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.