D Activation


look at the following pairs of sentences. in each case, decide which is more typical of academic english, and explain why.


1a. I think that the first-person pronoun is not commonly used in academic English. 1b. The first-person pronoun is not commonly used in academic English. Reason: ________________________________________________________________


2a. There are a lot of scholars who argue that structure is important in academic writing.


2b. Scholars such as Shih (1986) and Canagarajah (2002) argue that structure is important in academic writing. Reason: ________________________________________________________________


3a. ‘Hedging language’ is never found in standard written English.


3b. ‘Hedging language’ is more likely to be used in academic English than standard written English. Reason: ________________________________________________________________


4a. Academic English has a higher lexical density and grammatical complexity than standard English.


4b. Standard English uses simpler grammar and fewer long words than academic English. Reason: ________________________________________________________________


E


Personalization look at an essay you have written in your mother tongue.


• Compare this to a piece of your non-academic writing (e.g., e-mail, letter, report). What differences do you notice?


• Are these differences the same as or different from the ones in English? look at an essay you have written in english.


• Are there any aspects of it which are not ‘academic’? How could you improve any of the ‘non-academic’ elements?


read an article/book extract in your subject area.


• Identify examples of characteristics of academic writing (the passive voice, formality, hedging language, etc.).


F Extension


Steps 4 and 5 look at how you can use other people’s ideas in your writing and reference appropriately.


Step 18 explains the characteristics of a good paragraph – a key component of good academic structure – while Steps 19 and 20 examine the introduction and conclusion.


Step 2


14


Unit E (Steps 21–25) focuses specifically on strategies to make your writing more academic, particularly on: making your essays more formal, increasing the objectivity of your writing, using hedging language and structures and making your writing more complex.


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