Reading and Writing Academic Texts Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards covering key concepts, types, characteristics, and terminology from the English for Academic and Professional Purposes lecture.

Academic Text

A text written by professionals in a given field that uses formal language, contains field-specific jargons, includes references, and aims to advance human understanding.

Descriptive Academic Text

A type of academic text that provides facts and information to identify, report, record, summarize, or define, such as a case study.

Analytical Academic Text

A type of academic text that organizes facts and information into categories, groups, parts, types, or relationships to analyze, compare, contrast, relate, or examine.

Persuasive Academic Text

A type of academic text that includes arguments, recommendations, interpretations, or evaluations supported by evidence, such as a position paper.

Critical Thinking Academic Text

A type of academic text that requires considering at least two points of view, including your own, to critique, debate, disagree, and evaluate, such as a literary analysis.

Non-Academic Text

A text that delivers simple basic information, written in first-person point of view, and is personal, emotional, creative, or subjective in nature.

Factors that Shape Academic Writing

The four core elements shaping academic writing: Audience (who), Purpose (why), Organization (how), and Style (what).

Tone

The attitude conveyed in a piece of writing, which in academic texts requires arguments to be fairly presented.

Citation

The practice of acknowledging the source of any ideas, research, findings, data, or quoted text in a paper to avoid plagiarism.

Evidence-based Arguments

Arguments grounded in credible data, facts, and research findings rather than personal opinions or beliefs.

Thesis-driven

A characteristic of an academic text where the starting point is a particular perspective, idea, or position applied to a research problem.

Academic Language

The formal oral, written, auditory, and visual language used in schools and universities with sophisticated vocabulary and transition words.

Social Language

Simple, informal language used when talking with family and friends that allows repetition, slang terms, and sentences starting with simple conjunctions.

Jargons

Words and terms specific to a particular field used within academic texts.

From Hand to Mouth—The Origin of Language

A work written by Michael Corballis exploring the origin and history of language.