Academic Writing
Session 12 – Incorporating And Documenting Sources In An Academic Paper
Session Overview
In this section we will learn how to incorporate information gathered from other sources into your essays and how to document sources of such information at the end of your essays in order to avoid plagiarism(the presentation of ideas of other people as though they were your own).
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this unit you should be able to
•Incorporate information from other sources into your properly
•Document sources of incorporated information
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Incorporating information from other sources
•Using the APA style to acknowledge sources in essays
•APA reference/bibliography
•Using the MLA style to acknowledge sources in essays
•MLA list of works cited
Reading List
Adika (2014). Ghanaian graduate students’ knowledge …
Adika (2012). Language teaching, critical voice …
Faigley (2010) Chapters 18-25, pp 598-668
Topic One
INCORPORATING INFORMATION FROM OTHER SOURCES
Depending on the purpose for citing the information you find in other sources, you may use one of the three methods of extracting information from texts.
•These methods include
•Summarizing an author’s opinions or ideas
•Paraphrasing ideas
•Quoting from texts
•These methods of incorporating information is to avoid plagiarism
•In general try to summarize or paraphrase information rather than quote directly.
Using summary as a technique
•This technique summarizes the major assertions and evidence of a source and the outcome is a much shorter version of the original text.
•This is useful when you want to record the most important ideas contained in a source.
•Everything you put in a summary must be in your own words.
Using paraphrase as technique
•Paraphrasing puts the original material in your own words.
•You may paraphrase the information in a text if there is no special reason for you to use direct quotation from the text to present the ideas or evidence.
•Paraphrase information from a source into your essay when you do not want to summarise or eliminate details that the writer has provided.
•By paraphrasing as a technique for incorporating information, you give your readers a sufficient and comprehensive report of the ideas that you have taken from a source.
Using quotations as a technique
•Sometimes it is necessary to use a direct quotation as it appears in the original source.
•Quotations can lend interest to your essay as well as support ideas. They should however be used moderately and appropriately.
•Write quotations precisely as it appears in the source, using quotation marks around it and writing down the page number.
•Direct quotations should be used only in the following cases
a)When the author’s sentence wording is unusual, noteworthy or striking.
b)When you feel a paraphrase may alter or distort the meaning of the statement
c)If the original words express the exact point you want to make
d)Quote when the statement is a strong one which is full of opinions, exaggerations or a disputed idea that you want your readers to know is not yours.
e)Use direct quotation when using legal language.
Using block quotations
•A block quotation is one that is forty words or more(according to the APA style of documentation) or is more than four lines (according to the MLA style of documentation).
•When you need to use such a long quotation, set it off from text of your essay by indenting the left as well as right margin and allowing extra space above and below the text.
•Quotation marks are not necessary around such a text.
Using punctuations in quotations
•By inserting a sentence within quotation marks, you indicate that you are borrowing certain ideas as well as words.
•If you include a quote in your essay, place it within quotation marks(“ ”).
•If you quote an entire sentence, begin with a capital letter and end it with a period.
•If you quote only part of a sentence then you have to incorporate it into the grammatical structure of your own sentence. Use an ellipsis mark to indicate you have omitted some words from a quotation.
Topic Two
USING THE APA STYLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE SOURCES IN ESSAYS
Choosing a verb
•In order to incorporate a citation into your essay effectively, use a reporting verb that introduces the source and also provides a better flow of information to your reader.
•You have to choose a more specific verb than the usual verb said to indicate the writer’s attitude to the information.
•You may also indicate your own attitude to the information you are presenting by your choices of reporting verb.
The following show reporting verbs and their purposes:
a)To achieve an objective- describes, observes, explains, notes, points out etc
b)To introduce a conclusion or defend an interpretation- maintains, predicts, insists. Suggests, analyses, concludes, alleges, assesses etc
c)To introduce an agreement- agrees, concurs, grants, consents
d)To introduce disagreement- condemns, opposes, warns, objects, criticizes
In-text citation
The APA format for documentation was established by the American Psychology Association purposely for those who are in the social sciences.
This style requires that you paraphrase, summarize or quote from other sources.
The following formats are the two basic ways of writing in-text citations.
Citation by attribution
•This requires you to mention the author’s name in the phrase or sentence that introduces the information and requires you to add the date of publication in parenthesis immediately after the name.
Parenthetical citation
•This require you to mention the writer’s last name and date of publication in parenthesis at the end of the citation.
•If it is a direct quotation include a page number and use comma to separate name date and page numbers.
The following provides detailed guidelines for writing in-text citations in APA style:
Single Author
•Include the author’s last name in the introductory sentence and put the date of publication in parenthesis immediately after name.
•If you do not mention the author’s name and the date of publication in your introductory sentence, put them both in parenthesis at the end of citation, with a comma separating name from date.
Two authors
•Include the last names of the co-authors and the dates of publication in either an attribution or a parenthetical citation.
•If you use a parenthetical citation, use & instead of the word to join two names.
Three to five authors
•Write the last names of each of them in the order in which they appear on the page
•In subsequent sources when you refer to the same source, write only the first author’s name followed by et al.
Six authors or more
•In all the citations in the text, write only the first author’s name followed by et al.
Two or more works by same author
•Cite the works chronologically in the order in which they were published.
•If both were published in the same year, use the lower a after the publication date for the first work and b after the second one in that order.
Authors with the same last name
•In addition to the author’s last names, use their initials.
•When you have used two or more sources that basically say the same thing, use a parenthetical citation to separate them with a semicolon(:). Arrange them in a alphabetical order.
A source with unknown author
•Use the title work and the date of publication in either attribution or parenthetical citation.
•If the title is a long one , write only the first two or three important words
•If it is a book underline the title but put quotation marks around the titles of articles that appear in journals
Sources in anthology
•Cite the author who wrote the work and the date of publication
Personal communication
•Mention the name of the person and the means of communication together with the date
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Research Methods
Session 11 – Extracting Information From Texts And Lectures
Session Overview
In this session and the one after this I will teach you how to arrange your notes to reflect a writer’s focus or main points in order to give prominence to the most important ideas and discuss some other formats for making notes, and how to take notes at lectures.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this session, you should be able to make an outline note by doing the following
•use an appropriate numbering system
•arrange your notes to reflect the organization of a text
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Techniques for making notes from texts
•Outlining
•Other formats
Using the Table Format
Using Clustering or Webbing as note-making format
Using a tree diagram
•taking notes from lectures
Reading List
a)Chapter 5 & 8, Lewis, Jill (2001) Academic Literacy, pp. 122-147; 255-293
b)Chapter 2, Hogue, Ann (2008) First Steps In Academic Writing, pp. 33- 64
Topic One
TECHNIQUE FOR MAKING NOTES FROM TEXTS
Using titles as a note taking technique
•A title summarizes the main point or focus of a book. It therefore serves as a clue to the contents.
•When you are selecting a text to study and to make notes, you need to consider its title. For example, the title of a book that reads ‘A course Book for Writing Skills’, ‘An Introduction to Sociology’, or just ‘Biology’, will give you a comprehensive treatment of the subject.
•A number of books, however, carry sub-titles as well. For example a title which reads ‘The Akan Language: Its Sound System and Tonal Structure’, promises to inform about the sound system (or phonology) of the Akan language. Likewise in the book titled ‘Politics in Ghana: The place of By-elections’, the writer is expected to concentrate on the significance of by-elections in Ghanaian politics.
•Titles therefore guide you to select the appropriate books, articles, etc for your notes on a given topic.
Using chapter headings
•Chapter headings and sub-headings give more specific information than the main title does.
•A chapter heading indicates the aspect of a topic that is being treated while the sub-headings break down this topic into sub-topics.
•Before you make notes on a whole chapter or even read it, you have to survey it by skimming or scanning the sub-headings.
Importance of topic sentences(controlling ideas) in organizing notes
•In textbooks and other academic writings, the topic sentence usually, though not always, comes first in the paragraph or fairly close to the beginning.
•In this sentence, the writer expresses the most important point he or she wants the reader to know or understand about the topic.
•Being able to determine this main idea increases your comprehension of the text. Therefore it is a good reading and note-making strategy to be able to identify the topic sentence.
•This is because all other sentences in the paragraph will relate to the topic sentence.
Using supporting details in note making
•Supporting details develop the controlling idea further. They may do so by elaborating or expanding, comparing or contrasting the main idea, or by introducing a different view.
•In whatever way the supporting details develop the controlling idea, you can list the information contained in them under the sub-heading you create.
Abbreviations
An abbreviation is a shortened form of a word, for example, Mr. (Mister), Rev. (Reverend) and SOS (Save Our Souls). Words may be abbreviated differently.
You may abbreviate words by
a)reducing the words to initial letters only e.g. MA (Master of Arts), W.A.E.C (West African Examinations Council)
b)writing the words to a point where they can be recognized, e.g. Prof. (Professor), abbr. (abbreviation)
c)cutting out vowels, as for example in wd (word), world (world), yr (year).
•It is usual to abbreviate words but not all words can be abbreviated. The first group of words that can be abbreviated are those known country-wide or world-wide, and which have already been reduced to abbreviated forms, e.g. UN, UNESCO, USAID etc. The second group consists of commonly occurring words for example Econs (Economics), Ling (Linguistics), Lang (Language) etc.
•The danger in abbreviating rare words is that you may not readily remember the full forms.
•First, abbreviate only long/technical or commonly occurring words in your discipline.
•Second, be consistent with your abbreviations. This will prevent confusion.
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Academic Writing
Session 9 – Revising Your Essay
Session Overview
When you revise a paper, you re-write it by building on what you have already done in order to improve upon it. Writers express thoughts in sentences and good sentences reflect clear thinking. Therefore you need not only know what you want to say, but must also know how to say it so that your readers can easily follow your train of thought.
OBJECTIVES
Upon completion of this section, students should be able to
•revise their essays to improve upon them by:
•revising the content and the organization
•using varied sentences
•correcting sentence fragments and run-on sentences
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Revising the content
•Revising Organization and Coherence
•Varying sentences
•Using Sentence Coordination Effectively
•Using Sentence Subordination Effectively
•Avoiding Sentence Fragments
•Correcting Fragments
•Avoiding Run-on Sentences
Reading List
•Read Units III & IV Of Meyers (2005) Gateways To Academic Writing
Topic One
REVISING THE CONTENT
•To revise the content of your essay, check to see if your paper is unified.
•First of all, check the introduction to ensure that your thesis statement is clear and that it summarizes the points you have developed in the body paragraphs.
•Next, make sure you have enough body paragraphs to elaborate your thesis. These paragraphs must also include enough specific and relevant evidence.
•Build up your supporting details and examples if necessary.
•Below are two introductory paragraphs.
Paragraph A is the original paragraph that lacks a vivid introduction, i.e. it fails to provide clearly the idea that the writer wishes to develop in the paper.
Paragraph B is a revised version.
Paragraph A
I have watched many television programs that supposedly show the way of life of Africans. My friends have often asked me if the way Africans are portrayed is true, and I have to say “no.” Africans are not as primitive and helpless as they are portrayed on western television programs and movies; they are like any other modern people.
Paragraph B
When people think of Africa, they usually remember a group of people with primitive cultural practices, a disease infested area, a picture of a black-haired, dark-skinned, and a skinny child who is naked and walks barefooted. I often have to tell my European friends that the picture they get about Africa from television documentaries and movies is not true. Most Africans are not as old-fashioned and hungry as they are made to look on our television screens. Many people in Africa are like many modern people. They eat, study, work, have a social life, and dress as most people in the western world do; but then again, some of their customs may differ somewhat from that of the western world.
•Notice that in Paragraph B, important background details are provided as well as a clear statement of the central thesis of the essay, starting from “Most Africans are not…”.
Topic Two
REVISING ORGANIZATION AND COHERENCE
•You need to take note of the organisation of your essay. Ensure that you have an interesting introduction, a complete conclusion, a clear method of organisation as well as transitions and other cohesive devices to achieve coherence in your essay for smooth reading.
•You can re-organise major sections for a more logical or more natural sequence. Use each major paragraph to move the essay a step further.
•For example, if writing an essay on ‘Ethnic Jokes.’ After explaining and illustrating the etiquettes of telling an ethnic joke (i.e. in the introduction) go on to develop the following topic sentences in their respective paragraphs. Study the sequence:
a)People should not tell jokes to put others down. [Paragraph continues to explain this point].
b)They should tell jokes only about their own ethnic group. [Paragraph continues to give reasons].
c)Some jokes about other ethnic groups are meant to be affectionate rather than demeaning. [Paragraph outlines the two types of joke].
The sequence of the paragraphs is haphazard however. There is no logical progression from one to another. Re-organisation as well as fine-tuning of the points is therefore necessary to help the reader follow your train of thought. Consider the revision in the following:
a.There are truly offensive jokes about other ethnic groups. [Paragraph continues to illustrate this type of joke]
b.There are affectionate jokes about other ethnic groups. [Paragraph continues to illustrate this type of joke]
c.People should tell jokes about one’s own ethnic group. [Paragraph continues to provide reasons for the advise]
•The points have been reordered so that they discuss the undesirable side of joking about ethnic groups before turning to the desirable side. Thirdly on the basis of paragraphs 1 and 2, the reader is advised to avoid inadvertently hurting people from other ethnic groups by sticking to jokes about their own ethnic groups. The reader should find this sequence easier to follow.
•In revising paragraph organisation, remember to provide transitions as bridges between them. As, transitional expressions are important cohesive devices.
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Academic Writing
Session 9– Writing Body Paragraphs And Conclusions
Session Overview
In this session, we shall discuss how effective body paragraphs and conclusions are written.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to
•learn and practice the basics of writing body paragraphs
•write good topic sentences
•develop each controlling idea bearing in mind its contribution to the thesis
•recognize the relationship between the thesis statement in a text’s introductory paragraph and the content of body paragraphs
•note the various ways of writing conclusions
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Developing the body paragraphs
•Organizing body paragraphs
•The Importance of the Concluding Paragraph
•Ways of Writing the Concluding Paragraph
Reading List
•A) Chapter 5, Buscemi (2008) A Reader For College Writers, pp. 132-154
•B) Unit 13, Jordan (1999) Academic Writing Course pp. 82-87
•C) Chapter 4, Lewis (2001) Academic Literacy pp. 98-14
Topic One
DEVELOPING THE BODY PARAGRAPHS
•Each body paragraph contains an opening sentence, the topic sentence, which relates to the thesis in the Introduction because it expresses a major piece of evidence for that thesis.
•Your task in a body paragraph is to present convincing details about the piece of evidence expressed in the topic sentence.
•The method or combination of methods you use to develop a topic sentence depends on the nature of the controlling idea it expresses as well as other factors, for example your purpose and audience.
•At your disposal to present such details are the skills you have learned concerning methods of paragraph development and organization.
Topic Two
ORGANIZING BODY PARAGRAPHS
•The organization of the body paragraphs in the passage in the reading list on word processing is very effective and well thought out.
•This is evident in paragraph 3 to 5. The writer calculates correctly that taking the basic features of word processing first (i.e. in Paragraph 3) would allow his 1989 readers, who were novices as far as computers are concerned, to appreciate the relative advantages the computers have over typewriters.
•Having done that, he takes the readers a step further (in Paragraph 4) into the world of computers, i.e. to the more complex instructions in software.
•It is only after providing such education to his readers that he deems it okay to introduce them (in Paragraph 5) to the more sophisticated programs.
•Notice that it is topic sentences that he has used, at the beginning of these paragraphs, to guide his readers.
Topic Three
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONCLUSIONS
•The essay is made up of an introductory paragraph, body paragraphs and a concluding paragraph.
•The introductory paragraph and the concluding paragraph are special paragraphs because they are written in a slightly different manner from the body paragraphs.
•One’s essay, for instance, is best remembered if the conclusion reiterates the points made in the essay. In other words, the conclusion sometimes makes our audience remember the points that are raised in the essay.
•The conclusion also brings an analysis or a discussion to a logical and timely end.
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Academic Writing
Session 8 – Writing Introductions
Session Overview
•Your introduction gives first impression to your readers and assures them that your essay will be worth reading. From this, you will note that Introductions are crucial to understanding any piece of work that is properly done.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this Section you should be able to
•note the importance of Introductions
•identify the parts of an Introduction
•write an Introduction to an essay
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•The Thesis Statement
•What is Thesis Statement
•Writing an Effective Thesis Statement
•The Position of the Thesis Statement
•A working thesis
•Other ways of starting the introduction
Reading List
•Read Chapter 5, Buscemi (2008) A Reader For College Writers, pp. 125-154
Topic One
THE THESIS STATEMENT
What is a Thesis Statement?
•A thesis statement contains the central idea or ideas that your essay seeks to develop. In a way, it can be likened to the topic sentence, which summarizes the central idea of a paragraph.
• Let us look at how the thesis statement in the following paragraph provides focus to the essay we are writing on the topic, “ Should Ghana go HIPC?”:
The term HIPC is translated to mean a Highly Indebted Poor Country. This term is applied to countries which have a huge foreign debt. Most countries with huge foreign debts are found in Africa, some parts of Asia and South America. Most often poor countries are also referred to as ‘Third World Countries’. It is the prerogative of a poor country to declare itself HIPC. Ghana is a Third World Country with a huge foreign debt, and of late, there has been this debate as to whether Ghana should declare itself HIPC or not. Ghana has a lot to gain by declaring itself HIPC.
•The sentence, written in boldface, shows the writer as having taken a stance on the topic under discussion. This is the thesis statement.
•This essay will therefore look at some areas of Ghanaian life in its argument that HIPC is good for Ghana. In other words, the thesis statement tells the reader what the essay will say and what it will not say and so acts as a check on the writer.
•The point is being made here is that an introductory paragraph has two main parts. These are the background information and the thesis statement, both of which are necessary to have a complete and an effective introduction.
Writing an Effective Thesis Statement
•Let us examine some examples of a clear and effective thesis statement.
•Our topic is ‘The state of the Ghana Police Service today’. Let us assume that we have omitted the background information on this topic and the following is our thesis statement
…The Police Service today is completely different from what it used to be.
•Obviously this thesis statement has a lot to do with the topic but it does not tell us the nature of the change. It is therefore vague needs to be revised in order to specify the nature of the change. Consider the following revised version
•…The change in the Ghana Police Service comes especially with the entrance of university educated men and women into the Service to bring about efficiency.
•You will observe from the above revised thesis statement that this is more specific in that we have ‘efficiency’ as an important factor as well as the entry of graduates which have effected the change.
Activity
•1. Write an effective introduction to an essay on the topic, “The Role of the Media in Ghana’s Democracy”. Ensure that your introduction contains useful background information before the thesis statement.
Topic Two
THE POSITION OF THE THESIS STATEMENT
•Generally, the thesis statement comes towards the end of the end of the introduction, that is, after the background information has been presented.
•This order is effective because the background information sets the frame of reference within which the thesis statement is understood.
•With the thesis statement coming at the latter part of the introduction both the writer and the reader are focused on the issues to be developed in the next part of the essay, which is the body paragraphs.
A Working Thesis
•A thesis statement is not easily composed by beginning writers. So in order not to be stuck, you will have to adopt what is normally referred to as a working/ tentative thesis statement.
•The working thesis statement will help you go ahead and develop your idea so that you are not affected by what is called writer’s block; one’s inability to continue writing an essay because one.
•After your essay has been drafted, you may consider revising your ‘working thesis statement’ for it to capture exactly what you have discussed in the essay, in order to have a clearer and therefore good thesis Statement.
Other Ways Of Starting An Introduction
•The essay written in the university environment is essentially to show scholarship and so if one sticks to one way of writing essays they may become boring and predictable.
•There is the need to vary the writing of our Introductions depending on the nature of the topic we are writing about.
•Some of these other ways of writing the introduction to an academic essay include:
•Begin with a startling remark or statistics
•Ask a question
•Challenge a widely held assumption or opinion
•Use an anecdote or describe a scene
•Use an appropriate quotation
•Explain key words in the topic for discussion
•These are but some of the ways of starting an essay before introducing the thesis statement.
•These other ways of writing Introductions are alternatives to the typical way of writing Introductions whereby you appeal to general knowledge that is relevant to understanding the specific idea expressed in the thesis statement.
•In the example below the background information comes before the thesis statement, which is underlined. The topic we want to discuss first is “The Effects of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Africa”:
It is estimated that every day 200 people get infected by the HIV virus in Ghana. Ghana is one of the countries in Africa with a low prevalence rate so one can imagine the case in countries with a high prevalence rate! HIV/AIDS pandemic has affected many African countries negatively by weakening their labour force, by rendering many children parentless, and by creating abject poverty.
•A reading of the above background information should be shocking enough if one hears this information for the first time. This is an example of using a startling remark to begin an essay.
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Academic Writing
Session 7 – The Academic Essay (The Process Approach to Writing)
Session Overview
•Writing involves series of steps or activities known as the writing process. This includes several steps that build on one another. First of all, there is the pre-writing stage where you choose a topic, think about your purpose and audience, discover ideas about your topic and research and gather information on your topic. The second stage is the drafting stage. This involves outlining your ideas and writing the first rough version of your essay. The third is the revision stage. This stage involves rewriting the essay as many times as possible until the ideas become clearer, more detailed, and better organized. This means that you may have to reorganize sentences and paragraphs. The fourth and the final stage is the editing stage.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section you will be able to do the following:
•Choose and narrow a topic to make it more focused
•Think about your purpose, audience, and point of view and
•relate to them
•Discover ideas about your topic
•Research your topic
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Choosing and narrowing your topic
•Discovering ideas to write about
•researching your topic
•Planning
•First draft
Reading List
•A) Chapter 1, Elbow, Writing With Power
•B) Units 1-4, Meyers (2005) Gateways to Academic Writing pp. 2-42
Topic One
CHOOSING AND NARROWING A TOPIC
•Let us assume that you have been asked to write an academic essay but no topic has been prescribed by the instructor; i.e. you have been asked to find your own topic. In this situation, the topic that comes to your mind may be a broad one. For example, you may want to write about ‘Ghana’. But this means that you have to write everything and anything about Ghana. It is not possible to write everything you know about Ghana so you need to narrow this topic to a manageable scope. For example, you may choose to discuss ‘education in Ghana’, or ‘Politics in Ghana’, or ‘Tradition and Culture in Ghana’, etc. Let’s say you have chosen to discuss ‘Politics in Ghana’. ‘Politics in Ghana’ is still a very broad topic because it implies you will discuss everything and anything about this topic (e.g. the long history of politics in Ghana, current political issues, national politics, local politics, elections, etc). You can’t possibly handle all of these, so, once again, you need to narrow it to have a clearer focus. For example, you may choose to write about ‘Electioneering Campaigns in Ghanaian Politics’ or ‘Military Regimes in Ghana’ or ‘The Role of Political Parties in Ghana’.
•As soon as you have a topic, whether self-selected or lecturer-assigned, you have to carefully analyse the writing task to determine what your audience would expect of you. Think about the following: your purpose, your audience and your point of view.
Choosing and narrowing Topic-PURPOSE
•Purpose
•As you are considering a specific topic or an assigned one, think about the purpose for which you are writing such a paper. Though the general aim of most writing is to communicate, an essay must have a purpose. There are three major purposes for which a paper may be written. These are to entertain your readers, inform your readers, or to persuade your readers to accept a particular viewpoint. For example, an essay on ‘Environmental Pollution’ may seek to inform your readers about the causes of environmental pollution, or to persuade your readers to take a particular action against those who pollute the environment. Ask yourself the following questions: Why am I writing this essay and what exactly do I want to achieve with this piece of writing? An essay can have more than one purpose. For example you may want to write on a particular festival in Ghana to explain to your readers how it is celebrated (inform), and/or urge your readers to try and participate in one (persuade)
Choosing and narrowing Topic-AUDIENCE
•Your audience are the people who read your essay and they are also an important part of the writing process. Many aspects of your writing—for example how you express yourself, the types of sentence structure you choose, your choice of words, amount of details and examples you include, your attitude towards the topic—depend heavily on your audience. You need to know your audience by their age, their educational background, their knowledge about the topic and expectations as readers to plan your essay. For most academic essays, your lecturer is your audience. Supposing you are writing on ‘Agents of Socialization in Ghana’ for your Sociology lecturer, who obviously knows a great deal about the topic, you are all the same not expected to ignore giving enough details in the essay. Note that your lecturer wants to know if you understand the topic and whether you can clearly write about it. You therefore need to provide enough information to demonstrate your knowledge of the subject. Include enough background information, relevant details and define technical terms if there are any to make your essay easy to understand and follow.
Choosing and narrowing Topic- POINT OF VIEW
•Another important thing to consider when writing is your point of view. This refers to the perspective from which you are writing the essay. Choosing a point of view will depend on your topic, your purpose, and your audience.
•There are three types of point of view. These are first, second, and third persons point of view.
•For an essay narrating an event in which you participated, you may find the first person pronoun (I, we,) more appropriate.
•The second person pronoun (you) may be more appropriate in an essay that explains how something is done or how a particular research is carried out.
•In Academic Writing, however, the third person (he/she/it, and they) is used because it is less personal, more formal and more detached than the other points of view.
Activity
Choose two of the following broad topics and narrow it down to a topic that can be managed within a two- to four-page essay.
1.Safe transportation
2.Population explosion
3.Mental illness
Topic Two
Discovering Ideas to Write About
•As I have mentioned in the introduction to this section, writing is a process of discovery. Another important, but not so easy, aspect of writing is finding enough to say about your topic.
•There are some techniques that you can use to generate ideas on your topic. The most common methods are described below.
•Study each one of them and try using them before deciding on the one that best works for you.
Discovering Ideas to Write About- FREE WRITING
•Free-writing means jotting down in rough sentences or phrases everything that comes to mind about a possible topic. When free-writing, you write non-stop for a limited period of time, usually five to ten minutes.
•Write whatever comes to mind regardless of its relevance to your topic. Do not worry about finding the exact words to express your thought, spelling and punctuating correctly, or organizing the material in a particular way. Instead, let your mind run free to explore ideas
•Your initial ideas and impressions will become clearer after you have put them on paper and these may lead to other ideas and impressions. Doing this will help you develop the habit of thinking while you write. Let us look at the following example of free-writing on the topic, “Things that annoy me”:
FREE WRITING
There are a lot of things that I get annoyed by. One of them that comes to mind is politicians, in fact I am so annoyed about them that I don’t even want to say anything about them. They are all the same and they are not to be trusted. Another thing that bothers me are people who keep complaining about everything but does nothing about them. If you are having trouble, do something about it. Don’t just keep complaining and just talking. I’m also really annoyed by traffic on our roads. This is partly because there are too many cars on our roads. Everybody wants to own a car. Anyway you can’t blame them because the public transportation system is also not reliable.
•Note that in this free-writing we can find something to write about politicians, traffic congestion in Accra, the bad nature of roads etc. These are potentially interesting topics to develop into full essays, and the important point is that they were generated through free-writing.
Discovering Ideas to Write About- BRAINSTORMING
•Brainstorming involves listing everything you can think of about your topic. Put down facts, impressions, reactions as well as emotions. You can list them by putting down phrases and words instead of complete sentences.
•With this technique as well, give yourself a time limit. This will force ideas to come faster.
•The following is an example of brainstorming on an issue that we can pick from my free-writing above: the misuse of electronic communication devices.
The misuse of electronic communication devices.
What electronic devices do I use?
For what purpose?
Where do people use electronic tools?
Where/When should such devices be banned?
Where/When can electronic comm. devices constitute a danger?
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Academic Writing
Session 6 – Methods Of Paragraph Development
Session Overview
To help readers understand a piece of writing, authors try to present their details in a clearly organized way. Ideas are built up from sentence to paragraph to whole text. Authors might use any of several common patterns to arrange their details.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this session, you should be able to
•recognize different methods of development
•develop the ability to write using different methods of development
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Illustrations
•Process analysis
•Definitions
•Comparison and contrast
•Cause & effect/ problem & solution
•Classification and division patterns of development
Reading List
•Unit 11 of Meyers (2005) Gateways To Academic Writing pp. 51-116
Topic One
ILLUSTRATIONS
What are illustrations?
•An illustration is a means of using specific situations and examples to reveal the essential points about a topic or to reinforce your topic sentence.
•Examples are an effective way to support general statements.
•Examples are used to explain or clarify:
Unfamiliar topics
•These are topics that your audience has little or no knowledge of.
Difficult concepts
•Many concept are difficult for readers to understand b definition alone. But giving examples would make the concept immediately understandable.
Abstract terms
•Abstract terms refer to ideas rather than to people or to concrete things. Abstract terms mean different things to different people hence providing examples would make your meaning clearer.
Sample Question
•The following words are abstract words and difficult concepts. Write examples that illustrate their meaning.
1.Phobia
2.Influence
3.Gender role
4.Sexual harassment
Topic Two
PROCESS ANALYSIS
What is process analysis?
In this pattern, the information explains the steps in a particular procedure.
The steps or stages show how a phenomenon functions or how a goal or end is achieved.
This method is used in developing expository essays.
The transitional devices used are usually the devices that show time – order relation.
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Academic Writing
Session 5 – Paragraph Structure
Session Overview
•This section explains the features of a good paragraph and its function in a piece of writing. Related concepts such as paragraph unity, completeness, and coherence are discussed.
OBJECTIVES
•By the end of this section you will be able to do the following:
–Write well-structured paragraphs
–Recognise the roles of each part of the paragraph
–Achieve coherence by following logical order and using transitions to link sentences
–Write meaningful paragraphs
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Structure of the single paragraph
What is paragraph
The topic sentence
Supporting sentences
Summary sentences
•Paragraph unity and completeness
•Paragraph coherence
Logical order
Cohesive devices
•Multiple paragraph structure
•Revising paragraph introduction
Reading List
a)Section One, Chapter 1 Of Buscemi A Reader For College Writers (2008), pp. 53-80
b)Academic Writing: A Handbook For International Students, Bailey (2011), Chapter 1.10, pp. 77-82
Topic One
STRUCTURE OF THE SINGLE PARAGRAPH
What is a Paragraph?
The word ‘Paragraph’ comes from the words ‘para’ and graphus’ glossed to mean ‘to mark a change in writing or a subdivision of a bigger piece of writing’.
The paragraph therefore is a group of related sentences that develop one idea or point.
The paragraph is very crucial in writing essays or in writing compositions in English.
In many ways the paragraph can be likened to an atom. The Atom is also made up of protons, neutrons and electrons.
The paragraph like the Atom, also has three components, the topic sentence, supporting sentences and the summary sentence which can be isolated and analysed for their roles and importance.
Topic Two
THE TOPIC SENTENCE
The first component of a paragraph is the TOPIC SENTENCE.
It is important to know that the Topic Sentence normally occurs at the beginning of a paragraph. However, it may occur at the middle or sometimes at the end of a paragraph.
It is profitable to have the Topic Sentence at the beginning of the paragraph to guide the writer to be able to select ideas that support the Topic Sentence
The topic sentence tells us at a first glance what the whole paragraph is going to talk about. For example, if we say ‘Kofi is irresponsible,’ immediately, and without reading the rest of the paragraph, we expect to read why Kofi is described as irresponsible.
The Topic Sentence also contains a central idea. In the case of our example above, issues related to Kofi’s irresponsibility are what we are looking for. So, if Kofi has other qualities apart from being irresponsible, it is expected that such qualities would be discussed in another paragraph and not this present one.
This central idea which limits what we want to discuss or explain in a paragraph is known as ‘The Controlling Idea’. The Controlling idea is ‘the nucleus’ of the topic sentence.
Sample question
•Write two topic sentences and clearly identify and explain the controlling idea in each.
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Academic Writing
Session 4 –Sentence Structure and Punctuation.
Session Overview
In this section, we will discuss the sentence and the correct usage of punctuations. Now that you have learned about the words we use in forming sentences, let us look at the different kinds of sentences that we have in the English Language. You can learn to identify sentences in three different ways: (1) by knowing the definition of a sentence or what makes a sentence, (2) by looking at the kinds of sentences we have, and (3) by studying the structure of a sentence. In this section, you will study and practise each of these ways.
OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section, you should be able to
•identify a sentence that expresses a complete thought
•write a sentence that expresses a complete thought
•identify the kinds of sentences that there are in English
•identify a sentence according to its structure
•Use punctuation correctly
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•What is a sentence?
•Kinds of sentences
•Parts of sentences
Subjects
Predicates
Objects
Complements
•Phrases
•Types of sentences
Simple sentences
Compound sentences
Complex sentences
Compound complex sentences
•Punctuation
Reading List
a)Quirk and Greenbaum, A University Grammar Of English
b)Yule Oxford Practice Grammar Chapter 6 pp. 57-65
Topic One
WHAT IS A SENTENCE?
A sentence is a group of words that express a complete thought about something or someone. A sentence that does not express a complete thought is called a fragment. Let us look at the following examples.
1.Played football until dark. (Incomplete thought)
2.The children played football until dark. (sentence)
3.Either my friend or his mother. (Incomplete thought)
4.Either my friend or his mother will be at the airport. (sentence)
5.For more that three days. (Incomplete thought)
6.Akua has remained indoors for more than three days. (sentence)
Note that in the sentences above, sentences (1, 3, and 5) are considered as incomplete thoughts because,
i.in sentence 1, we do not know who ‘played football until dark’
ii.in sentence 3, we are not told what ‘the friend or the mother’ did, does, or will do.
iii.In sentence 5, we do not know what happened or will happen ‘for more than three days. ‘
Topic Two
KINDS OF SENTENCES
There are four kinds of sentences. Each conveys a different kind of thought and is written in a different way. They are; declaratives, imperatives, interrogatives, and exclamations.
•A declarative sentence makes a statement and ends with a period (full stop). For example:
The sun rises from the East and sets at the West.
Kwame Nkrumah was the first president of Ghana.
•An imperative sentence gives a command or makes a request. For example:
Tell me the name of the UN Secretary General.
Write his name on the board.
In imperative sentences, the subject of the sentence is not stated directly but it understood to be the pronoun ‘you’.
•An interrogative sentence asks a question or requests for information.
What is the name of the immediate past president of Ghana?
Will you be going to the university this year?
•An exclamation sentence expresses a strong or sudden emotion. They normally end with the exclamation sign.
Just look at the beautiful scenery!
What a big mistake did we make!
Activity
Some of the following groups of words are sentences, and some are not. In the space provided beside each sentence, write S against a complete sentence or F against what you consider an incomplete sentence.
1.On the sidelines by the players’ bench.
2.Christine will be elected president .
3.The man who looked through the binoculars .
4.The drama club will meet on Tuesday night .
5.Neither the girls nor the boys in Mr. Kumi’s class .
Topic Three
PARTS OF A SENTENCE
Parts of a Sentence (Subject)
Every sentence must have two basic parts. These parts are known as the Subject and a Predicate. Now let me explain each part into details.
•Subjects
The subject of a sentence names a person, place, thing, or idea and tells who or what the sentence is about. It identifies the performer or receiver of the action expressed in the rest of the sentence, that is the predicate. For example:
My brothers / never arrive late for dinner subject predicate
Christine / will be elected president. subject predicate
In the examples above ‘my brothers’ and ‘Christine’ are the subjects of the sentence since the rest of the sentence talks about them.
Subject
There are different types of subjects; a simple subject made up of only a noun or pronoun, and a noun phrase made up of a noun and its modifiers (Modifiers are words that describe, identify, qualify or limit the meaning of a noun or pronoun), or a compound subject made up of two or more simple subjects or noun phrases joined by a coordinating conjunction (recall Unit 1, section 3). Below are examples:
1.Mozart began composing at the age of four.
2.A number of very bad decisions destroyed the company.
3.Paul and Peter are common twin names.
4.The doctor or the new medical assistant will attend to you.
•Note that, in the sentences above, I have underlined the subjects. ‘Mozart’ in sentence (1) is an example of a simple subject, and ‘a number of very bad decisions’ in sentence (2) is a noun phrase. Sentences (3 and 4) have compound subjects. ‘Paul and Peter’ are simple subjects joined by the coordinating conjunction ‘and’ and ‘the doctor or the new medical assistant’ are noun phrases joined by the coordinating conjunction ‘or’.
Parts of a Sentence(Predicate)
•The predicate of a sentence indicates what the subject does, what happens to the subject, or what is said about the subject. It is the part that says something about the subject. In other words, predicates indicate an action or a state of being. In the following examples, the predicates are underlined.
The old cinema hall was pulled down last year.
Ama received a full scholarship from the university.
•Just as with the subject, there are also different kinds of predicates. There are the simple predicate, complete predicate, and the complex predicate. The simple predicate is the main verb or the main verb and its helping verbs. For example:
He wept.
A new fufu pounding machine has been developed.
•Note that in the above sentences the simple predicates are underlined.
Predicate
•The complete predicate consists of the simple predicate plus its modifiers. The modifiers may be objects or complements. (I would explain objects and complements a little later). Here are examples of complete predicates:
The pouring rain flooded the whole community. (object)
The ride to the city is longer during rush hours. (complement)
•The compound predicate contains two or more predicates that have the same subject and that are joined by: and, but, or, nor, or another conjunction. Here are examples with the compound predicates underlined.
The chairman neither [wanted to run for a second term] nor [planned to serve] .
Adjoa [went to the market], [bought chicken], [prepared a nice meal] and [served the guest].
•Note that all the actions described in the sentence by the various verbs are about the same noun. The first sentence consists of a simple subject ‘the chairman’ and a compound predicate made up of two complete predicates joined by the conjunction ‘nor’. The second sentence has ‘Adjoa’ as the subject and compound predicate which is made up of four simple predicates.
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Academic Writing
Session 3 – Tense and Aspect
Session Overview
In this session, we will continue to look at some basic issues in English Grammar that will enable you write correct sentences. We will focus our attention on the verb and discuss comprehensively.
OBJECTIVES
•By the end of this section, you should be able to
–identify what a verb is
–identify the various forms of verbs
–identify the various verb tenses in English
–use verbs in the correct tense
–note the difference between the active and the passive voice
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Verbs
•Verb Forms
•Verb Tense
•Voice
Reading List Read
a)University Grammar Of English By Quirk & Greenbaum(1973)
b)Oxford Practice of Grammar by Yule (2006)
c)A Communicative Grammar Of English By Leech & Svartvik(2003)
Topic One
VERBS
•As has been mentioned in the introduction, verbs are the foundation words of sentences. The verb gives the sentence meaning by saying something about the nouns or pronouns that are the subjects or the objects.
•Also note that a verb is a word that shows physical or mental action, or a state of being of a noun or pronoun. Let us take a look at the following examples.
–We run five miles each day. (action)
–John chose the winner. (action)
–The new student became our friend. (state of being)
–Mr. Ativo is a teacher. (state of being)
•There is another group of verbs referred to as helping verbs. Helping verbs or auxiliary verbs, as their name suggest, help the main verb express action or state of being. All modals are helping verbs. Examples of modal verbs are: will, could, should, and must. In addition to modal verbs, the verb be, do, and have are also helping verbs although they can also be the main action, or state of being verb in a sentence. Some examples are:
1.The plane will arrive on time.
2.The bicycle’s chain has become rusty.
3.He doesn’t go to school.
4.She is going to the market.
•In the sentences above, the helping verbs are underlined and the main verbs in the sentence are written in bold face. The helping verb ‘will’ helped to form what we call the future tense, something that we are expecting to happen in the future.
•The verb ‘has’, helped in forming what we call the perfect tense and ‘do’ helped in forming a negative sentence in the present simple tense. We are able to form the progressive form of the main verb ‘go’ with the help of the auxiliary verb ‘be’. If you try taking out the helping verbs from the sentences, the sentences will still communicate something but with the wrong verb form. However, if we take the main verb (those written in bold face) out of the sentences, we cannot make any sense out of the sentences.
•The three helping verbs, except the modals can also behave as main verbs in a sentence. This is exemplified in the sentences below.
I am a soldier. (state of being)
I have a car. (state of being)
I do all my assignments. (action)
•The only verbs we have in the sentences above are the verbs be, have, and do and they are the main verbs of the sentences.
Topic Two
VERB FORMS
•All verbs, (except the verb to be), has four forms. These are the present or base form, the present participle form, the past form, and the past participle form. The base form is the verbs form used with the infinitive (to) as in to walk, to talk, to sleep. The base form is what is used in the present simple form except that, for the third person singular (he, she, it), -s or –es is added to the base form. The present participle form is the base form together with –ing.
•Some verbs have the same form for the past and the past participle, while others have different forms for the present, past, and past participle forms. Some verbs are considered regular and others considered irregular. Regular verbs form their past and past participle by adding -d or –ed to the end of the verb. Irregular verbs follow no pattern in forming their past and past participles.
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ACADEMIC WRITING 1
Session 2– BASIC ISSUES IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR: PARTS OF SPEECH
Session Overview
In this session you will learn about a very basic but important topic in English Grammar, specifically, about the Parts of Speech. Parts of speech refer to the groups into which words are divided according to their functions in an English sentence.
Goals and Objectives
By the end of this session, you should be able to
•identify the various parts of speech in the English Language
•note the functions of the various parts of speech in an English sentence
•be able to use these parts of speech as building blocks to form correct sentences in English
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Nouns
•Pronouns
•Verbs
•Adjectives
•Adverbs
•Conjunctions
•Preposition
•Interjections
Reading List
•Read Oxford Practice Grammar by George Yule (2006)
TOPIC ONE
NOUNS
A noun names a person, a place, a thing or an idea. Nouns are further divided into various groups.
•Proper nouns name specific people (John Mensah), places (Accra) or thing (Peugeot). They always begin with a capital letter. For example, in the following sentence, the proper nouns in the sentence are underlined.
Akua drove to Kumasi in a very old Toyota in April.
•Common nouns are names of one or more of a general class, place, thing, or idea and these are not written with capital letters. For example, the underlined words in the following sentence are common nouns.
A festival is a celebration of an event.
•Collective nouns are names of groups (class, team)
•concrete nouns name physical things that we can touch or see (paper, table
•abstract nouns name things we cannot touch or see physically such as qualities, beliefs and conditions. For example, love, faith, and trust.
The nouns in the following sentences are examples of collective, concrete, and abstract nouns respectively:
•The little girl welcomed her with a bouquet of flowers.
•The book was on the table.
•Honesty is a good virtue.
•Most nouns express number that is, they can be singular or plural.
•These are also further divided into countable and uncountable nouns.
•Countable nouns name items that can be counted and they are made plural by adding –s or –es to the noun. For example, one boy or two boys; one class or three classes.
•You should note however that some countable nouns have irregular plural forms as in the case of tooth and teeth, mouse and mice.
•Uncountable nouns are items that cannot be counted, for example, water, sand, knowledge and many others. Most uncountable nouns do not have plural forms.
Activity
There are 25 nouns in the following paragraph. Underline the nouns in the paragraph.
I had first heard of Grace Wiley some years before when Dr. Williams Mann, the director of the National Zoo handed me a picture of a tiny woman with a gigantic king cobra draped over her shoulders like a garden hose. The snake had partly spread his hood and was looking intently into the camera while its mistress stroked its head to quiet it. Dr. Mann told me: “Grace lives in a little house full of poisonous snakes, imported from all over the world. She lets them wander around like cats. There’s been more nonsense written about ‘snake charming’ than nearly any other subject”
TOPIC TWO
PRONOUNS
•Pronouns are words that are used in place of nouns and they come in different forms. The noun or pronoun to which a pronoun refers is called the pronoun’s antecedent. For example;
•After the herbalist developed a new drug for malaria, he became famous.
•The noun herbalist is the antecedent of the pronoun he.
•Pronouns come in three forms that describe the pronoun’s function in a sentence.
•These forms are the subjective case, the objective case, and the possessive case.
• The subjective case (also known as subject pronouns), such as I, you, he, she, it, we, and they indicates that the pronoun is the doer of the action described in the sentence.
Look at the function of the word they in the following sentence.
They asked questions about my family.
The word they is the doer of the action described in the verb asked.
•The objective case (also known as object pronouns) indicates that the pronoun is the object, that is, the receiver of an action. Examples are; me, you, him, her, it, us, and them.
In this example, the underlined word is an object pronoun.
The manager threatened her.
The pronoun her is the recipient of the action threatened’
•The possessive case indicates ownership or belonging. The following are all possessive pronouns: my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their, theirs. Example:
Their enthusiasm for the company does not match ours.
•The words ‘their’ and ‘ours’ show a possession of the noun ‘enthusiasm.’
•Pronouns also specify the person, in order to indicate the speaker, the person spoken to and the person or thing spoken about.
•The pronouns (I, we) are normally called first person, that is, the speaker.
•The person spoken to, is known as the second person (you)
•the person or thing spoken about, is known as the third person (he, she, it, they).
•The gender of the person is also specified by personal pronouns. We have examples as (he, him) as masculine and (she, her), as feminine and (it) is neuter.
•Pronouns also specify number, that is, singular (one person or thing: I, you, he, she, it) or plural (more than one person or thing: we, you, they)
•There are also demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, and those which point out a particular person or thing, as indicated in the following example.
These research procedures are questionable
•The word these in the sentence above is a demonstrative pronoun that refers to noun ‘research procedures’ and it also shows that the noun is near to the speaker.
•Another type of pronoun is known as a reflexive pronoun. This indicates that a subject performs actions to, for, or on itself.
•Reflexive pronouns end in –self or –selves as found in myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves, themselves. For example;
We gave ourselves two hours to complete the task.
•Reflexive pronouns can also be used to emphasize their antecedents. For example, in the following sentence, the chief priest is the subject of the sentence and the reflexive pronoun himself refers back to the chief priest.
Not even the chief priest himself could pacify the gods.
•Reflexive pronouns cannot be used as the subject of a sentence and must appear in the same sentence as their antecedents. For example;
•Incorrect: Herself could not correct the computer error.
•Correct: The programmer herself could not correct the computer error.
•Interrogative pronouns are used to introduce or ask questions.
•These are: who, whoever, whom, whomever, whose, (which refer to people) and what, which, whose (which refer things). For example:
Who will come with me to the concert?
•relative pronouns introduce dependent clauses that function as adjectives in a sentence.
–a dependent clause is a clause which contains a subject and a verb but does not express a complete thought.
–The function of the relative pronoun is to refer back to a noun or pronoun that the relative clause modifies. They tell us more about the noun we are discussing in the sentence.
• Some examples of relative pronouns are: who, whom, whose (refer to people) and that, what, which (refer to things). In the following sentences, the pronouns who and which refer to man and Nile which have already been introduced in the sentences.
–The man who came here yesterday behaved strangely.
–The Nile, which flows through Egypt, is a very long river.
•Indefinite pronouns do not refer to specific nouns; rather, they refer to people, places, or things in general. Some examples are everyone, everything, nobody, somebody, and something.
Someone must be responsible for the needy in the society.
•In the example above, someone does not refer to any specific person. It refers to any individual in the society.
Activity
Underline the pronouns in the following sentences and identify each one based on our discussion so far.
•The fact that our eyes deceive is difficult for many of us to accept.
•Our brains influence in ways that we ourselves may not realize.
•Events that surprise us are especially hard to remember accurately
•People usually forget about significant details of these events.
•Everything we do have consequences.
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Academic Writing
Session 1 – Nature Of Academic Writing
Session Overview
This session will introduce you to the new environment you find yourself in.
OBJECTIVES
Upon the completion of this session you should be able to
•identify what the ‘academic discourse community’ means
•note the purpose of Academic Writing
•note the nature of Academic Essays
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•The Academic Discourse Community
•Language of the University
•Other Discourse Communities within the Academic Community
•Advantages of Diversity to Writing
Reading List
Read
a)Chapter Eighty-Three of Reclaiming Human Sciences Through African Perspectives Vol. 2., Adika, Gordon S. K. pp. 1493-1502
b)Chapter One Of Academic Writing: A Handbook For International Students- Bailey, Stephen pp. 3-10
Topic One
THE ACADEMIC DISCOURSE COMMUNITY
WHAT IS AN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE COMMUNITY?
•A discourse community is a group of people bound by specialized use of language, and membership of such a community is by special qualification rather than by birth. For example, the community of lawyers, the community of physicists, the community of engineers etc.
•The university community constitutes an academic discourse community with several sub-communities. You will find in this community experts in various disciplines who interact through the specialized language of the discipline and who train others to also become experts.
Sample Question
1.Identify a discourse community and show why it is different from the Academic discourse community.
2.Identify two sub-types of academic discourse communities found in the University of Ghana.
3.Write down ten terminologies used within one of these communities.
4.Explain any five of these terminologies.
Topic Two
LANGUAGE OF THE UNIVERSITY
•In the Ghanaian Primary or Junior High Schools, the instructors are referred to as teachers but this term changes in the Senior High School where it is more appropriate to use the terms Master or Mistress when addressing the subject teachers. The name of instructors change in the university as well. They are generally referred to as Lecturers. Titles like Doctor and Professor are also used.
•The space within which teaching takes place which are called classrooms from the Primary School right up to the Senior Secondary School, changes to Lecture Halls.
•Many freshmen (new entrants into the university) have problems getting to know, and use these new terminologies but no one takes time to explain these new terms to them! This is because the people who are already in the community assume that everyone knows the terms. They may even forget about their own struggle to learn these terms when they first entered the university.
Activity
•Think of any discourse community and write the name down.
•Write five words that will be used in the discourse community you have identified.
Topic Three
DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
DISCOURSE COMMUNITIES WITHIN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY
•The University is a large discourse community. Within it, we have smaller discourse communities which are marked by separate disciplines, departments and majors.
•The School of Arts of the University of Ghana, for instance, is made up of academic departments that deal with subjects like Study of Religions, Philosophy, Classics, and Heritage Studies. The School is marked separately from the University Of Ghana Business School for instance which deals with subjects like Marketing, Human Resource Development and Finance.
A discourse community may be further divided into sub communities. For example, in the School of Languages, we have the sub-community of linguists, and those interested in English literary studies.
The sub-community of linguists for instance will use such terms like ‘phonology’. ‘assimilation’ and ‘honorifics’ etc while the community of literary experts will use such terms as ‘paradox’, ‘analepsis’, ‘synecdoche’ and ‘iambic pentameter’.
Therefore, the larger Academic Discourse Community and its sub communities need some form of introduction to the new entrant else, the new entrant (freshman) spends a greater part of his time trying to learn about the language of this new environment.
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