Use of a Writing Web-Site By Pre-Masters Students On An English for Academic Purposes (eap) Course

A.J. Gillett, University of Hertfordshire

1 During the last 10 years, use of the World-Wide-Web for educational purposes has increased dramatically. 2 However, very little empirical research has been carried out to determine the effectiveness of this use. 3 The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the effectiveness of using the World-Wide-Web on an EAP writing course. 4 Two groups of students were taught writing by two different methods: one group was taught by a teacher in a traditional classroom, while a second group included use of an on-line web-site in their course. 5 The two groups were assessed in the same way after a twelve-week period of instruction. 6 Results of the assessment showed significant differences between the two groups, the group that used the on-line web-site performing much better on all aspects of the test. 7 This suggests that the use of computer assisted learning programmes for at least some of the teaching time available can be recommended for EAP writing courses.

Sentence 1 ____________introduction______________

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III how to write a good annotation?

To write an effective annotation you need to pay attention to its content and format. These tips will help you:

Look specifically for these main parts of the article, paper, or report: purpose, methods, scope, results, conclusions and recommendation. Begin with introduction and the summary. Use the headings, outline heads, and table of contents as a guide to write your annotation. Search through the entire document for key terms that identify the purpose, scope, and methods of the work. To create the first draft of an annotation read through the entire paper and cut and paste sentences that particularly capture key passages in order to paraphrase them later in the annotation. Don't copy key sentences from the article, paper, or report: you'll put in too much or too little information. Don't rely on the way material was phrased in the article, paper, or report: summarize information in your own way.	C O N T E N T
SENTENCES. Whole sentences are preferable, but single descriptive words and simple phrases or lists are acceptable. Complex sentences should be avoided. PARAGRAPHS. Annotations should be one single paragraph. Avoid writing a paragraph that is nothing more than a series of unconnected sentences summarizing separate ideas, arguments and conclusions, by following the same order of information as the author and by using transitional words and phrases. Typically annotations do not exceed 150 to 200 words.	F O R M A T
Use the vocabulary of the author as much as possible to convey the ideas and conclusions of the author. If you decide to include a quotation from the source, place it within quotation marks.	W O R D S

DOs

• Make you annotation unified, coherent, concise, and able to stand alone.

• Follow strictly the chronology of the article, paper, or report.

• Provide logical connections between the information included.

• Make it understandable to a wide audience.

• Use passive verbs to downplay the author and emphasize the information.

DON’Ts

• Do not start with "this paper…”, "this report…" or similar. It is better to write about the research than about the paper.

• Do not explain the sections or parts of the paper.

• Avoid sentences that end in "…is described", "…is reported", "…is analyzed" or similar.

• Do not begin sentences with "it is suggested that…” "it is believed that…", "it is felt that…"or similar. In every case, the four words can be omitted without damaging the essential message.

• Do not repeat or rephrase the title.

• Do not refer in the abstract to information that is not in the document.

• If possible, avoid trade names, acronyms, abbreviations, or symbols. You would need to explain them, and that takes too much room. [3]

TASK 4 Read the annotations and in pairs decide which of them is good, bad or middling. Give reasons. You can find the source article in APPENDIX 1 (1).

1

I absolutely agree with the author of this article. I think the problem, which is lightened here is really important. Our government spends huge amounts of money on nonsense, but they should concentrate on the supporting of environment and developing the new methods of making our planet and our city better. First of all I suggest investing some money in education. I think we must educate new generation about the environmental problems because only they can find reasonable solution and develop new environment protecting technologies. New generation is innovative and smart. Our future is in our hands and we are responsible for leaving Tomsk, and the whole planet, clean and beautiful for next generations. In addition to that new technologies and new industries will enjoy lots of people, which is a solution of the problem of unemployment in Tomsk, particularly today, in the situation of economic crisis. On my point of view we should develop: clean energy and clean technologies including recycling, agriculture, ecosystem infrastructure. It is all about making our life better. It is all about avoiding financial, fuel and food crises in future. Let’s be humane and intelligent.

2

The article analyses problems of development of economy in circumstances of financial, fuel and food crises. Modern economy needs to be re-focused and re-oriented. The reason of failure of economy is disability of government to manage and direct industry development. Thus, the author suggests paying attention to nature infrastructure such as forests and soils and creating sustainable business. According to him, it will help to change global situation, create new jobs and overcome crisis. He underlines that subsidies amount in those areas are not enough especially in comparison to global GDP and worsening of ecological situation. Ha also marks five priority areas to develop. In conclusion, author appeals to be more mobile and flexible to solve economical problems.

3

The given article is focused on the problem of sustainable business. To consider this issue United Nations (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner pointed out that the best way to accelerate growth of global economy was to invest in clean businesses. The author examines that there are a lot of various stimulus, which don’t support environment. Furthermore, the paper shows that the spending of the environment is not enough at all, it’s valued just10 per cent of investments needed. But Mr. Steiner underlined that there were some advantages from investing in natural infrastructure – one of them is creation new work places. This article presents some figures of income in different industries and number of employees accordingly. In conclusion the paper gives information about five main areas, which support economic growth in this century.

TASK 5 Read the paragraph and find key words for each sentence. Write one key word for each sentence. They may not necessarily be in the sentence itself.

e.g. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an experimental science whose goal is to understand the nature of intelligent thought and action.

Here the definition of what AI stands for is given. That’s why we may say that the key word is definition.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an experimental science whose goal is to understand the nature of intelligent thought and action. This goal is shared with a number of longer established subjects such as Philosophy, Psychology and Neuroscience. The essential difference is that AI scientists are committed to computational modelling as a methodology for explicating the interpretative processes which underlie intelligent behaviour, that relate sensing of the environment to action in it. Early workers in the field saw the digital computer as the best device available to support the many cycles of hypothesizing, modelling, simulating and testing involved in research into these interpretative processes. They set about the task of developing a programming technology that would enable the use of digital computers as an experimental tool. Over the first four decades of AI's life, a considerable amount of time and effort was given over to the design and development of new special purpose list programming languages, tools and techniques. While the symbolic programming approach dominated at the outset, other approaches such as non-symbolic neural nets and genetic algorithms have featured strongly, reflecting the fact that computing is merely a means to an end, an experimental tool, albeit a vital one.

The popular view of intelligence is that it is associated with high level problem solving, i.e. people who can play chess, solve mathematical problems, make complex financial decisions, and so on, are regarded as intelligent.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Annotating

• Familiarize yourself with the contents of the book or article. Examining the table of contents, the foreword and the introduction can be helpful.

• Read as much of the book or article as is necessary to understand its content.

• Make notes of the information you think you should include.

• Write a paragraph that reflects the spirit of the book or article without emphasis on any of the points.

Useful phrases to include in the annotation:

The article deals with …

The paper is concerned with…

It is known that…

The fact that … is stressed.

A mention should be made about …

It is spoken in detail about…

It is reported that …

The text gives valuable information on…

Much attention is given to…

It is shown that…

The main idea of the article is…

It gives a detailed analysis of…

It draws our attention to…

It is stressed that…

The article is of great help to …

The article is of interest to …

Study the verbs for referring to texts and ideas in annotations:

account for	compare	determine	frame	persuade
analyze	conclude	distinguish	identify	propose
argue	criticize	evaluate	illustrate	question
assess	defend	emphasize	imply	recognize
assert	define	examine	indicate	reflect
assume	demonstrate	exemplify	judge	refer to
claim	describe	exhibit	justify	report
clarify	depict	explain	narrate	review

TASK 6 Here’s the author’s abstract to this booklet “Annotation Writing”. Read it and decide if this abstract is a successful one. Does it follow basic rules of abstract writing? Would you add anything? What would you change? Discuss in plenary.

An abstract is a summary of a body of information in a paragraph. The purpose of an abstract is to give a reader a brief summary of a report. Writing an abstract is one of the skills useful for both students and teachers. Unawareness of the rules for writing an abstract will not allow creating a piece of work which could reveal the basic ideas and aspects of the article or other work being abstracted. Several sections are dedicated to theory and practice of writing an abstract. The list of references and appendix are appended.

TASK 7 Read the article and write the annotation to it.