Book critique

"Academic Writing: A handbook for international students by Stephen Bailey”

Book critique

 In the book “Academic Writing: A handbook for international students”, the reader is presented with a useful handbook that helps and teaches readers develop an essay from scratch. It is an accessible, easy reading book which offers international students of English who have to write exams or coursework in English, a practical guide of the writing process, do not leaving any important ingredient aside as when writing time is regarded.

This ambitious manual is divided into four main sections: 1) the writing process, 2) elements of writing, 3) accuracy in writing and 4) writing models. Each of them is subdivided into small units of study, developing every topic concerned in each area. Every unit of study is introduced with a short explanation followed by exercises that help the reader understand what the author implies by means of practice. Every single topic developed in isolation is followed by an activity in which the reader will be able to put into practice what he has just read and experienced. Clearly, it presents both teachers and students plenty of opportunities to easily find the extra help and practice on different writing activities. Indeed, as Bailey (2006) plainly states it “any international student wishing to maximize his or her academic potential will find this practical and easy-to-use guide to writing in English a truly indispensable resource” (p. 2).

Moreover, this easy to follow and adaptable academic writing manual focuses on explaining the whole writing process from understanding the title to proof-reading, covering referencing and paraphrasing techniques and including several tasks related to accuracy in writing. At the end of the handbook, four writing practice tests and all the book activity answers are available for its users so both classroom work and self-study are possible.

However, more theoretical background and support should be provided so as to enrich the reader with several tools that latter on can be applied to different situations and cases of study. Explanations are merely short and at times it is hard to understand what the author is referring to in case the practice is not present. Anyway, the wide variety of activities included throughout the book is highly appreciated and enjoyed in the process.

All in all, "Academic Writing: A handbook for international students" is a practical manual which leads students towards becoming proficient academic writers by granting the essential tools that international learners of English require to be able to produce valuable pieces of academic writing. Nevertheless, it would be necessary to eventually include more theoretical explanations to enrich the offered practice instances.

  

Reference

 Bailey, S. (2006). Academic Writing: A handbook for international students (2nd ed). Retrieved from http://npu.edu.ua/!e-book/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf

Academic Summary

"Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing” by Christine Tardy

Academic Summary

In the article ‘Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing’, Tardy (2010) depicts a line of action to introduce  second language (L2) higher education learners into the world of academic writing. Tardy (2010)  states that in order to be successful in academic writing students need to have certain skills when they resort to outside sources, such as conducting research, evaluating validity of the sources, summarizing, paraphrasing, citing sources, adopting genre conventions and selecting proper lexis and grammar structures.

The article presents a model in which writers move through the process of composing an article for the web-based encyclopaedia site known as Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org). The article delineates steps for carrying out a Wikipedia research project after describing the main features of the electronic devise. Before delving into this plan, Tardy (2010) makes clear what the website is in nature defining it as “one of the most well-known online encyclopaedia that includes […] over 12 million articles” (p. 13). Then, the eight different steps are clearly developed. In the first one the students must get to know the website and its characteristics focusing on the features of the articles included here. Once this is finished, the second step can be addressed. Students are supposed to have selected a topic so they are going to gather relevant information for their future article. In the third stage, data should be organised in the form of an outline including the corresponding sources. Later, in the fourth face, all the ideas included in the outline will be developed into full sentences that will be part of a coherent text. To go on, peers’ collaboration will be valuable as they are going to revise each other’s articles as part of the fifth point. The next phase, sixth, is to be considered one of the most important as plagiarism will be avoided citing correspondingly all the sources used along the article. Before jumping into the last –eighth- step in which students will publish their articles, careful and detailed “proofreading and polishing” (p.17) must be carried out. This is then part of the seventh phase.

To conclude, Tardy (2010) supports that the project above clearly explained is a good way to start walking the challenging but enriching path of academic writing developing literacy skills. She also affirms that this kind of research projects are accurate for students in different levels as they learn to perform within a context, respecting rules and answering to expected procedures, "Students can explore topics that interest them, while drawing on their multilingual resources and cultural experiences to write from a knowledgeable position" (Tardy, 2010, p. 18).

References

Tardy, C. M. (2010). Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic writing. English Teaching Fórum, 1 pp. 12-19, 27.

Academic Summary and Vignette

“A Small-Scale Study of Primary School English Language Teachers’ Classroom Activities and Problems by Arda Arikan”

Academic Summary

In the article “A small-scale study of primary school English language teachers’ classroom activities and problems”, Arikan (2011) presents the reader with a research carried out in order to spot the difficulties English teachers face while developing their daily task of teaching their subject in Turkish classrooms.

To begin with, the author (Arikan, 2011) highlights the fact that the age of the students being taught English is decreasing as the result of the increasing needs in Turkey for people to master the language. The Ministry of National Education provides the teachers with an English Language Curriculum for Primary Education (2006) along with a list of activities to be developed in the classroom. Moreover, results of the research carried out among several teachers depict flaws as regards poor physical conditions and lack of material. These prevent the teachers from changing their teacher-centered approach towards a student-centered one (Arikan, 2011). “Teachers also claim that having fewer tests or exams will not improve their teaching”. (p. 4)

To conclude, Arikan (2011) states that English teachers accept the fact that they master and frame their lessons using “speaking, grammar, drama and singing activities, but they are insufficient in using audio materials such as the tape recorder and CD player, using films and computers”. (p.5) It is suggested in the article that the necessary gadgets to carry out different kinds of activities should be provided by the Ministry of National Education.

Reference

Arıkan, A. (2011) A small-scale study of primary school English language teachers’ classroom activities and problems. INCONTE, 2011. Akdeniz University, Faculty of Letters, Department of Western Languages and Literatures, Division of English Language and Literature.

Vignette:

While reading the article, I felt that similarities may be found in our Argentinian public education as regards lack of material and sometimes teacher centered approaches due to the material they have. Nevertheless, I cannot support this as I have never worked in a state school. On the contrary, all my teaching experience took place in private schools. As a result, I can say that necessary material such as CD and DVD players, books, well equipped classrooms, to name but a few, were frequently available. All this, made my daily labor easy and planned activities with a variety of sources were carried out without many drawbacks. In the case of my students’ performance, it can be said that most of them could comply with school demands making themselves understood in the target language as a result of a constant exposure to it by means of the teacher’s explanations, recorded listening activities, videos and more. 

Unit 2- Integrative Assignment

Analysis of the use of in-text citations, signal phrases and reference list in a specific article

            Academic writing in English will become an amazing enriching and powerful device whenever it is used precisely and accurately. It is believed that the write’s thought can be reflected in its use and his or her voice will be spread giving the possibility to other counterparts to learn about them. It certainly constitutes a major step towards advanced literacy; writing in academic settings can be an effective practice instrument to develop thinking skills and to find out new ideas.

           The aim of this paper is to deeply analyse the use of in-text citations, signal phrases, and the use of reference list in the article by Dalvit, Murray, and Terzoli, (2005) Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University, according to the documentation system known as American Psychological Association (APA) style.

          Many authors and institutions (Bailey, 2006; Flowerdew, 2000; Purdue OWL, 2006; Tardy, 2010) have produced different manuals and resources that set rules and academic conventions in order to help and guide writers to organize their productions according the established standards. These rules and conventions were studied and then applied to analyse the article.

            Considering the use of in-text citations, the authors mainly use paraphrases to acknowledge their sources. Many examples of indirect quotations with parenthetical citation can be found in the text, such are the following cases:  “(Council on Higher Education, 2001, p. 73)”, “(Rhodes University-Information Technology Division, 2004, p. 73)”, “(Barkhuizen, 2001, p. 74)”, “(Boughey, 2002, p. 73)”, "(Sweetnam- Evans, 2001, p. 74)", and "(Martindale, 2002, p. 75)". Nevertheless, no direct quotations have been used in this article.

           On the whole, the authors have not resorted to using several signal phrases throughout the article. Indeed, only two clear-cut examples are used to introduce cited material into the text: according to Halliday and Martin (1993) and according to Heugh (2002). This is a frequently used technique to introduce other author's words in different kinds of texts.

           As regards the reference list, different types of sources have been listed such as books, reports and electronic resources like websites and journals. The entries have been arranged in alphabetical order right after the end of the article, within the same page but they were not double-spaced. All the content words from the titles have been capitalized. The tenth source does not respect the left margin, altering tidiness in the list. In general, the structure of the reference list included: author's surname, author's initial, publication year, title of work, publisher, retrieved month (day), year, from http://Web address. However, the word "reference" is not correctly typed; it should not have been bold and it should have been centered in the page.

           All in all, the authors have avoided plagiarism and have resorted to follow certain conventions as regards their documentation style. Certainly, they are closely related to the APA documentation system; however, not all conventions have been fully and strictly used.

References

American Physiological Association. (2010) Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.).Washington, DC: Author.

Bailey, S. (2006). Academic Writing: A handbook for international students (2nd ed.). Taylor & Francis e-library .http://npu.edu.ua/!ebook/book/djvu/A/iif_kgpm_t27.pdf.

Dalvit, L., Murray, S. and Terzoli, A. (2005). Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University. US-China Education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol. 2 (9).

Flowerdew, J. (2000). “Discourse community, legitimate peripheral participation, and the nonnative-English-speaking scholar.” TESOL Quarterly, Vol 34, 1, pp. 127-150.

Purdue OWL. (2006). In-Text Citations: The Basics. Retrieved September, 2014 from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/02/  

Salmani-Nodoushan, M., and Alavi, S. (2004). APA style and Research Report Writing. Zabankadeh Publications. 

Tardy, C. M. (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum, 1, pp. 12-19, 27. 

Our joint version of the outline Chaves- Ovejero

Purpose: To summarize main ideas from the article “Editor’s Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators” by Christine Kelly-Kleese.

Thesis: A discourse community is a rich field where professionals can continue enriching themselves, growing as such and where to share goals with colleagues.

Audience: Professionals interested in learning about or taking part in a Discourse Community.

     I. Community college = Discourse Community

     I. I. Discourse Community 

                a. Definition: 

                         - group of people who share certain language-using practices

                         - can be seen as conventionalized by

                                        1. social interaction within the group

                                         2. in its dealings with outsiders. (Bizzell 1992, p. 222)

                 b. Purposes:

i. Conceptualizing the nature of the community in general,

ii. Increasing perceptions of community college communicative competence,

iii. Moving its professionals into position of legitimate power within the larger higher education discourse community.

                 c. Members:

                         i. Develop a common discourse that involves shared knowledge,

                         ii. Common purposes,

                         iii. Common relationships,

                         iv. Similar attitudes and values,

                         v. Shared understandings about how to communicate their knowledge and archive their shared                                  purposes,

                         vi. A flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style. (Kutz, 1997, p. 200). 

               d. Tools: 

                         i. Language

                              1. Enhance the college’s reputation,

                              2. Bring prestige to the campus and its faculty,

                              3. Reshape the image of the institution.  

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