EAP 01 Lesson 1: Fundamentals of Reading Academic Texts

Academic text

is defined as critical, objective, specialized texts written by experts or professionals in a given field using formal language.

are educational texts. It is basically anything that is used in the schools and classrooms. In the academe, it is a source of knowledge, new learnings, skills, values and habits

often take years to publish because of intense writing and review.

(MALEKI AND HEERMAN. 1992).

IT DOES NOT SIMPLY INVOLVE FINDING INFORMATION IN THE TEX ITSELF

1 IT DOES NOT SIMPLY INVOLVE FINDING NFORMATION IN THE TEXT ITSELF (MALEKI AND HEERMAN. 1992).

2 IT MAKES STUDENTS BECOME BETTER ACADEMIC READERS.

3 IT HELPS STUDENTS TO IMPROVE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS.

4 STUDENTS SHOULD JUDGE THE STRENGTH, EVALUATE INCONSISTENCIES OF THOUGHT AND THE RELEVANCE OF EXAMPLES.

WHY READ AN ACADEMIC TEXT?

Formality

Objectivity

Explicitness

Caution

Features of an Academic Text

Formality

✓ It reflects your dignified stance in your writing as a member of the academic community.

✓ The language you use requires precision to make it a "legitimate" piece of an academic writing.

✓ To achieve _______, avoid contractions, two-word verbs, abbreviation, colloquial, slang and conversational phrases

Objectivity

✓ The writing must be impersonal and maintains a certain level of social distance.

✓ It requires special knowledge and use of more complex language and ________.

✓ To achieve ________, avoid using personal pronouns, avoid asking questions, avoid using language that tells emotions

Explicitness

✓ Academic writing demands the use of signposts that allow readers to trace the relationships in the parts of a study.

✓ To achieve __________, use transition words in between ideas and paragraphs.

Caution

✓ It requires care since knowledge is built from proven theories and concepts.

✓ Therefore, ________ is needed to avoid sweeping generalization.

✓ To achieve ___________ and avoid generalizations, apply hedging.

Textbooks

These are specifically designed to help the learners. They vary in style, tone and level depending on their audience.

Student Essays

These vary in length and formality, but usually contain three sections: introduction, main body and conclusion

Theses and Dissertations

These are longer texts that are meant to be written in college and post-college levels. They are usually ranging from 10,000 - 20,000 or 60,000 - 80,000 words.

Research Articles

These are written mainly for a specific audienceresearchers, academics and post-graduate students.

Case Studies

These may be found in any discipline, though they are most common in business, sociology and law. They are primarily descriptive and has a typical structure as follows: Context, Description of the setting, an account on how it changed over a period

• Context

• Description of the setting

• An account on how it changed over a period of investigation

Case study has a typical structure as follows:

Reports

This text aims to describe what happened and discuss and evaluate its importance. ________ are found in various disciplines, like science, law and medicine.

• Context/Overview

• Introduction

• Methodology/Description of the event

• Findings/Main Points

• Discussion/Evaluation

• Conclusion

Reports include some or all of the following:

Structure

Refers to how information is organized in a passage.

1. The three-part essay

2. The IMRaD Format

2 structures of academic text

The three-part essay

1. Introduction

2. Body Paragraphs

3. Conclusion

The IMRaD

1. Introduction

2. Method

3. Results

4. Discussion

• Determine which type of academic text (article, review, thesis, etc.) you are reading.

• Determine and establish your purpose for reading.

• Predict or infer the main idea or argument of the text based on its title.

• State what you already know and what you want to learn about the topic.

• Determine the target audience.

• Check the publication date for relevance. It should have been published at most five years earlier than the current year.

• Check the reference list while making sure to consider the correctness of the formatting style.

Use a concept map or a graphic organizer to note your existing ideas and knowledge on the topic.

Before Reading Strategies

• Annotate important parts of the text.

• Use a concept map or any graphic organizer to note down the ideas being explained.

• React on the arguments presented in the text.

• Underline important words, phrases, or sentences.

• Mark or highlight relevant/essential parts of the text.

• Use the headings and transition words to identify relationships in the text.

• Create a bank of unfamiliar or technical words to be defined later.

• Synthesize author's arguments at the end of chapter or section.

• Determine the main idea of the text.

• Identify the evidence or supporting arguments presented by the author and check their validity and relevance.

• Identify the findings and note the appropriateness of the research method used.

During Reading Strategies

• Reflect on what you learned.

• React on some parts of the text through writing.

• Discuss some parts with your teacher or classmates.

• Link the main idea of the text to what you already know.

After reading Strategies

The SQ3R method stands for

Survey (or Skim),

Question,

Read,

Recite (or Recall),

Review.

SQ3R Method of Reading

KWL Method

guides you in reading and understanding a text. To apply the KWL method, simply make a table with three columns. In the first column, write what you know about the topic (K); in the second, list down what you want to learn (W); and in the last column, write down what you learned (L).