Academic Writing Workshop (1)

Helpful sources:

Arnaudet, Martin L. and Mary E. Barrett. 1984.

Approaches

to academic reading and writing.

Englewood Cliffs,

New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Murray, Rowena. 2005. Writing for academic

journals. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open
University Press.

Swales, John M. and Christine B. Feak. 2004.

Academic

writing for graduate students: A

course for non-native

speakers of English.

Ann Arbor: University of

Michigan Press

Swales, John M. 1990. Genre analysis: English in

academic

and research settings.

Cambridge: CUP.

„Język utworu science fiction realizuje ciążącą
na nim funkcję kreacyjną nie tylko poprzez
paralelne do prezentowanego novum innowacje
w zakresie swej własnej materii. Może tę funkcje
realizować również przez zmianę znaczeń
tworów zachowujących na poziomie leksyki swój
dotychczasowy kształt. Będziemy tu mieli do
czynienia z klasycznymi niejako
neosemantyzmami i przypadkami, kiedy zmiana
znaczenia nie odbywa się na linii nazwa –
desygnat, lecz w rezultacie współwyznaczania
treści i zakresu znaczenia przez dwa lub więcej
zestawione ze sobą składniki wypowiedzenia.”
(H-1969)

Culture-based approaches to

academic writing?

• I have something

interesting and/or
important to say.

• I want you to understand

that the matter is
extremely complex and it
did take some ingenuity
to unravel the problem.

• It is understood that I am

the expert here, so you’d
better brace up and pay
attention and if you get
lost on the way, you go
back to the reading room.

• I want to tell you

something you may find

interesting and/or

important.

• I ask you for your time and

attention and promise not

to take more of these than

truly necessary to present

my point.

• Since it is MY point I am

making, and I understand

that you do not necessarily

read my thoughts, I take it

upon myself to provide you

with all the data I believe

you need to see my point.

Culture-based approaches to academic

writing?

• I understand that you

appreciate the fact that

someone has written down all

those profound observations

that are now here for you to

absorb.

• I understand that you read

this text in order to learn from

somebody who knows more.

• I hope I have shown

conclusively how things stand

and there is no reason to split

hairs now.

• I understand that if you do not

see the point I am making,

you are either a poor learner

or a poor reader, or both.

• I understand that if you embark

on reading, you will do it with

good will so as to see the point I

am making.

• I do expect you to have your

own thoughts on the matter,

which may be different from

mine. I hope that what I have to

say will bring you closer to my

way of thinking.

• I hope that presenting my point

does not close the topic but that

it may inspire you to investigate

it further.

• I understand that if you do not

see the point I am making, I am

either a poor scholar or a poor

writer, or both.

The IMRD structure of a RP

• Introduction

– “to provide the rationale for the paper, moving from

general discussion of the topic to the particular question

or hypothesis being investigated” (Swales and Feak,

2004: 156);

– “to attract interest in the topic – and hence readers”

(Swales and Feak, 2004: 156).

• Methods

– to describe the theoretical approach, the material

analysed and the procedure applied (Swales and Feak,

2004).

• Results

– to describe the findings with “variable amounts of

commentary” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 157).

• Discussion

– to offer “an increasingly generalized account of what has

been learned in the study” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 157),

usually through references to issues raised in the

introduction and points established in the results. May

subsume concluding remarks or be followed by a separate

concluding section.

Introduction

• “to provide the rationale for the paper, moving from general

discussion of the topic to the particular question or hypothesis

being investigated” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 156);

• “to attract interest in the topic – and hence readers” (Swales and

Feak, 2004: 156).

Create-a-Research-Space Model (Swales, 1990)

Move 1: Establishing a research territory

a. by showing that the general research area is important, central,

interesting, problematic, or relevant in some way (optional)

b. by introducing and reviewing items of previous research in the area

(obligatory)

Move 2: Establishing a niche

a. by indicating a gap in the previous research, raising a question about

it, or extending previous knowledge in some way. (obligatory)

Move 3: Occupying the niche

a. by outlining purposes or stating the nature of the present research

(obligatory)

b. by announcing principal findings (optional)
c. by indicating the structure of the RP (optional) (Swales and Feak,

2004: 176).

• Move 1

Establishing a research territory

A note on tense (Swales and Feak, 2004: 182-

184):

– Past: researcher activity as agent

X (2000) investigated Y.

– Present Perfect: researcher activity not as agent

Such investigations have been carried out under several

different labels, including ‘evaluation’ (Hunston, 1994;

Humston & Thompson, 2000), ‘intensity’ (Labov, 1984),

‘affect’ (Ochs, 1989), ‘evidentiality’ (Chafe, 1986; Chafe &

Nichols, 1986), ‘hedging’ (Holmes, 1988; Hyland, 1996a, b),

and ‘stance (Barton, 1993; Beach & Anson, 1992; Biber &

Finegan, 1988, 1989; . . .

[B-2006]

– Present: no reference to researcher activity

Currently there are over 62 Sudanese medical schools and

research institutions, conductiong most of their research in

collaboration with international medical organisations (NERH,

2000).

[TEN-2008]

– Citational present

Li and Flowerdew (2007) also report how Chinese writers of

scientific papers are often requested by editors and reviewers

to enlist the help of native-speakers . . .

[F-2008]

• Move 2

Establishing a niche

• establishes the motivation for the study by indicating that the research so

far is incomplete

However, previous research in this field has concentrated on x;

disregarded x; failed to consider x; ignored x; been limited to x;

overlooked x; been restricted to x; 1. underestimated x

(selected from

Swales and Feak, 2004).

Nevertheless, these attempts to establish a link between x and y are at

present controversial; incomplete; inconclusive; unconvincing;

unsatisfactory

(selected from Swales and Feak, 2004).

Little information/ attention/ work/ data/ research . . .
Few studies/ investigations/ researchers/ attempts . . .
No studies/ data/ calculations . . .

(Swales and Feak, 2004)

Yet while studies point to the considerable variation of bundles in different

genres (e.g. Biber, 2006 . . .), how far they differ by discipline remains

uncertain.

[H-2008]

Recent research (Clark, 1992; . . .), however, suggests a growing trend

away from the traditional notion of academic writing as distant and

impersonal, towards a recognition that academic writing need not be

totally devoid of the writer’s presence. The issue of how writers create

identities for themselves in their academic writing thus emerges as a very

pertinent area of research.

[TJ-1999]

• Move 3

Occupying the niche

• to make an offer to fill the gap that has been created in Move

2 by outlining purposes or stating the nature of the present

research (Swales and Feak, 2004).

Purposive variant

– The author specifies his or her main purpose.

Descriptive variant

– The author specifies the main features of his or her research.

The aim of the present paper is to give . . . This paper reports

on the results obtained . . . In this paper we give preliminary

results for . . . The main purpose of the experiment reported

here was to . . . This study was designed to evaluate . . . The

present work extends the use of the last model by . . . We now

report the interaction between . . . The primary focus of this

paper is on . . . The aim of this investigation was to test . . . It

is the purpose of the present paper to provide . . .

(Swales and

Feak, 2004)

Secondary goals or sub-goals:

In addition, . . . Additionally, . . . A secondary aim . . . A further

reason for . . .

(Swales and Feak, 2004)

Text organisation

• Yet while studies point to the considerable variation of bundles in

different genres (e.g. Biber, 2006 . . .), how far they differ by

discipline remains uncertain. This is the isuue I address in this

paper, examining a 3.5 million word corpus to identify the forms

and functions of 4-word bundles across four contrasting

disciplines.

[H-2008]

• Recent research (Clark, 1992; . . .), however, suggests a growing

trend away from the traditional notion of academic writing as

distant and impersonal, towards a recognition that academic

writing need not be totally devoid of the writer’s presence. The

issue of how writers create identities for themselves in their

academic writing thus emerges as a very pertinent area of

research.

Recognising that a writer’s identity in any text is

created by and revealed through a combination of his or her

many discoursal choices, we have decided to focus on just one of

these aspects – the writer’s use of first person pronouns.

[TJ-

1999]

• The present study extends previous research in two ways: 1) it

compares and contrasts the use of a wide range of lexico-

grammatical features used for the expression of stance (rather

than focusing on a particular feature), and 2) it describes major

patterns of register variation within the university, comparing the

marking of stance in academic and ‘student management’

registers, within both speech and writing.

[B-2006]

Text organisation

The rest of this study will be structured as follows.
In section 2, we will present an overview of our
basic findings about the marking of
counterfactuality in simple clauses in our sample.
In section 3, we will try to interpret these findings,
focusing mainly on the different types of
combinations of markers, and the question how
the feature of polarity reversal has become
associated with this combination of markers. In
section 4, finally, we will draw some more general
conclusions about the nature of counterfactuality,
and discuss how our findings about
counterfactuality in simple clauses might be
extended to other counterfactual contexts,
specifically in conditional constructions.

[VLV-2008]

Methods

• to describe the theoretical approach, the

material analysed and the procedure applied
(Swales and Feak, 2004).

– is explicit about what the author(s) did;
– gives reasons for actions, explains

procedures, specifies categories etc., may
give examples;

– procedures normally written in the past

tense;

– packed with terminology, which is often

repeated;

– sometimes subdivided into sections.

4. Methodology
4.1 Macro-Functions
4.2 Other features (CTRJ-2008)

4. Corpus and procedures (D-2004)

2. Methodology
2.1 The construction of the corpus
2.2 Approach to the analysis of rhetorical structure / move structure
2.3. Approach to the analysis of linguistic realizations of moves and authorial stance (P-

2008)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

this study is based; data for the study consist of; this study takes a conservative

approach

we examined; we included; we counted; each occurrence was identified; the category

was interpreted; it was designated; it was classified (Swales and Feak, 2004)

WordSmith Tools 4 (Scott, 1996) was used to generate

were sampled from; were categorised in terms of;

is shown in Table 1; is given in Appendix 1

were chosen to represent
I decided to focus on . . . because they are far more common

[H-2008; B-2006]

Results

– to describe the findings with “variable

amounts of commentary” (Swales and
Feak, 2004: 157).

• It goes beyond factual recount of the findings;
• It often merges into discussion;
• It may involve:

– Justifying the methodology;
– Interpreting the results;
– Citing agreement with previous studies;
– Commenting on the data;
– Admitting difficulties in interpretation;
– Pointing out discrepancies (Swales and Feak, 2004:

171).

The overall distribution of; There were 240 different . . .

In general, . . . but
At the same time,
In particular,
In contrast,
On the other hand,
At the other end of the table, . . .

Although both . . . tend to occur with inanimate subjects, they differ
There are, however, some interesting disciplinary differences
Again, the reasons for for these differences are unclear, but . . .
More interesting is the difference between . . .

In classroom teaching, . . .
In classroom management, . . .

As noted above, . . . are by far the most common . . .
As can be seen

Fig. 1 shows that; Table 1 above shows

[H-2008; B-2006]

Discussion (Conclusions)

– to offer “an increasingly generalized account of what has

been learned in the study” (Swales and Feak, 2004: 157).

• must address the research question(s) asked in

the introduction;

• focuses on points rather than facts;

• is interpretive rather than descriptive.
As Swales and Feak (2004: 196) observe, it should be

more theoretical
or
more abstract
or
more general
or
more integrated with the field
or
more connected to the real world
or
more concerned with implications or applications

Concluding moves:

• Move 1:

consolidate your research space

(obligatory)

"phrases of generality”

Overall, . . . In general, . . . On the whole, . . . In the main, . . .

(Swales and Feak, 2004)

The overall results indicate . . . The results indicate, overall,
that . . . In general, the experimental samples resisted . . .

(Swales and Feak, 2004)

The basic purpose of this paper was twofold: first, to find out how
counterfactuality is marked in simple clauses across languages,
and second, to discuss what these patterns of marking tell us
about the nature and origins of counterfactuality.

[VLV-2008]

My main purpose in this study has been to explore the extent to
which phraseology contributes to academic writing by identifying
the most frequent 4-word bundles in the key genres of four
disciplines.

[H-2008]

•

Move 2:

indicate the limitations of your study

(optional)

It should be noted that this study has examined only . . ., This

analysis has concentrated on . . ., The findings of this study are

restricted to . . ., This study has addressed only the question of . . .,

The limitations of this study are clear: . . ., We would like to point out

that we have not . . ., However, the findings do not imply . . ., The

results of this study cannot be taken as evidence for . . .,

Unfortunately, we are unable to determine from this data . . .,

Notwithstanding its limitations, this study does suggest . . ., Despite

its preliminary character, the research reported here would seem to

indicate . . ., However exploratory, this study may offer some insight

into . . .

(Swales and Feak, 2004)

The results need to be treated with some caution, of course. I have

not discussed . . .

[H-2008]

•

Move 3:

identify useful areas of further research

(optional)

It remains our conviction that more descriptive and explanatory

work needs to bedone on even the basic overall structures of RAs,

and that text analysis still has aplace in this enquiry. Finally, it can

be hard to reconcile clear accounts with broadcoverage, but we still

think it is important to do justice to the range of genre

productsfound within a single field, not least that of applied

linguistics itself.

[RA-2004]

Sources of examples (other than Swales and

Feak, 2004):

B-2006
Biber, Douglas. 2006. Stance in spoken and written university

registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 5: 97-116.

F-2008
Flowerdew, John. 2008. Scholarly writers who use English as an

Additional Language: What can Goffman’s “Stigma” tell us?

Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7: 77-86.

H-2008
Hyland, Ken. 2008. As can be seen: Lexical bundles and

disciplinary variation. English for Specific Purposes 27: 4-21.

RA-2004
Ruiying, Yang and Desmond Allison. 2004. Research articles in

applied linguistics: Structures from a functional perspective.

English for Specific Purposes 23: 264-279.

TEN-2008
Tambul ElMalik, Abdullahi and Hilary Nesi. 2008. Publishing

research in a second language: The case of Sudanese

contributors to international medical journals. Journal of English

for Academic Purposes 7: 87-96.

TJ-1999
Tang, Ramona and Suganthi John. 1999. The ‘I’ in identity: Exploring

writer identity in student academic writing through the first

person pronouns. English for Specific Purposes 18: S23-S39.

VLV-2008
Van Linden, An and Jean-Christophe Verstraete. 2008. The nature

and origins of counterfactuality in simple clauses. Cross-

linguistic evidence. Journal of Pragmatics 40: 1865-1895.

Document Outline