TESOL

Sunday, September 12, 2010

An approach to academic writing

Writing has some process to follow: starting rutuals, idea generation, organization, drafting, re-vision-ing, and proofreading.
When I write some assey, I follow this process: starting rutuals, free writing, correcting, and proofreading. However, I didn't think about who will be my audience. I usually focused on myself.
This paper, 'Academic Writing for Graduate Students' give us information how to write our academic writing. So as to write academic papers, we need to consider audience, purpose, organization, style, flow, and presentation.

Audience
Depending on audience, it will be written differently. If audience are the same quality as writer, the writer can mention the sepecific words freely. However, if audience are not related to the writer's work, the writer have to explain some specific words more. Therefore to write paper the subject, 'for whom', is necessary to think.

Purpose and Strategy
Depending on the audience's knowledge, the writer's purpose and strategy will be different. Using the data is considerable. It should be sure.

Oraganization
The order of writing is also mentioned. For example, if someone write a letter to inform the good news, he/she starts to write with acknowlegment and soon inform good news. Addition to this, he/she will continue the letter with adminstarive details and welcoming close. However, if he/she write a letter to inform the bad news, the order will be different: preparation for bad news, bad news, close, and acknowledgement
Why the order is different?
First one would like to continue the story more to the end, but the latter would not like to continue the letter so mention the bad news first.
As a writer it has to be considerated.

Style
It says voabulary shift. Every writing has different style. So it has to be written with academic style. When we speak, we can say informal words such as slang, however, in the academic writing would not. Therefore, we neet to change some words which are not accordance with academic way. It is called, 'vocabulary shift'.

ex) Researchers looked at the way strain builds up around a fault.
=>looked at -> observed, builds up -> accumulates

I tried some tasks on page 16-20, however, it was so difficult for me. Because I am not a native speaker, I am lack of vocabularies. To shift vocabulary, I have to know abundent vocabularies which they can shift each other. Because of this, it is not a easy task I think. However, it needs to be considered, so I will think this from now on.

Flow
It is to move from one statemnet in a text to the next. We need to use kinds of conjuctions; for example, because, because of this, so that, also more, however, and etc.
Linking words and pharase, and summary word are essential to write academically and look better.

Presentation
Have to check small erros in papers: too/to/two, basic errors, misspelled words
1. consider the overall format of written work
2. proofread for careless grammar mistakes
3. check for misspelled words, even if your have spell-chekced your work

Positioning

Through this article, I could think about many considerations such as audience, purpose, organization, style, flow, and presentation.
Writing is not the easy work, however, trying over times, we could achieve the better one. For vocabulary to memorize, for process to try to follow. Just try, try, is the only way to make success!

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