Academic writing skills

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• WO
• vwo
• Leerjaar 6

Period 3: Writing a problem-solving essay

Academic writings skills

Objectives

You know what parallelism is and how to bring your writing skills up to academic standard. You have learned the rules of APA citations and know  how to apply an academic tone and register.

Want to write more academically?

Take note!

The next video contains a powerful crash course in academic speaking and writing skills.

Take notes. Write down the four subjects that are addressed and what they entail.

Take your notes to heart! Study them and incorporate them into your writing.

So,

Impersonal language

Nominalisation 

Formal and precise language

Cautious language

Impersonal language

Characteristically, academic writing has an objective tone: that is, the language of a written text sounds independent from the writer and reader. An objective tone can be achieved through the use of impersonal language. Using impersonal language requires you, as the writer, to avoid characteristics of personal language such as:

1. Using personal pronouns such as 'I', 'we', 'you', 'our', 'us' to refer to yourself or the reader.

Just don't

2. Using judgemental words that indicate your feelings about a subject.                                             NOT:

Example: I am convinced by Carroll's (1996) conclusion that Australian architecture requires innovation, yet I dislike the way he has ignored residential design in order to reach this conclusion.

3. Using words that are emotive.                   NOT:

Example: The conditions are appalling and account, to a large extent, for the terrible morbidity and mortality statistics of this community.

Let's have a look at Nominalisation

(nouns instead of verbs)

Do you know the nouns of these verbs?

Want to know all the answers?

See the last slide of this LessonUp.

Apply nominalisation to the following sentences:
1. We evaluated the results and this explains the loss in revenue.
2. Student numbers are increasing rapidly from year to year and the University is becoming concerned that they may need to build more accommodation in order to house everyone.

1. An evaluation of results provides an explanation to the loss in revenue.

2. The rapid increase in student numbers is causing concern at the University. More accommodation may have to be built in order to house everyone.

Later, we'll continue with formal, precise and cautious language, 

but first, we'll take a look at parallelism.

Using a mixture of sentence lengths and patterns throughout an essay is an important writing technique. However, it is equally important to avoid introducing variation within individual sentences. A strong sentence is composed of balanced parts that all have the same structure. In this section, we will examine how to create a balanced sentence structure by using parallelism.

Parallelism is the use of similar structure in related words, clauses, or phrases. It creates a sense of rhythm and balance within a sentence.

Parallelism

Improve these example sentences with faulty parallelism:

1. Kelly had to iron, do the washing, and shopping before her parents arrived.
2. Driving a car requires coordination, patience, and to have good eyesight.
3. Ali prefers jeans to wearing a suit.

All of the example sentences contain faulty parallelism. Although they are factually correct, the construction is clunky and confusing. In the first example, three different verb forms are used. In the second and third examples, the writer begins each sentence by using a noun (coordination, jeans), but ends with a phrase (to have good eyesight, wearing a suit).

1.  Kelly had to do the ironing, washing, and shopping before her parents arrived.

2. Driving a car requires coordination, patience, and good eyesight.

3. Ali prefers wearing jeans to wearing a suit.

When these sentences are written using a parallel structure, they sound more aesthetically pleasing because they are balanced. Repetition of grammatical construction also minimizes the amount of work the reader has to do to decode the sentence. This enables the reader to focus on the main idea in the sentence and not on how the sentence is put together.

So, when listing solutions to e.g. global warming you must be careful not to write:

In order to combat global warming governments should  improve energy efficiency,  investing in wind and solar power, a rise in biofuels from organic waste and  setting a price on carbon.

More practice: Correct the following sentences:
1. Mergers have a number of associated problems: cultural, financial and technology.
2. Amazon warehouse employees control merchandise, write orders for delivery, and are invoicing customers.
3. Fairtrade Foundation is aimed at achieving better trading conditions, promoting sustainable farming techniques and alleviate poverty.
4. The students had not only worked diligently but also had effective engagement.

1. Mergers have a number of associated problems: cultural, financial and technological.

2. Amazon’s warehouse employees control merchandise, write orders fordelivery, and invoice customers.

3. he Fairtrade Foundation is aimed at achieving better trading conditions, promoting sustainable farming techniques and alleviating 

poverty. 

4. The students had not only worked diligentlybut also engaged effectively.

Julie, I'm your practice teacher, you're my student. And I have to tell you to refrain from using terms such as "loony", "fruitcake" "nutcase" and "one sandwich short of a picnic" to describe people with mental illness.

Well, ... yes

Oh, come on, Clare! Don't be so PC. Are you telling me you've never used those expressions?

... but not in my dissertation.

Formal and precise Language

In academic writing you need to be precise when you use information, dates or figures. Do not use "a lot of people" when you can say "50 million people".

For example:

•  Chemists had attempted to synthesize quinine for the previous hundred years but all they had achieved was to discover the extreme complexity of the problem. 
• The volatile oily liquid beta-chloro-beta-ethyl sulphide was first synthesized in 1854, and in 1887 it was reported to produce blisters if it touched the skin. It was called mustard gas and was used at Ypres in 19I7, when it caused many thousands of casualties.

Precision

Formal and precise Language

In general this means in an essay that you should avoid:

a. colloquial words and expressions; ""stuff", "a lot of", "thing", "sort of",

b. abbreviated forms: "can't", "doesn't", "shouldn't" 

c. two word verbs: "put off", "bring up" 

d. sub-headings, numbering and bullet-points in formal essays - but use them in reports. 

e. asking questions. 

Formality

Colloquial language

Identify the informal expressions in the following sentences. Rewrite the following sentences, replacing the informal expressions with a more formal equivalent.

1. With women especially, there is a lot of social pressure to conform to a certain physical shape.

2. Significantly, even at this late date, Lautrec was considered a bit conservative by his peers.

3. Simply making the effort to reclaim this wasted stuff for fertilizer would have a positive effect on greenhouse releases.

4. It is difficult to imagine exactly what is meant by saying that such a classification is natural as any collection of things could be classified in this way.

1. With women especially, there is a great deal of social pressure to conform to a certain physical shape.

2. Significantly, even at this late date, Lautrec was considered somewhat conservative by his peers.

3. Simply making the effort to reclaim this wasted material for fertilizer would have a positive effect on greenhouse releases.

4. It is difficult to imagine exactly what is meant by saying that such a classification is natural as any collection of objects could be classified in this way.

Formal

Language

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Cautious Language

Watch the next video and take notes.

Afterwards:

correct the sentences 

by applying hedging.

Hedging practice

1.Playing violent video games causes more aggression, bullying, and fighting.

 2.The impact of the UK’s ageing population will lead to increased welfare costs.
Consequently, this will result in higher taxes and an increased retirement age for younger  

people.

3. By implementing these measure nitrogen disposition will be reduced.

1. It is assumed that playing violent video games may cause more aggression, bullying, and fighting.

2. The impact of the UK’s ageing population will arguably lead to increased welfare costs.

Consequently, this will probably result in higher taxes and an increased retirement age for 

many younger people.
 3. By implementing these measure nitrogen disposition may be reduced.