Patterns of a well written text and critical reading

Language use

• this should match the tone of the text. This should be formal if youre writing academic papers, formal letters, etc.

• you wouldnt use slang in an academic journal

• technical terms

• Avoid using jargon if youre writing to a general audience

• Exactness

  • Take note of denotative and conotative meaning

  • Avoid invented words

  • Avoid elegant variation

  • Specific words > general words

• Directness

  • Be concise and direct to the point

  • Content matters

  • As few words as you can

• Appropriateness

  • Eaily understandable

  • Familiar not obscure

  • Formal

  • Avoid slang

  • Empirical

Organization

Logical flow of ideas

Deductive — gen to specific

Inductive — specific to gen

Coherence and cohesion

• overall sense of unity in a text

• No idea is misplaced

• spatial order

• Time order

• Nunerical order

Spatial order

organizing objects according to their physical location

Numerical order

Organizing text accordig to degree of importance

Time order

Organizing events or text in accordance to the sequence of events

Transition

• compare and contrast

• Gen to specific

• Cause and effect

Repetition

• for emphasis

• To give a background

• To give a command

Synonyms and pronouns

• replacing repeated words or nouns

• Helps avoid redundancy

• ____ should agree with its antecedent

Mechanics

• technical aspect

• Spelling

• Grammar

• punctuation

General principals

• standard english

• Avoid contadictions

• Avoid using exclamation marks

• Assertive to aggressive

• When using abbreviations state what it means first

• Spell out one to nine

• Use numbers for 10 and above

• Spell out millions, billions, trillions

Indention

• clause;clause

• (Name,date)

• Take note of proper capitalization

• — extra info

Critical reading

• Intentional engagement

• Goes against text

• May argument

• 3 major claims — assertion of speech

Claim of fact

• existense or non existence

• Can be chacked

• True or false

• Verifiable

• Empirical

Claim of value

• opinions

• Need to agree on a set of standards

• Attack/defend an idea

• Terminal values

• Instrumental values

• Aesthetics

• Morality

• Evaluation of issue

Claim of policy

• enforcement

• “Must” “should”

• Can be both claim or fact or claim of value

Hypertext

• kind of like hyperlinks

• Directs you different sites or sources of info

• Yes it allows to have a bigger amt of resources but it can get messy and confusing

Intertext

• satire and parody

• Referencing a different body of work in your own work

• Ex. Quotations in research papers

• Ex. Fanfiction