Consumers liked online shoppingbecauseit’squiteconvenient.

Conven ience was c i t ed by theconsumers as the most importantreasonwhytheypreferonlineshopping.

If you own a business, the store spaceyourentorownisamajorexpense.

One factor that traditional retailbusiness owners must consider is thecost of the story space. The price persquare meter of space is a majorexpensewhether the space isownedorrented.

At first, I thought that the peopleweretalking about something ordinary. Sowhat’sso interestingabout it? In fact, itis so boring. And then I realized thatHemingway used simple language onpurpose because he wanted the dialogtocontrastwiththeserioustopic.

Hemingway ’s use o f de l iberateambiguity in the dialogue serves toheightenthereader’s interest inwhat isgoingon inthestory.Thereadercomesto the realization that the deceptivelysimple use of dialogue belies theseriousnessofthetopicofconversation.

▪ Academic writing in English is linear; it hasone central point or theme with every partcontributing to the main line of argument,withoutdigressionsorrepetitions.

▪ Its objective is to inform rather thanentertain.

Eight Main Language FeaturesofAcademicWriting

1.Complexity▪ (SPOKEN) Youcancontrolthetrainsthiswayandifyou

do that you can be quite sure that they’ll beabletorunmoresafelyandmorequicklythantheywouldotherwise,nomatterhowbadtheweathergets.

▪ (WRITTEN) The use of this method of control

unquestionably leads to saferand faster trainrunning in the most adverse weatherconditions.

▪Academicwritingisrelativelyformal.▪ Ingeneral,thismeansthatyoushouldAVOID:a. colloquial words and expressions: stuff,alot,thing

b. abbreviated forms: can’t, doesn’t,shouldn’t

c. two-wordverbs:putoff,bringupd. subheadings,numbering,andbulletpointse. askingquestions

2.Formality

▪ Inacademicwriting,youneedto be precise when you useinformation,dates,orfigures.▪Do not use “a lot of people”whenyoucansay“50millionpeople.”

3.Precision

▪Written language is, ingeneral,objectiveratherthanpersonal.▪ It, therefore, has fewerwords that refer to thewriterorthereader.▪Thismeansthatthemainemphasisshouldbeonthe information that you want to give and theargumentsyouwanttomake,ratherthanyou.▪For that reason,academicwriting tends tousenouns(andadjectives),ratherthanverbs(andadverbs).

4.Objectivity

a . C o m p a r e t h e s e t w oparagraphs

▪ The question of what constitutes “languageproficiency” and thenatureof its cross-lingualdimensions is also at the core of many hotlydebated issues in the areas of bilingualeducationandsecond languagepedagogyandtesting. Research have suggested ways ofmaking second language teaching and testingmore “communicative” ( e.g., Canale andSwain,1980;Oller,1979b)onthegroundsthata communicative approach better reflects thenatureof languageproficiencythanonewhichemphasizes the acquisition of discretelanguageskills.

▪ We don’t really know what languageproficiency is, but many people have talkedabout it for a long time. Some researchershavetriedtofindwaysforustomaketeachingandtestingmorecommunicativebecausethatishowlanguageworks.Ithinkthatlanguageissomethingweuse forcommunicating,notanobject forus to studyandwe remember thatwhenweteachandtestit.

Whichismoreobjective?

b.Ingeneral,avoidwordslikeI,me,myself

▪ A reader will normally assume thatanyideanotreferencedisyourown.

▪ It is, therefore, unnecessary to makethisexplicit.

Don’twrite:Inmyopinion,thisisaveryinterestingstudy.

Write:Thisisaveryinterestingstudy.

Avoid“you”torefertothereaderorpeopleingeneral.

Don’t write: “You can easily forget howdifferentlifewas50yearsago.”

Write: “It is easy to forgethowdifficult lifewas50yearsago.”

c.Examples

▪ Clearly,thiswasfarlesstrueofFrancethan…▪ This is where the disagreements andcontroversiesbegin…

▪ Thedataindicatesthat…▪ Thisisnotaviewsharedbyeveryone;Jones,forexample,claimsthat…

▪ …veryfewpeoplewouldclaim▪ Itisworthwhileatthisstagetoconsider…▪ Ofcourse,moreconcreteevidenceisneededbefore…

▪ Severalpossibilitiesemerge…▪ Acommonsolutionis…

▪ Academic writing is explicit about therelationshipsinthetext.

▪ Furthermore, it is the responsibility ofthewriterinEnglishtomakecleartothereaderhowthevariouspartsofthetextarerelated.

▪ Theseconnectionscanbemadeexplicitbytheuseofdifferentsignalingwords.

5.Explicitness

▪ Academic writing is explicit in severalways.

▪ It is explicit in its signposting of theorganizationoftheideasinthetext.

▪ As awriter of academic English, it is yourresponsibility to make it clear to yourreaderhow various parts of the text arerelated.

▪ Theseconnectionscanbemadebytheuseofdifferentsignalingwords.

a. For example, if you want to tellyour reader that your line ofargument is going to change,makeitclear.

TheBristol 167was tobeBritain’s greatnewadvanceonAmericantypessuchastheLockheedConstellationandDouglasDC-6,whichdidnothavetherangetoflytheAtlantic non-stop. It was also to bethe largest aircraft ever built in Britain.However,evenbytheendofthewar,thedesignhadrunintoseriousdifficulties.

b. If you think that one sentencegives reasons for something inanothersentence,makeitexplicit.

Whileanearliergenerationofwritershadnoted this feature of the period, it wasnot until the recent work of Cairncrossthat the significance of this outflowwasrealized. Partly this was because thecurrent account deficit appears muchsmaller in current ( 1980s ) data than itwasthoughttobebycontemporaries.

c.If youthinktwoideasarealmostthesame,sayso.

Marx referred throughout his work to othersystems than the capitalist system, especiallythosewhichheknewfromthehistoryofEuropeto have preceded capitalism; systems such asfeudalism,wheretherelationofproductionwascharacterized by the personal relation of thefeudal lord and his serf and a relation ofsubordination which came from the lord’scontrol of the land. Similarly, Marx wasinterested in slavery and in the classical IndianandChinesesocial systems,or in thosesystemswhere the ties of local community are allimportant.

d. If you intend your sentence togiveextrainformation,makeitclear.

Heisbornintoafamily,hemarriesintoafamily,andhebecomesthehusbandandfatherofhisownfamily. Inaddition,hehas a definite place of origin andmorerelativesthanheknowswhattodowith,andhereceivesarudimentaryeducationattheCanadianMissionSchool.

e. If you are giving examples, do itexplicitly.

This has sometimes led to disputesbetween religious and secular clergy,between orders and bishops. Forexample, in the Northern context, thepreviousbishopofDownandConnor,Dr.Philibin,refusedformostofhisperiodofleadership in Belfast to have Jesuitsvisitingorresidinginhisdiocese.

▪ Academic writing uses vocabularyaccurately.

▪ Most subjects have words withnarrowspecificmeanings.

▪ Inacademicwriting,youneedtobeaccurateinyouruseofvocabulary.

6.Accuracy

▪ Do not confuse, for example,“phonetics” and “phonology” or“grammar”with“syntax.”

▪ Choose the correct word, forexample, “meeting,” “assembly,”“gathering,”or“conference.”

▪ Or f r om : “money, ” “ c a s h , ”“currency,”“capital,”or“funds”

▪ Inanykindofacademicwritingyoudo,itis necessary to make decisions aboutyourstanceonaparticularsubjectorthestrengthoftheclaimsyouaremaking.

▪ Different subjects prefer to do this indifferentways.

▪ A technique common in certain kinds ofacademicwriting isknownby linguistsasa“hedge.”

7.Hedging

▪ It is often believed that academicwriting, particularly scientific writing, isfactual, simply to convey facts andinformation.

▪ However, it is now recognized that animportantfeatureofacademicwritingistheconceptofcautiouslanguage,oftencalled“hedging”or“vaguelanguage.”

Languageusedinhedging:IntroductoryVerbs▪seem▪tend▪looklike▪appeartobe▪think▪believe▪doubt▪besure▪indicate▪suggest

CertainLexicalVerbs▪believe▪assume▪suggest

Languageusedinhedging:

CertainModalVerbs▪will▪must▪would▪may▪might▪could

AdverbsofFrequency▪often▪sometimes▪usually

Languageusedinhedging:

ModalAdverbs▪certainly▪definitely▪clearly▪probably▪possibly▪perhaps▪conceivably

ModalAdjectives▪certain▪definite▪clear▪probable▪possible

Languageusedinhedging:

ModalNouns▪assumption▪possibility▪probability

Thatclauses▪Itcouldbethecasethat▪Itmightbesuggestedthat▪Thereiseveryhopethat

Languageusedinhedging:

Toclause+adjective▪Itmaybepossibletoobtain▪Itisimportanttodevelop▪Itisusefultostudy

EXAMPLES

▪ Comparethefollowing.

1. A. Itmaybesaid that thecommitmenttosomeofthe social and economic concepts was less strongthanitisnow.

B. The commitment to some of the social andeconomicconceptswaslessstrongthanitisnow.

2.A.Thelivestheychosemayseemoverlyasceticand

self-denyingtomostwomentoday.

B.Thelivestheychoseseemoverlyasceticandself-denyingtomostwomentoday.

3.A.Nowadays,theurinarysymptomsseemtobeofalesserorder.

B.Nowadays,theurinarysymptomsareofalesserorder.

4.A.Therearecertainlycaseswherethiswouldseemto have been the only possible method oftransmission.

B.Therearecaseswherethiswouldhavebeentheonlypossiblemethodoftransmission.

5. A. Weismann suggested that animalsbecomeoldbecause,iftheydonot,therecould be no successive replacement ofindividualsand,hence,noevolution.

B.Weismannprovedthatanimalsbecomeoldbecause,iftheydonot,therecouldbeno successive replacement of individualsand,hence,noevolution.

▪ In academic writing, you must beresponsible for and must be able toprovide evidence and justification foranyclaimsyoumake.

▪ Yo u a r e a l s o r e s p o n s i b l e f o rdemonstratinganunderstandingof anysourcetextsyouuse.

8.Responsibility

▪ This is done by paraphrasing andsummarizing what you have readand acknowledging the source ofthese information or ideas by asystemofcitations.

SOURCE:ht tp : / /www.uefap.com/wr i t ing / feature /featfram.htm