faculty of materials engineering / university of babylon

Academic EnglishAcademic English and Research
Academic English Certificate from ELTC University of Sheffield - United Kingdom
Email: [email protected]
University Webpage: http://staff.uobabylon.edu.iq/site.aspx?id=903
Schoology Access Code: 2FKP9-4CSFP
Lecturer: Mohanad K. I. Mamoori / Last updated: December 2015 2
What do you need from today?
New student in college
As a new college student, you may have a
lot of anxiety and questions about the writing you will do in college.*
That word “academic,” especially, may turn your
stomach or turn your nose.
Academic writing
• For academic sciences.
communication skill.
• No exaggeration.
• Always allow for arguing
• The “Paint by Numbers”
we cycle through and
• Writers only start writing
when they have everything
figure out much of what they want to write as
they write it. Rather than waiting, get some
writing on the page—even with gaps or
problems. You can come back to patch up
rough spots.
• Perfect first drafts
either by focusing too much on the impossible task
of making them perfect (which can put a cap on
the development of our ideas), or by making too
little effort be cause we don’t care or know about
their inevitable problems. Nobody writes perfect
first drafts; polished writing takes lots of revision.
Myths about Academic writing : Myth 4
• Some got it; I don’t—the
genius fallacy
something fixed or out of your control (as if
it were in your genetic code), then you
won’t believe you can improve as a writer
and are likely not to make any efforts in
that direction. With effort and study,
though, you can improve as a writer.
I promise..
• Good grammar is good
When people say “I can’t write,” what they often
mean is they have problems with grammatical
correctness. Writing, however, is about more than
just grammatical correctness. Good writing is a
matter of achieving your desired effect upon an
intended audience. Plus, as we saw in myth #3,
no one writes perfect first drafts.
• The Five Paragraph Essay
while others believe no other way to write
exists. With an introduction, three supporting
paragraphs, and a conclusion, the five
paragraph essay is a format you should
know, but one which you will outgrow. You’ll
have to gauge the particular writing
assignment to see whether and how this
format is useful for you.
• Never use “I and We”
Adopting this formal stance of objectivity
implies a distrust (almost fear) of informality
and often leads to artificial, puffed-up
prose. Although some writing situations will
call on you to avoid using “I” (for example, a
lab report), much college writing can be
done in a middle, semi-formal style where it
is ok to use “I.”
Writing VS Speaking
• Writing: 2D communication in
use punctuation and word
choice to communicate our
• Novice writers often write as if
they were mumbling to
read by a reader or any sense
of the context within which their
communication will be received.
• Developing your
Writing resources
• Books
• Journals
• Web
Knowledge of Research Skills
Search: using Google and Wikipedia, etc……
Academic Search: using scholarly articles in Google
scholar, science direct and Web of science, etc….
Will be covered later on in the following lectures.
Ability to Read Complex Texts
Your ability to write well will be based upon the quality
of your reading.
separating fact from opinion, recognizing biases and assumptions, and making inferences.
Ability to Read Complex Texts
• Your ability to write
well will be based
upon the quality of
Writing: Steal from others
• Plagiarism
• Paraphrasing
• Don't (do not!) use contractions (eg it's, he'll, it'd etc): always use the full
form (it is/has, he will, it would/had).
• Don't use colloquial language or slang (eg kid, a lot of/lots of, cool)
• Always write as concisely as you can, with no irrelevant material or
“waffle”.
• Generally avoid "phrasal verbs" (e.g. get off, get away with, put in etc):
instead, use one word equivalents.
• Avoid common but vague words and phrases such as get, nice, thing.
Your writing needs to be more precise.
• Avoid overuse of brackets; don’t use exclamation marks or dashes; avoid
direct questions; don’t use “etc”.
• Always use capital letters appropriately and never use the type of
language used in texting!
STRUCTURE YOUR WRITING CAREFULLY
• Make sure you write in complete
sentences.
paragraphs.
to follow.
carefully.
• Avoid too much personal language (I, my, we etc). Some tutors prefer you to
avoid it completely. Never use emotive language; be objective rather than
subjective.
• Avoid being too dogmatic and making sweeping generalisations. It is usually best
to use
• Some sort of “hedging” language (see below) and to qualify statements that you
make.
• You should consistently use evidence from your source reading to back up what
you are saying and reference this correctly.
• Avoid sexist language, such as chairman, mankind. Don’t refer to “the doctor” as
he; instead, make the subject plural and refer to them as they. Avoid he/she,
herself/himself etc.
• Use nominalisation; that is, try to write noun-based phrases rather that verb-
based ones.
HEDGING/AVOIDING COMMITMENT
• Avoid overuse of first person pronouns (I, we, my, our)
• Use impersonal subjects instead (It is believed that ..., it can be argued that ...)
• Use passive verbs to avoid stating the ‘doer’ (Tests have been conducted)
• Use verbs (often with it as subject) such as imagine, suggest, claim, suppose
• Use ‘attitudinal signals’ such as apparently, arguably, ideally, strangely,
unexpectedly.
• These words allow you to hint at your attitude to something without using
personal language.
• Use verbs such as would, could, may, might which ‘soften’ what you’re saying.
• Use qualifying adverbs such as some, several, a minority of, a few, many to
avoid making overgeneralisations.
• Irvin, L. Lennie. "What Is “Academic” Writing?." writingspaces 1
(2010): 3. • http://writingspaces.org/ • http://library.bcu.ac.uk/learner/writingguides/1.20.htm
With best wishes: MOHANAD MAMOORI
Feel free to email me on: [email protected]

faculty of materials engineering / university of babylon

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