Advanced academic English

writing and reading skills

Discussion and formulating arguments in academic setting
 Objectives

• By the end of this session students will be able to:

• To use advanced writing structure.

• Use summarisation, analysis and concise writing in academic English.

• Understand proper structure of discussion and arguments in academic

English.
 General essay structure
Tell them what you
want to tell them
• A basic essay has at least three paragraphs
in it:

• An introductory paragraph
Tell them
• A body paragraph (can have more than
one)

• A concluding paragraph
Tell them what you
told them
Purpose and audience in writing

• Any time you are about to write something, the rst question you should ask yourself is: “What
do I want to accomplish with my writing?” Your answer to this basic question should determine
everything you do. From the message you choose to share, to how you choose to share it and
to who.

• Writing can serve many purposes.

• In the personal area, writing tends to be re ective-- its main purpose being individual
learning and growth

• In academic writing snd research the purpose of informing and the purpose of persuading.
In this lesson, we will look at purpose within the context of informative writing.
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 Purpose of writing
• Informative writing tends to serve ve basic purposes:

• Sharing new information with readers

• Describing a process

• Clarifying a concept

• Giving an explanation of why or how

• Detailing parts of a greater whole

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Audience in Informative Writing
• In addition to asking, “What do I want to accomplish with my writing?”
you should also ask “Who am I talking to and what are their needs?”

• Identify your audience correctly

• Determine your audience needs

• The formate of receiving the information (lay or academic professional)

• Level of previous knowledge

• The motivation of audience to read your research

 Why is this research important? Why should I read it?
Why is it interesting to answer the research question?

Purpose of the Introductory Paragraph

To make readers want to read your research, to create focus and controlloing
ideas for the rest of the research or essay.
Creating an effective thesis statement

• It should be the last sentence in the introductory paragraph

• Indicate the controlling ideas of the research (aims and objectives)

• Outline the controlling idea of each body paragraph

• Must be reviewed and rewritten if necessary

 One idea per paragraph
Tell them what
you want to
tell them

Use previous work to support idea

Tell them

What did this idea add to the scope of research? Tell them what
Summary for the main points you told them

Introduction to the Basic Paragraph

Each paragraph should explain a single controlling idea. It must have a topic
sentence, supporting details, and concluding sentence
Purpose of the Concluding Paragraph
Placed as the last paragraph in the essay, the purpose of the concluding
paragraph is to provide closure on the essay topic or idea.
 Transitions in academic writing
• The purpose of transitions

• To alert readers of upcoming shifts in perspective or voice (within-

paragraph transitions)

• To alert readers of upcoming shifts in arguments or ideas (between-

paragraph transitions)

• How to use them e ectively within paragraphs

• Make sure to use paraphrasing when the work you are citing is not yours

• How to use them e ectively between paragraphs

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Transitions between paragraphs
 Advanced English writing skills
• Developing/narrowing of topic

• Create own academic voice and integrate it into your research

• Writing a counter argument

• Summary and analysing skills in academic writing

• Develop clear, concise and direct writing

• Enhance writing ow
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 Developing/narrowing of topic

• Narrowing the topic will aid in exploring the topic in details.

• Narrowing the topic will determine the scope and direction of research.

• Developing a good research question is the rst step toward achieving a

narrow topic

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Strategy to narrow research topic
• Generate an outline of your research (topics and subtopics)

• Add research questions related to each subtopic.

• Focusing research questions:

• Research the questions to determine direction

• Create a thesis statement

• Keep minor room for exibility

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 Advanced English writing skills
• Developing/narrowing of topic

• Create own academic voice and integrate it into your research

• Writing a counter argument

• Summary and analysing skills in academic writing

• Develop clear, concise and direct writing

• Enhance writing ow
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 Academic voice
• Developing an academic voice is essential and can show that this work is
original and contain addition of scienti c and expert knowledge

• It is not good to have a full research stating other people work without the
addition of your own prospective. This can be seen in paragraphs full of
citation without the researcher view.

• Using quotes and paraphrasing is essential, but add your own analysis to
the structure of writing.

• Depending on other people opinion will increase the chances of plagiarism

and increases the similarity score.
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Strategies to add your academic voice

• Begin with a topic sentence that indicate

the main point of the paragraph

• Support the topic sentence with evidences

from previous work

• Explain and elaborate by adding analysis,

conclusions or ideas
 examples:
According to Michael Smith, as Provide analysis that ties
In scienti c writing, quotation
Smith explains, Smith them back to your main
is not preferred.
suggests that Smith observes idea / topic sentence.
the following

Use the ICE method (Introduce, Cite, and Explain Your

Evidence)
Body paragraphs in academic essays contain evidence that supports debatable
main ideas that appear in topic sentences
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 Advanced English writing skills
• Developing/narrowing of topic

• Create own academic voice and integrate it into your research

• Writing a counter argument

• Summary and analysing skills in academic writing

• Develop clear, concise and direct writing

• Enhance writing ow
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Writing a counter argument paragraph
• With any argument or position, there are alternative or opposing positions. These
opposing positions are called counterarguments.

• Showing and responding to argument or opposing opinions help strengthen your point

• Components include:

• Identify opposing argument

• Discuss di erence in study design, sample criteria, nature of tissue or organ, genetic
and biological di erences

• Provide examples of other studies that support these di erences

• Close by stating your argument and why it is stronger in this set of work
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 Structure of an argument
• Claim: the main premise that you are interested in proving. The claim must
be established

• Proof: to convince the reader of your claim, you must provide evidences.
Examples include; data, statistics, sources

• Objections: or opposing openions. These must be stated to actively seek

alternative point of view. You must develop a nuanced and rounded
arguments

• Conclusion: balanced summary for the argument and provide appropriate

strength of your idea
Building blocks of an argument

Element Your argument

Claim A contentious statement or hypothesis that you wish to prove

Proof Data, evidence (primary or secondary source) or information to support your claim

Warrant Convince your audience that the connection between your claim and evidence is valid.

Objections Anticipatie potentiaal objections, counter-argument or alternative points of view

Having considered the evidence and counter arguments, how strong is your claim? Can you
Conclusion
make any recommendations, predictions or suggest opening for further research?
 Advanced English writing skills
• Developing/narrowing of topic

• Create own academic voice and integrate it into your research

• Writing a counter argument

• Summary and analysing skills in academic writing

• Develop clear, concise and direct writing

• Enhance writing ow
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 Summary VS analysis
• Summarisation is paraphrasing and stating current work as it is.

• Analysis means breaking something down into its various elements and
then asking critical thinking questions such as WHY and HOW in order to
reach some conclusions of your own.
 Advanced English writing skills
• Developing/narrowing of topic

• Create own academic voice and integrate it into your research

• Writing a counter argument

• Summary and analysing skills in academic writing

• Develop clear, concise and direct writing

• Enhance writing ow
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 Writing clearly and concisely
• Writing clearly

• Choose the words clearly to convey meaning

• Descriptive meaning, try to use accurate vocabulary to convey your

meaning

• Positive and negative connections must be clear

• Always check (that, these, those, it) and replace it with a proper noun to
describe what you mean
 Writing clearly and concisely
• Writing concisely

• Avoid unnecessary phrases and redundancies (very much, period of)

• Use clear straightforward language (one verb one and one idea per
sentence)

• Shorten wordy phrases when possible

• Eliminate ller words such as that, of, or, up and limit using them
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 Advanced English writing skills
• Developing/narrowing of topic

• Create own academic voice and integrate it into your research

• Writing a counter argument

• Summary and analysing skills in academic writing

• Develop clear, concise and direct writing

• Enhance writing ow
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 Making your writing ow
• Good academic writing should ow, which means it should be easy to read with ideas logically connected to one another from one
sentence to the next. It should also have coherence between paragraphs so that the overall ideas within a paper build o one another in
an organised way.

• Old-to-new: do not repet details, once mentioned then refer to it. Follow a chronological order if you can.

• Tying ideas together

• Internal summaries : remind the reader of the information already provided

• Example: Four possible solutions to the problem have been outlined, but it is also important to consider aws to these ides.

• Use pronouns and pointing words (this, these) and make sure the nouns referring to is mentioned previously.

• Repeat the key words used previously to point that you are adding to that key word

• Insert transitional words

• Sentence variety and e ect: use di erent types and methods, varying sentence length and beginnings

• When listing examples, methods or other details, use parallelism (make sure that the words or phrases are similar to indicate that it is
in a list, and use comma (,) to separate them and (and) in the last of the list.
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Plagiarism and paraphrasing
We covered this previously in the learning skills module in the rst semester. All details have
been covered previously. So we will go through this quickly and cover some exercises.

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 What is plagiarism?
• Plagiarism is the uncredited use of somebody else’s words or ideas and is
one of the most serious o enses any student can commit, even if the act is
unintentional.

• Plagiarism can have severe consequences such as failing classes or even

expulsion.

• To avoid plagiarism, students must follow certain rules in regard to proper

citations.

• This section provides a few basic rules for avoiding plagiarism by

determining what needs to be cited and how to cite that information
correctly.
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 What counts as plagiarism?
• Plagiarism takes many forms. Some of the most common are:
• Buying, stealing, downloading, or borrowing a paper (form a person and/or online)
• Hiring someone to write the paper for you
• Copying large sections of text from a source without quotation marks and citation
• Using the words of your source too closely when paraphrasing with citation
• Attempting to make ideas of others appear as if they are your own
• Submitting your own work from previous classes without discussing it with your
professor rst
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 How can I avoid plagiarism?
• The best way to avoid plagiarism is to give credit. This means crediting your sources for what
they have said, written, emailed, drew, or implied.

• Whenever you use something that is not your original material, you must give credit; here is a
brief list of some of the most common types of things that need to be cited:

• Words and ideas from a book, article, web page, lecture, letter, advertisement, TV, or any other
forms of media.

• Words and ideas from interviews you have conducted (face-to-face, by phone, email, or other
methods)

• Diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other materials you have reprinted or adapted.

• Any exact wording or unique phrases you have taken form anywhere other than your own
mind.
What doesn’t need to be cited?
• Writing about your own experiences, insights, observations, and thoughts.

• Your own results from experiments you have conducted.

• Your own original artwork, photography, video, or other media.

• Common knowledge (including folklore, common sense observations,

urban legends, and extremely well-known historical events)

• Well-known and well-accepted facts known by the average member of the

general population.
Writing paraphrases and summaries
• Paraphrasing restates an idea in your own words, though not necessarily the
entire text. Summarising captures the main ideas more concisely as well as
in your own words. Here are few tips to help you:

• Give credit to your source somewhere in the paraphrase/summary. For

example: according to evolutionary biologist Dan Bennett,……

• Check your paraphrase or summary against the original text both for
accuracy of information and to ensure that you have truly used your own
words.

• Put quotation marks around any unique phrases or words that you do not
want to change form the original.
 Writing direct quotes:
• A direct quotation takes the words from the original source and used them
exactly as they appear with the addition of quotation marks and a citation.
Here are a few tips:

• Keep the source author’s name in the same sentence as the quote

• Mark the quote with quotation marks if it is a shorter quote or set it o

from your text in a block quote if it is longer (depending on the format
style being used, block quotes are determined by line or word count)

• Don’t quote more material than is necessary. If you only need to quote a
short phrase or sentence, do not quote the entire paragraph.

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 Writing about another’s ideas:
• Writing about the ideas of another person without plagiarising can be
di cult. Here are a few things to remember:

• Put the name of the idea’s originator in the sentence or throughout the
paragraph about the idea to give the original person credit

• Use citations to refer readers to the source material

• Be sure to use quotation marks around key phrases/words the idea’s

originator used to describe the idea
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 Some nal tips:

• Proofread and cross-check your paper with your notes and sources to
make sure that anything coming from an outside source is cited properly

• If you are unsure whether or not something needs to be cited, cite it.
Better safe than sorry!

• If you have any questions about citation, ask your instructor well in
advance of the due date so you have enough time to make adjustments to
citations if needed.
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 Paraphrasing skills
• It is better than quoting information
• A paraphrase is… from an undistinguished passage

• an explanation of particular ideas • It helps you control the temptation to

and information from a source quote too much

• written in your own words and • The mental process required for
sentence structures successful paraphrasing helps you to
grasp the meaning
• more speci c than a summary of the original.

• Paraphrasing is a valuable skill • Please be aware that changing only one

because... words, or few words from the original
source is not considered paraphrasing.
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Steps to effectively paraphrase
• Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.

• Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.

• Check your version with the original to make sure that your paraphrase accurately
expresses all the essential information in a new form.

• Use quotation marks to ID any unique term or phraseology you have borrowed
from the
exact source.

• Record the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it
easily if you decide to incorporate material into your paper.
 Steps to effectively paraphrase
• Focus on one to three sentences of a
text.
• Write down two or three possible
restatements of the original text.
• Read the isolated section a few times.
• Put the original text aside. • Compare your restatements with the
isolated section from the original text.
• Wait a couple minutes; maybe even • Choose the restatement that most
do another brief activity to slightly
accurately communicates the author’s
distract the mind.
ideas without resembling too
closely the word choice or sentence
• Without looking at the original text, try structure of the original text.
to restate the author’s main idea in
your own words.
 Integrate sources using the IICE template
(introduce, incorporate, cite, explain)
• For one, it is useful to follow the IICE template when
integrating support because it emphasizes the importance
of acknowledging the source’s author. According to Smith
(2018), “The failure to properly introduce a source’s author
• Hypothetical writing prompt: explain why it is useful to results in a loss of credibility for the writer” (p. 23). This
follow the IICE template when integrating support into
paragraphs. (All indicated sources are ctitious) quote highlights the need for giving credit where credit is
due. Therefore, the IICE template is helpful for reminding
writers to integrate support by e ectively introducing
• Colour-coding key: sources. (APA style quote).
• Introduce
• To end, the IICE template is valuable because it directs
writers to explain all integrated support. In his most recent
• Incorporate book, Miller stressed the need for writers to add their own
voice to their writing.2 This thought emphasizes the fact
• Cite that readers want to know what a writer thinks, and his/
her ideas are equally as important as the authors being
• Explain paraphrased or quoted. All in all, the IICE template is
comprehensive because it not only explains how to deal
with others’ ideas but also encourages writers to include a
personal explanation. (Turabian style paraphrase)
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 Exercise
• Original Text: Writers often reference others’ ideas as support, and paraphrasing is
one way to integrate sources into a text. While quoting is also used, paraphrasing
may be expected or more appropriate for certain writing contexts. Unsuccessful
paraphrasing can sometimes lead to plagiarism, which must be avoided.

• Use the IICE technique to paraphrase this paragraph

• Introduce
• Incorporate
• Cite
• Explain
 Exercise
• Original Text: Note that a paraphrase is not a summary. A summary typically
recaps larger chunks of text, while paraphrases reiterate speci c places
within texts.

• Use the IICE technique to paraphrase this paragraph

• Introduce

• Incorporate

• Cite

• Explain

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 Exercise
• Original Text: Furthermore, quotes should ideally not be included within a
paraphrase; typically, information can easily be reworded and restructured, so
quoted content is not necessary. However, if a writer feels that the original
information cannot or should not be reworded, quotation marks can be used
around speci c words or phrases from the original text.Use the IICE technique to
paraphrase this paragraph

• Introduce
• Incorporate
• Cite
• Explain
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Example good paraphrase
Example bad paraphrase