Module 14

COMMUNICATION FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

LISTENING FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

- primarily concerned with listening to lectures and taking effective notes.
- to recognize lecture cues and digressions.
Understanding Lectures
- serve as one of the main ways to deliver content knowledge to students.
- they are used because they are efficient.

The process of lecture comprehension.

 Pre-Lecture
• Read about topic in order to get a general understanding.
• Think of questions you want the lecturer to answer.
• Study topic-specific vocabulary.
 During the Lecture
• Listen for main ideas of the lecture. Listen carefully for lecture cues
which will help you follow the structure. Avoid noting digressions.
• Make notes of the main points. Use abbreviations and symbols to
save time. Make sure your notes have a clear structure.
• Also note down any questions you have which occur to you during
the lecture.
 Post-Lecture
• Compare notes with other students to add missing information.
• Check your notes and improve clarity, e.g., by writing full words for
some abbreviations
• Try to find answers to any questions you had during the lecture.
Note-taking
- taking notes is useful for revising for exams or in an academic essay or report.
- notes not only need to contain the main points, but must also be clear and easy
to use, as it may be days, weeks, or months after you make notes before you
actually need them.
 - symbols and abbreviations
Recycling
- paraphrasing, repeating, and summarizing
- 3 advantages: do not need to listen as intensively when it is rephrased, repeated
or summarized, gives an opportunity to check what was the main point, and
second chance get the main point if did not understand the meaning the first
time.

SPEAKING FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

- provide presentations in the academe and taking active involvement in
discussions.

ORAL PRESENTATION TIPS

- help you prepare and present an effective presentation, and design PowerPoint
slides that support and enhance your talk.
Preparing an Effective Presentation
Tips to create a presentation that is both informative and interesting:
 Organize your thoughts.
 Have a strong opening.
 Define terms early.
 Finish with a bang.
 Design PowerPoint slides to introduce important information.
 Time yourself.
 Create effective notes for yourself.
 Practice, practice, practice.
Presenting Effectively
Tips to help keep them interested throughout your presentation:
 Be excited.
 Speak with confidence.
 Make eye contact with the audience.
 Make eye contact with the audience.
  Avoid reading from the screen
 Blank the screen when a slide is unnecessary.
 Use a pointer only when necessary.
 Explain your equations and graphs.
 Pause.
 Avoid filler words.
 Relax.
 Breathe.
 Acknowledge the people who supported your research.

TAKING PART IN ACADEMIC DISCUSSION

Why have discussions and how to improve your participation
- Taking part in discussions can be a daunting experience, and the page includes
tips on how to improve your discussion skills.
Why have academic discussions?
Reasons why academic discussions at university are useful:
 to help you understand a subject more deeply
 to enable you to share ideas and insights with other students
 to hear the thoughts and ideas of other students
 to challenge and perhaps change your ideas
 to increase and clarify your knowledge
 to improve your ability to think critically
 to increase your confidence in speaking
 to improve your English-speaking skills
What makes an effective discussion?
 Individual actions
Important for the individual participant:
• prepare for the topic
• be willing to listen to others
 • build on what other people have said
• be willing to change your opinions
• not be afraid to give your honest opinions
• support your opinions with evidence
• give others a chance to speak (i.e. do not dominate the discussion)
• encourage others to speak by inviting them to give their opinions
• show your agreement or disagree politely
• make your points clearly but briefly
• allow others to finish, without interrupting
 Group actions
Important for the whole group:
• there are clear aims, so that everyone knows what the outcome of
the discussion should be
• there is a timetable for different stages of the discussion, and a time
limit for the discussion itself
• there is time at the end for summing up what has been agreed or
decided
• only one person speaks at any one time
• everyone contributes by saying something

Improving your discussion skills

 Prepare - the most important thing you can do.
 Observe - observe how other students participate
 Listen - A good speaker needs to be a good listener
 Participate - it is important to participate each time you take part in a
discussion.

READING FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

ACADEMIC READING
Purposes for Reading
Some purposes for reading might be:
  to scan for specific information
 to skim to get an overview of the text
 to relate new content to existing knowledge
 to write something (often depends on a prompt)
 to critique an argument
 to learn something
 for general comprehension

CRITICAL READING
- reading is a vital part of the writing process.
- to help you to understand and engage this active reading process more
effectively so that you can become a better critical reader.
Reading a Text--Some Definitions
 What Counts as Reading?
- Reading is something we do with books and other print materials.
- can mean such diverse things as interpreting, analyzing, or attempting to make
predictions.
 What Counts as a Text?
- text can be anything from a road map to a movie.
- anything that can be read, interpreted or analyzed.
How do Readers Read?
 The Reading Equation
- Prior Knowledge + Predictions = Comprehension
 Cognitive Reading Theory
 Reading has a Model
 Reading is an active, constructive, meaning-making process
 Reading is hypothesis based
 Reading is multi-level
 Reading is Strategic
STRATEGIES FOR CRITICAL READING FOR COLLEGE STUDENTS
 Preview Material
-The first thing you should do with your critical reading assignment is to
give the piece a quick scan.
-help you to digest new information
-serve to focus your attention and ready you for the task at hand.
 Ask Questions
-helps to ensure that you’re absorbing the material, as opposed to simply
“breezing” over the words.
 Summarize Information
-Bolster your comprehension of the materials by summarizing in your own
words the writer’s main point.
 Evaluate Argument
-to evaluate the writer’s main arguments.
-When a writer claims a fact as true, it shouldn’t be considered credible
unless the supporting logic and data are fair, accurate and unbiased.
-responsibility as a college-level critical reader to decide, for yourself, if the
writer was successful in the intended message.

WRITING FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES

ACADEMIC WRITING
- hard to come by because it refers to writing done for several reasons.
- used in many different forms.
Here is a list of documents where academic writing is used.
 Academic journal
 Books and book reports
 Case studies
 Conference paper
 Explication
 Formal essays
 Literature reviews
  Reflective writing
 Research Abstract
 Research paper or research article
 Theses and Dissertations
 Translations
Characteristics of Academic Writing
 Planning - analytical and organized.
 Outline - must for academic writing.
 Tone - A formal tone is used.
 Language - language in your paper needs to be clear and words need to
be chosen for their precision. A thesaurus is a good tool to help you pick
just the right words to explain the issues.
 Point-of-view – third person - focus of academic writing is to educate on
the facts, not support an opinion
 Approach - Deductive reasoning is a big part of academic writing as your
readers have to follow the path that brought you to your conclusion.
Academic Writing Structure
 Introduction - must grab the reader's attention and identify the thesis of the
paper. You can do this by starting with:
• Several questions
• A quote from a famous work or person
• Some interesting facts or information
• A definition of an important term related to the work
 Body - the main part of the work and the paragraphs must be clearly
written and be arranged in a logical order, like chronologically or in order
of importance
 Conclusion - you re-emphasize the thesis and summarize all the main
points
Types of Academic Writing
In many academic texts you will need to use more than one type. For example, in an
empirical thesis:
• you will use critical writing in the literature review to show where there is a
gap or opportunity in the existing research
 • the methods section will be mostly descriptive to summarize the methods
used to collect and analyze information
• the results section will be mostly descriptive and analytical as you report
on the data you collected
• the discussion section is more analytical, as you relate your findings back
to your research questions, and also persuasive, as you propose your
interpretations of the findings.

1. Descriptive
- simplest type of academic writing.
- Its purpose is to provide facts or information.
- summary of an article or a report of the results of an experiment
- 'identify', 'report', 'record', 'summarize' and 'define'.

2. Analytical
- includes descriptive writing, but also requires you to re-organize the facts and
information you describe into categories, groups, parts, types or relationships.
- 'analyze', 'compare', 'contrast', 'relate', and 'examine'.
- To make your writing more analytical:
• spend plenty of time planning. Brainstorm the facts and ideas, and
try different ways of grouping them, according to patterns, parts,
similarities and differences. You could use colour-coding, flow
charts, tree diagrams or tables.
• create a name for the relationships and categories you find. For
example, advantages and disadvantages.
• build each section and paragraph around one of the analytical
categories.
• make the structure of your paper clear to your reader, by using
topic sentences and a clear introduction.

3. Persuasive
- include an argument, recommendation, interpretation of findings or evaluation of the
work of others.
- needs to be supported by some evidence, for example a reference to research
findings or published sources.
- 'argue', 'evaluate', 'discuss', and 'take a position'.

To help reach your own point of view on the facts or ideas:

 read some other researchers' points of view on the topic. Who do you feel
is the most convincing?
 look for patterns in the data or references. Where is the evidence
strongest?
 list several different interpretations. What are the real-life implications of
each one? Which ones are likely to be most useful or beneficial? Which
ones have some problems?
 discuss the facts and ideas with someone else. Do you agree with their
point of view?

To develop your argument:

 list the different reasons for your point of view.
 think about the different types and sources of evidence which you can use
to support your point of view.
 consider different ways that your point of view is similar to, and different
from, the points of view of other researchers.
 look for various ways to break your point of view into parts. For example,
cost effectiveness, environmental sustainability, scope of real-world
application.

To present your argument, make sure:

 your text develops a coherent argument where all the individual claims
work together to support your overall point of view.
 your reasoning for each claim is clear to the reader.
 your assumptions are valid.
 you have evidence for every claim you make.
 you use evidence that is convincing and directly relevant.
 4. Critical
- common for research, postgraduate and advanced undergraduate writing.
- requires you to consider at least two points of view, including your own.
- 'critique', 'debate', 'disagree' and 'evaluate'.

You need to:

 accurately summarize all or part of the work.
 have an opinion about the work.
 provide evidence for your point of view.

- Critical writing requires strong writing skills.

- to analyze different interpretations and develop your own argument, supported by
evidence.

MOST POPULAR STYLE GUIDES FOR ACADEMIC PAPERS

• Modern Language Association (MLA)
- provides a method for source documentation that is used in most humanities courses.
• American Psychological Association (APA)
- provides a method for source documentation that is used in most social sciences
courses.
• Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS)
- includes two systems for citation: a notes and bibliography (NB) system and an author-
date (AD) system.