Midterms

• Writing - is form of communication
• Communication is shaped by:

  1. Topic
  2. Role
  3. Purpose
  4. Audience
• What is the text about? What detains am I giving to the readers?

  Topic
• Who am I as a Writer?

  Role
• Why are you writing this text?

  Purpose
• Audience - The reader
• Academic Writing - requires sophisticated use of language
• Academic writing must be presented in an orderly, coherent, and consistent manner
• 4 important features of language:

  
  

  1. Formality
  2. Objectivity
  3. Explicitness
  4. Caution
• Formality - Refers to the observance of rules, etiquette, and conventions.
• Formality:

  1. Choosing expanded modal forms
  2. Choosing one verb over two word verbs
  3. Choosing expanded terms over abbreviations
  4. Avoiding colloquial, trite, and jargon
• Objectivity - the lack of bias, unfairness, and favoritism towards a certain subject/topic
• Objectivity:

  1. Avoid use of the 1st person point of views. Instead use 3rd person point of views.
  2. Avoid rhetorical questions to avoid showing bias. Write as if you reader knows nothing about you or anything you are talking about
  3. Avoid emotive language. Do not use words that directly refer to the feelings or emotions. Write text in a concise way and in the shortest way possible.
• Explicitness - refers to saying things directly to avoid confusion and doubt
• Explicitness:

  1. use the word "However" as an introduction to an opposing point in the same paragraph/text.
  2. When two ideas seem the same, express each one clearly regardless as to avoid confusion.
  3. Use the words "in addition" to give extra information
  4. Use the words "for example" when giving examples
• Caution - refers to the avoidance of sweeping generalizations.
• Caution:

  1. Avoiding generalizations is a way of preventing rhetorical impact statements (damage control)
• We need to observe caution due to the ff:

  1. When a hypothesis needs to presented
  2. Drawing conclusions or predictions from your findings
  3. Referencing other's work to build your own paper
• 2 different structures of sentences:

  1. Nominalization
  2. Passive Construction
• Nominalization - the verbs are made central as the denote action. This helps transform verbs into nouns which help readers focus on the action and not the doer of the action.
• Passive Construction - the results of actions are highlighted
• Plagiarism - is a serious form of academic dishonesty
• Plagiarism - is defined as the copying verbatim of language and ideas of other writers and taking credit for them.
• You can use note taking and paraphrasing together with citations to prevent plagiarism
• Note-taking skills/techniques:

  1. Summarizing
  2. Using quotations
  3. Paraphrasing
• 2 types of plagiarism:

  1. Plagiarism of ideas
  2. Plagiarism of language
• Plagiarism of ideas - occurs when credit for a work is ascribed to one self untruthfully.
• Author Oriented Citation - starts with the surname of the author, followed by the year of publication in parentheses. Verbs of statement may be used to give a proper emphasis and transition.
• Text Oriented Citation - a paragraph or sentence from a source is follow with the surname of the author of the work and the year of publication. The citation must be enclosed in parenthesis.
• Start the sentence or paragraph by using the phrase "According to..." followed by the surname of the author and the year of publication enclosed in parentheses.
• Use the APA citation format as a general rule of thumb
• Essay - a short piece of writing on a particular subject
• Thesis statement - overall idea of argument of your work.
• Outline - is beneficial to organizing one's work.
• 2 formats of outlines:

  1. Traditional format
  2. Standard format
• Traditional format - uses roman numeral, letters, numbers
• Standard format - uses numbers
• Consider the following when creating outlines:

  1. Parallelism
  2. Coordination
  3. Subordination
  4. Division
• Parallelism - observe the same language structure
• Coordination - Observe the level of importance of the topics and points and their sub-points