overview of the topic, conclusion.

Purpose of Academic writing- gives information

- Providing non based facts and backing upclaims with evidence in the
field of literature and academic may write an essay base on theory.

Example of Academic text;

 Books and book reports

 Translation
 Research
 Essay
 Dissertation and thesis

Non- Academic Writing

- Opinimated
- Informal tone

Purpose of non-academic writing

- To entertain it’s audience or to persuade purpose for reading an academic.

Purpose for reading an academic

 To better understand an existing idea

 To get idea that can support a particular writing assignment
 To gain more information
 To identify gaps in existing studies
  To connect new ideas to existing ones

Structure of Academic text

- Acad text are typically formal

Academic Text vs. Non-Academic Text

Type|Tone Formal Informal

Voice Objective Subjective
Span of time to produce Long time (it take years) Short time (it take months)
Pay 3 person 1st person or 2nd person
Purpose To inform the reader To entertain| to persuade
Audience|Reader Educated (in academic or Mass or lay audience
research practituners)

Hedging- Hedges are important part of polite conversation

- They make what we say less direct.

- Most common forms of ledging involves tense and aspect, modal expressions.
- It makes decisions about your stance on a particular subject or the strength of the
claims you are making.

TYPES EXAMPLES

 Modal auxiliary verbs may, might, can, could, would, should

 Modal lexical verbs doubting and
evaluating rather than merely des- to seem to appear, to believe, to assume, to
cribing. suggest, to estimate, to send, to think, to argue,
to indicate, to propose, to speculate.
 Probability adjectives possible, probable, likely|unlikely
 Nouns assumption, claim, possibility, estimate,
suggestion.
 Adverbs perhaps, possibly, probably, practically, likely,
presumably, virtually, apparently.
 If clauses if true, if anything.
 Indicators of degree, quantity, frequency approximately, roughly, about, often, occasion-
and time. ally, generally, usually, somewhat, somehow, a
lot of.
 Introductory phrases believe, to our knowledge, it is our view that,

we fact that.
  Compound ledges Double hudges: seems reasonable, look
probable, it may suggest that, it would
indicate

that, this probably indicates.

Treble hedges: it seems reasonable of assume

that.

Quadruple: it would seem somewhat unlikely

that, it may appear somewhat speculative that.

LESSON 2

“Critical Reading Strategies“

 Reading academic text requires focus and understanding.

 Readers have to interact with the text by questioning its assumptions, responding to its
arguments, and connecting it to real-life experiences and application.
 Critical or reflective reading helps the reader to identify the key arguments presented by the
author and analyze concepts presented in the text.

Strategies

 SQ3R- Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review

Guidelines:

“Survey”- Skim the target text

 Check the headings and tables, diagrams, or figures presented in the text.
 Read the first few and last sentences of the text to determine key info.
 Get a feel of the text.

“Question”

 Annotate the headings with your question.

 Develop questions on the types of info, you expect from the text.

“READ”

 Stop and slow down if the passage is not clear.

 Make sure to proceed reading only when you are already understand to previous texts.
 Look for answers to your question as you read the text.

“RECITE”

 Recount the main points of the text.

 Recall by writing a summary or synthesis based on what you understand on the text.
 Highlights or underline the important points on you read.
“REVIEW”

 After finishing the text, go back and re-read the question you wrote and see if you answer
them, if not refresh your memory.
 Evaluate what you learned to explore that you are convinced and satisfied with the info
presented in the work.

LESSON 3 “Locating Main Ideas”

Understanding and Locating Thesis Statement

 The thesis statement presents or describes the point of an essay or text.

 In an academic text, the thesis statement is usually presented in the Abstract or Executive
Summary or found at the last part of the introduction.
 It is written in a declarative sentence.

STRATEGIES IN LOCATING THE THESIS STATEMENT’

 Read the title of the text and make inferences on its purpose.
 If the text has no abstract or executive summary, read the first few paragraphs as the thesis
statement is located there.
 In other cases, you may also check the conclusion where authors sum up and review their main
points.

UNDERSTANDING AND LOCATING THE TOPIC SENTENCE

 The topic sentence presents or describes the point of the paragraphs, in other words, it is the
main idea of a paragraph.
 It can be located in the beginning, middle, or last part of a paragraph.

STRATEGIES IN LOCATING THE TOPIC SENTENCE

 Read the first sentence of the paragraph very carefully because must authors state their topic
sentence in its beginning of the paragraph.
 Browse the sentences in the paragraph to identify what they describe. The sentence that best
describes the topic of the paragraph is the topic sentence.
 Find the concept or idea being tackled, which in colloquial term is the “big word” in the
paragraph the sentence that defines the big word is usually the topic sentence.
 Identify the purpose of the paragraph the sentence that presents or describes the purpose is the
topic sentence.
 Observe writing style of the author. Focus specifically on where he/she usually places his/her
topic sentence.

LESSON 4

SUMMARIZING
  Often used in critical reading to determine the essential ideas in a book, article, book, chapter,
an article or parts of article. These essentials ideas include the main idea, useful information or
keywords on phrases that help you meet your reading purpose.
 Summarizing is generally done after reading. However, it can be done as well while reading a
text.
 Summarizing is important skill because it helps you:
- Deepen your understanding.
- Learn to identify relevant information or ideas.
- Combine details or examples that support main idea.
- Concentrate on the gist or main idea and key words presented in the text; and
- Capture the key ideas in the text and put them together clearly and concisely.

WHAT IS NOT SUMMARIZING?

You are not summarizing when you:

 Write down everything.

 Write down ideas from text word-for-word;
 Write down ideas that are not stated in the text; or
 Write down summarizing that has the same length or longer than the original text.

FORMATS IN SUMMARIZING

1. Idea heading format

 In this format, the summarized idea come before citation.
2. Author heading format
 In this format, the summarized idea comes after the citation. The author name is
connected by an appropriate reporting reib.
3. Date heading format
 In this format , the summarized idea comes after the date when material uses
published.

Reporting Verbs

Biology Describe, Find, Report, Show

Marketing Suggest, Argue, Find, Demonstrate
Linguistic Suggest, Argue, Show, Explain, Find, Point Out
Sociology Argue, Suggest, Describe, Note, Analyze, Discuss
Philosophy Say, Suggest, Argue, Claim, Point Out, Hold, Think
Over all Support, Argue, Find, Show, Describe, Propose, Report

LESSON 5

EVALUATING SOURCES

We need to know if the sources is reliable or credible, that’s why we need to evaluate sources.
Criteria in Evaluating Resources

 Relevance of the source to your research topic.

 Authors qualification
 Publication date
 Location

Style guide

APA Style

- American Psychological Association

- The citation comes in the end.

LESSON 6

COMPARING, SUMMARIZING, PARAPHRASING, AND DIRECT QUOTING

SUMMARIZING PARAPHRASING DIRECT QUOTING

 Does not match the  Does not much the  Matches the source
source word for word source. word for word.
 Involves putting the  Involves putting a  Is usually a short part
main idea into your own passage from a source of the text.
words but including into your own words
only the main point
 Presents a broad  Changes the words or  Cited part appears
overview so is usually phrasing of a passage, between quotation
much shorter than the but retains and fully works.
original text. communicates the
original meaning
 Must be attributed to  Must be attributed to  Must be attributed to
the original source. the original source the original source.

EXAMPLES OF SUMMARIZING, PARAPHRASING, AND DIRECT QUOTING

ORIGINAL PASSAGE

What is Plagiarism?

In minor cases, it can be question of a sentence or two, without quotation works and without
citation (e.g., footnote) to the true author. In the most serious cases, a significant fraction of the entire
work was written by someone else but the plagiarist removed the author name and subtitled his/her
name, perhaps did some reformatting of the text, then submitted the work for credit in a class (e.g.,
term paper or essay) as a part of the requirements for a degree (e.g., thesis or dissertation) or as a part
of a published article or book.

REFERENCE
 Standler, R.B. (2012) Plagiarism in Colleges in USA. Legal aspects of plagiarism, academic
policy. Retrieved from http://www.rbsd.com/play.pdf.p.5

SUMMARY

Plagiarism can be define as using ideas data or any relevant information of another without
giving proper credit or acknowledgement (Standler, 2012).

PARAPHRASE

According to Standler (2012), plagiarism can occur in small cases, which happens when small
parts of a passage are used without enclosing them in quotation marks and citing the author. It can also
occur in more grave situations. In these instances, big chunks of the original text used. There are
changes in the format but the original author is not attributed to and the work is claimed as the
plagiarist own and submitted to comply with academic requirements as a part of a material for
publication.

Standler (2012) states plagiarism can be quotation of a sentence or two, without quotation
marks and without citations.

LESSON 8

What is Abstract, Precise or Summary

Technically speaking, texts classified as either abstract, precise, or summary, and sometimes as
synopsis, are all the same. Whatever they may be called these texts aim to precisely condense a larger
work to present only the key ideas. They tell the audience the gist of what has been lead, listened to, or
viewed.

Since an abstract, a precise and a summary aim to present the key ideas of the text, the general
rule is to condense the information, into around 15% of the original length of the text. However, this is
not a hard and fast rule. In most cases, a 6,000 word research article for an academic journal may
require only 200 to 250 words for its abstract.

RESEARCH ABSTRACT

The abstract of research paper usually contains 150-300 words it does not use any citation, does
not include specific result statistics, and is last to be written. In terms of structure, a research abstract
generally follows the given allocation of words.

 Ratimale (around 20%)

 Research Problems (around 10%)
 Methodology (around 20%)
  Major Findings (around 40%)
 Conclusions and Implication (around 10%)

LESSON 7

POSITION PAPER

 Writer’s stands or viewpoint in a particular issue.

 Entails outlining the opinions and attitudes of others.
 Essential tool in bringing societal change.

PARTS OF POSITION PAPER

1. INTRODUCTION
 Start with an introduction which presents the issue while grabbing the attention of
readers.
2. BODY
 State your major arguments.
3. CONCLUSION
 Restate your position and main arguments.