In what areas in your writing have you needed to do the most revision so far?

• Review past comments made on your papers by your instructor and on peer review forms by classmates.

• Identify areas where you have had to make the most revisions so far.

• Write a summary of the areas you need to concentrate on the most in the future (700-800

words, every other line).

Vocabulary

optional	precise	closing remark	feedback
background	opinion	framework	restatement
to vary tedious	classical approach to bungle	revision misspelling	intuitive editing poorly worded phrase

Тексты аудиозаписей

Unit 1

Effective Academic Writing

Script 1

Effective Academic Writing

Writing is necessary for all students in higher education. It is a process. It starts from understanding the task. It then goes on to doing the research and reading. The next stage is planning and writing various drafts. This is followed by proof-reading and editing. All this should lead to the final text.

Academic writing is a social practice. By a social practice I mean that it is what people do together. This means that you always write with a readership in mind. You always write with a purpose: to explain, to persuade etc. It also means that what is right and wrong, appropriate or inappropriate is defined by the users in the social community. In your case these are other students, lecturers or examiners. There is nothing natural about the organization and the way language is used in a scientific report, for example. It is as it is because that is the way it has developed through centuries of use by practitioners. For that reason it has to be learned. No-one speaks (or writes) academic English as a first language. It must be learned by observation, study and experiment.

Academic writing is clearly defined by having a clear audience; a clear purpose, either an exam question to answer or a research project to report on. It is also clearly structured.

Academic writing in English is linear: it starts at the beginning and finishes at the end, with every part contributing to the main line of argument, without digression or repetition. Whatever kind of writing you are producing, you, the writer, are responsible for making your line of argument clear and presenting it in an orderly fashion so that the reader can follow.

Your written work should have the following sections: Preliminaries, Main text, End matter.

The preliminaries and end matter will depend on the kind of text you are writing. The main text will, however, generally contain an introduction, a main body and a conclusion. The introduction will usually consist of some background information, which will give the reason for the writing and explain, to some extent, how this will be done. This must be closely connected to the essay or research question. The main body will then contain some data – either experimental, from ideas or from reading – and some argument. This will then lead to the conclusion, which will refer back to the introduction and show that the purpose has been fulfilled. The actual form of the main body will depend on the type of writing.

(http://www.uefap.com/writing/writfram.htm)