Advice on academic writing

21
ADVICE ON ACADEMIC WRITING UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, Writing Courses

Transcript of Advice on academic writing

Page 1: Advice on academic writing

ADVICE ON ACADEMIC WRITING

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, Writing Courses

Page 2: Advice on academic writing

Some General Advice on Academic Essay-Writing

•When writing an academic essay it is important to develop a consitent thesis. This should have an appropiate argument, which will help to prove the idea proposed.

•The first step should be to formulate the question(s) you will seek to answer in your essay. 

• The organization of your text should be clear and appropiate.

Providing evidence

Keep the essay's overall purpose and organization

in mind

Start writing early

Taking Notes from Research Reading

Revise extensively

Page 3: Advice on academic writing

Planning and Organizing

The best time to think about how to organize your paper is during the pre-writing stage.Most university essays are argumentative, and there is no set pattern for the shape of an argumentative essay. To convince your reader of the validity of your position, the organisation of your text should be clear.

Using Thesis Statements

When you are asked to write an essay that creates an argument, your reader will probably expect a clear statement of your position. Typically, this summary statement comes in the first paragraph of the essay, though there is no rigid rule about position. 

Page 4: Advice on academic writing

• Introductions and conclusions play a special role in the academic essay, and they frequently demand much of your attention as a writer. A good introduction should identify your topic, provide essential context, and indicate your particular focus in the essay. It also needs to engage your readers' interest. A strong conclusion will provide a sense of closure to the essay 

IIntroduction and

conclusion

•Thematic unit.Paragraph

Topic Sentence

•It states the main point of a paragraph: it serves as a mini-thesis for the paragraph.

Page 5: Advice on academic writing

The Transition from High School to University Writing

To meet the expectations of university writing, you will need to unlearn rules you may have learned in high school. The reason for this to happen is that university writing is a more complex discipline. Several things to remember about these differences:

UNIVERSITY  Discourages formulas. Provides freedom for you to come up with your own way of structuring your argument. Offers discipline-specific guidelines for approaching written work. Encourages critical thinking. Discourages repetition. Argumentative essays should be supported by evidence from your sources.

Page 6: Advice on academic writing

Reading and ResearchingCritical Reading Towards Critical Writing

Most of the papers you write will involve reflection on written texts - the thinking and research that has already been done on your subject. In order to write your own analysis of this subject, you will need to do careful critical reading of sources and to use them critically to make your own argument.

Choose where to focus your critical efforts.

Avoid foregrounding and isolating facts and examples.

Use quotation critically. Quote appropiately.

Critical reading may involve evaluation.

Page 7: Advice on academic writing

How to Get the Most Out of Reading

•Be aware of the structure of the text as you read.

•Know what kind of ideas you need to record.

• Consider to maintain an appropiate length for the text.

Research Using the Internet

Firstly, it is important to resort to the Internet in a responsible and critic manner. There are a great many solid academic resources available, keeping a detailed record of sites you visit and the sites you use is a helpful idea to use them when necessary. Guarantee the reliability and accuracy of the resources.

Page 8: Advice on academic writing

New Vocabulary Words It is important to comprehend with precision the meaning of the words present in the different resources. In order to do this without a constant interruption during the reading, there are certain aspects to recollect:

SOUND CONTEXTSTRUCTURE DICTIONARY

Skimming and Scanning

 One of the most effective methods for beginning the kind of thoughtful reading necessary for academic work is to get a general overview of the text before beginning to read it in detail. This is called ´skimming´. ´Scanning´is reading with a more focused purpose, such as locating a particular fact or figure.

Page 9: Advice on academic writing

Using Sources

• Using Quotations-You must preserve the punctuation of a quoted passage, or else you must enclose in square brackets any punctuation marks that are your own.

-Indicate any alteration made when quoting.

- If an argument or a factual account from one of your sources is particularly relevant to your paper but does not deserve to be quoted consider:

SummarizingThe relevant passage if you wish to sketch only the most essential points in the passage.

Page 10: Advice on academic writing

Be adequate in the use of the different resources and qoutations, be careful not to plagiarise.

ParaphrasingThe passage if you wish to convey the points in the passage at roughly the same level of detail as in the original.

Provide a reference.

The paraphrase must be in your own words. You must do more than merely substitute phrases here and there. You must also create your own sentence structures.

Page 11: Advice on academic writing

Specific Types of WritingThe Book Review or Article Critique

An analytic or critical review of a book or article is not primarily a summary; rather, it comments on and evaluates the work in the light of specific issues and theoretical concerns in a course.Some reviews summarize the book's content and then evaluate it; others integrate these functions, commenting on the book and using summary only to give examples.

An annotated bibliography

An annotated bibliography gives an account of the research that has been done on a given topic. Like any bibliography, an annotated bibliography is an alphabetical list of research sources. In addition to bibliographic data, an annotated bibliography provides a concise summary of each source and some assessment of its value or relevance.

Page 12: Advice on academic writing

The Literature Review

A literature review is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers. In writing the literature review, the purpose is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas have been established on a topic, and what their strengths and weaknesses are.

The Academic Proposal

An academic proposal is the first step in producing a thesis or major project. Its intent is to convince a supervisor or academic committee that your topic and approach are sound, so that you gain approval to proceed with the actual research. As well as indicating your plan of action, an academic proposal should show your theoretical positioning and your relationship to past work in the area.

Page 13: Advice on academic writing

The Abstract

It is the first impression of the document that follows abstract should represent as much as possible of the quantitative and qualitative information in the document, and also reflect its reasoning.

Writing about History

When writing about History it is important to resort to both Primary and Secondary Sources. A primary source is a document that was created at the time of the event or subject you've chosen to study or by people who were observers of or participants in that event or topic.Effective Admission Letters

It is a letter or personal statement as part of applying for graduate or professional school. It should have the appropiate format and structure.

Page 14: Advice on academic writing

Style and Editing

Errors In Grammar, Punctuation, And Style

When editing your paper it is essential to revise these aspects:

•How well you've handled the topic and followed the assignment.•The quality of your ideas.•The way you've organized your paper.•The quality of your writing style and grammar.

Punctuation

Punctuation, when skillfully deployed, provides you with considerable control over meaning and tone. 

Page 15: Advice on academic writing

Some Tools and Rules to Improve Your Spelling

Use a dictionary.Be consistent about using British or American spellings in your writing.Create your own "difficult-to-spell" lists.Learn the standard pronunciations for frequently misspelled words.Watch out for homophones, near-homophones, and other easily confusable words.Use your computer spellchecker, but with caution.Learn English spelling rules.

Page 16: Advice on academic writing

Common mistakes

Subject-Verb AgreementThe two essential parts of a complete sentence are the subject and verb. It is extremely important to avoid this mistakes, especially when using relatives clauses, long sentences and when the subject of a sentence consists of a complex noun phrase.PluralsThe plural form of most nouns is formed by adding s to the end of the word. Although the application of this rule is wide, the irregularity of a number of words in English should be known.

PossessivesThere are different types of indicating possession in English, such us pronouns, preposition, possessive s. To know them all will enrich the writings.

Page 17: Advice on academic writing

English as a Second LanguageUsing Articles

To determine which article to place in front of almost any noun, it is useful to know whether the noun is:

countable uncountable singular plural definite indefinite

Recognising the type of noun will help to know when to use a definite article, such as a- an , indefinite one, as the, or a zero-article Ø .

Page 18: Advice on academic writing

Expressions of Quantity: Special Cases of Subject-Verb AgreementSubject-verb agreement is generally quite straightforward in English. However, with subjects that introduce the idea of quantity, some additional rules are needed.

•With fractions, percentages and indefinite quantifiers (e.g., all, few, many, much,some), the verb agrees with the preceding noun or clause

• With a collective noun, use either a singular or a plural verb, depending on whether you want to emphasize the single group or its individual members.

•Expressions of time, money and distance usually take a singular verb.

• Adjectives preceded by the and used as plural nouns take a plural verb.

Page 19: Advice on academic writing

Using Gerunds and Infinitives

Both gerunds and infinitives can replace a noun as the object of a verb. Whether you use a gerund or an infinitive depends on the main verb in the sentence. In order to know which verb is required, there is an abundance of resources, such as lists. Remember gerunds can follow a preposition; infinitives cannot.

Verbs for Referring to Sources

Writers indicate their attitude to the sources they cite by choosing specific verbs to refer to them. This is done in order to intensify the importance of the bibliography quoted, the credibility of the sources and the controversial aspects of them. Due to the complexity of these verbs, it is needed to know the structure they require.

Page 20: Advice on academic writing

BIBLIOGRAPHY•´SOME GENERAL ADVICE ON ACADEMIC ESSAY-WRITING´,Professor Anderson Silber, Department of English, University of Toronto. 1987, revised 1995. •´The Transition from High School to University´. Prepared by Rebecca Vogan and Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre. A first draft of this handout was developed at Innis College.•´Organizing an Essay´. Prepared by Jerry Plotnick, Director of the University College Writing Centre. •´Introductions and Conclusions´. Prepared by Leora Freedman and Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre.•´Paragraphs´. Prepared by Margaret Procter, Writing Support, and Vikki Visvis, University College Writing Centre.•´Using Topic Sentences´. Prepared by Jenny Hall and Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre. •´CRITICAL READING TOWARD CRITICAL WRITING´. Prepared by Deborah Knott, Director of the New College Writing Centre

Page 21: Advice on academic writing

•HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF READING, Prepared by Dr. Margaret Procter, University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support.• TAKING NOTES FROM RESEARCH READING. Prepared by Dr. Margaret Procter, University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support.•English language learning program (ell). L. Freedman 2012, University of Toronto.•HOW NOT TO PLAGIARIZE. Updated 14 July 2010 by Dr. Margaret Procter, University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support.•Using Quotations. Prepared by Jerry Plotnick, Director of the University College Writing Centre.•´THE ABSTRACT´. Prepared by Dr. Margaret Procter, University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support.•´The Comparative Essay´. Prepared by Vikki Visvis and Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre• ´WRITING AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY´. Written by Deborah Knott, New College Writing Centre. Copyright 2004. •SPECIAL CASES IN THE USE OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE. Prepared by Martine Johnson, International Student Centre, University of Toronto.