EAPP PERIODICAL TEST REVIEW
Academic texts are typically formal. They have clearly structured introduction, body and conclusion. They
include information from credible sources which are, in turn, properly cited. They also include list of
references used in developing the academic paper.
FEATURES OF ACADEMIC WRITING
Complexity - Written language is relatively more complex than spoken language. Written texts are shorter and
the language has more grammatical complexity, including more subordinate clauses and more passives.
Formality - Academic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in an essay you should avoid
colloquial words and expressions.
Precision - In academic writing, facts and figures are given precisely.
Objectivity - Written language is in general objective rather than personal.
Explicitness - Academic writing is explicit about the relationships int he text.
Accuracy - Academic writing uses vocabulary accurately. Most subjects have words with narrow specific
meanings. Linguistics distinguishes clearly between "phonetics" and "Phonemic"; general English does not.
Hedging - A technique common in certain kinds of academic writing is known by linguists as a ‘hedge’.
Responsibility - In academic writing you must be responsible for, and must be able to provide evidence and
justification for, any claims you make. You are also responsible for demonstrating an understanding of any
source texts you use.
Organization - Academic writing is well organized. It flows easily from one section to the next in a logical
fashion.
Planning - Academic writing is well planned. It usually takes place after research and evaluation, according to
a specific purpose and plan.
BASIC PARTS OF AN ESSAY
The introduction. This is where the subject or topic is introduced.
The body. All the main ideas, topics, and subject are discussed here in details.
The conclusion. The last part of an essay and usually summarizes the overall topic or ideas of an essay.
Topic Sentence VS Thesis Statement
The thesis is the main idea of your paper written in one sentence at the beginning of your paper.
The topic sentences begin each paragraph in the body of the paper and explain why the thesis statement is
true. There is only one thesis statement. There is one topic sentence for each body paragraph you write.
FACTS VS OPINION
Fact - A fact generally refers to something that is true and can be verified as such. That is, a fact is something
that can be proven to be true.
Opinion - An opinion refers to a personal belief. It relates to how someone feels about something. Others may
agree or disagree with an opinion, but they cannot prove or disprove it.
PRECIS - SUMMARY – ABSTRACT
Précis is a concise summary of an article or other work. It is a French word that literally means to cut short. It
is not an essay or re-writing. It shouldn’t tell but summarize a core essence of the original document and
provide readers with the information about its significance and worth.
Summary in an essay is telling the main ideas of the article in your own words. So that others can understand
the source or evaluate your comprehension of it.
Abstract is simply a short, standalone summary of the work or paper that others can use as an overview. It is
often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper's purpose.
Outlining An outline is a map of your essay. It shows what information each section or paragraph will contain,
and in what order. Most outlines use numbers and/or bullet points to arrange information and convey points.
CRITICAL APPROACHES IN WRITING A CRITIQUE
Formalism- claims that literary works contain intrinsic properties and treats each work as a distinct work of art.
In short, it posits that the key to understanding a text is through the text itself; the historical context, the author,
or any other external contexts are not necessary in interpreting the meaning.
Feminist Criticism- also called feminism, it focuses on how literature presents women as subjects of socio-
political, psychological, and economic oppression.
Reader-Response Criticism- is concerned with the reviewer’s reaction as an audience of a work. This
approach claims that the reader’s role cannot be separated from the understanding of the work; a text does not
have meaning until the reader reads it and interprets it.
Marxist Criticism- is concerned with differences between economic classes and implications of a capitalist
system, such as the continuing conflicts between the working class and the elite.
7 Principles of Effective Critique
[Link] - Limit your critique to the observed behavior of the student and do not criticize her personality,
general psychological traits, or (even worse!) physical characteristics.
2. SPECIFIC - A student cannot understand an error and correct it if the instructor is not specific enough.
3. CONSTRUCTIVE - Our world is awash in negativity. There is no point in being destructive when identifying a
mistake.
4. COMPREHENSIVE - Your critique should be balanced and include both good and bad points of the student.
5. ACCEPTABLE - The instructor must be perceived as a legitimate authority before the critique can be
accepted by the student.
[Link] - An instructor should be able to shape his critique depending on the audience, context.
7. ORGANIZED - A good instructor takes the student by the hand and leads her through as few steps as
possible to the desired goal of the instruction or the critique session.
CONCEPT PAPER (PROPOSAL PAPER)
All research projects need a concept paper: a short summary that tells the reader what the project is, why it is
important, and how it will be carried out.
1. A title in the form of a question. This may be the last part of the concept paper that you write, but it should
appear at the heading of the paper.
2. A clear description of the research topic, including a summary of what is already known about that topic.
3. A one-sentence statement of the research question that the project will seek to answer. (This is
almost always something that is not known.) The concept paper should elaborate on how this question can
be answered.
4. A demonstration of why it is important to answer this research question.
5. A description of how the researcher plans to answer the research question. This includes:
a. description of the data or evidence that the researcher plans to gather or use;
b. a description of how the researcher will analyze these data; and
c. a demonstration of how these data and this analytic method will answer the research question.
Etymology: sharing a word's origin. Examples or anecdotes: telling a story or example that illustrates the term.
Negation: defining a term by explaining what the concept is not.
Evoking the senses: using a word that creates a picture in the reader's mind so that the reader might relate
through memory of sound, sight, touch, hearing, or smell.
Environment or sector: pointing out how and where something is used.
Ramifications: showing how the term or concept affects people or objects.
Historical references: showing how a word has been defined throughout history.
Concept Clarification - An analysis of an abstract concept through investigation of examples and the
identification of critical and less critical attributes
Explicit and Implicit Concepts
Implicit concepts - are an implicit version of what psychologists call prototypes, although implicit concepts
(unlike prototypes according to most theories) may encode some causal information about categories.
Explicit concepts - may encode statistical and causal information, but more importantly, they may encode
syntactic information, definitional information, and whatever else is needed for the language faculty (in the
narrow sense) to process them.
Explicit concepts are necessary for explicit cognition – the distinctively human ability to use language,
represent unobservable, nonexistent, abstract, and ad hoc aspects of the world, and perform linguistic
inferences.