EAPP REVIEWER FOR FIRST QUARTER EXAM

LESSON 1:

Academic writing is a process that starts with posing a question, problematizing a concept,
evaluating an opinion and ends in answering the questions or questions posed, identifying the
problem and/or arguing a stand.

It is important to consider the areas in academic writing when creating one.

Content- clarity of the purpose and statement, relevance of the supporting points to the
statement, knowledge on the subject matter
Structure- coherence and logical sequences of ideas
Language- word choice, sentence constructions
Mechanics- grammar, punctuations, capitalizations, formatting documentation

Examples:
1. Literary analysis – examines, evaluates and makes an argument about a literary work
2. Research paper – utilizes outside information to support a thesis or make an argument
3. Dissertation – a document submitted at the conclusion of PhD program
Other examples include textbooks, essays, reports, case studies.

Language Use- refers to how the language is used in a particular text. This may also refer to
the type language utilized in the text; some term may differ in meaning when used in another
discipline.

Text Structure- refers to how the information within a written text is organized

Read the following text and evaluate the text structure and language use in the text by
answering the activities the follows.

From Hand to Mouth

Michael C. Corballis

(1) Imagine trying to teach a child to talk without using your hands or any other means of
pointing of gesturing. The task would surely be impossible. There can be little doubt that bodily
gestures are involved in the development of language, both in the individual and in the species.
Yet, once the system is up and running, it can function entirely on vocalizations, as when two
friends chat over the phone and create in each other’s minds a world of events far removed
from the actual sounds that emerge from their lips. My contention is that the vocal element
emerged relatively late in hominid evolution. If the modern chimpanzee is to be our guide, the
common ancestor of 5 or 6 million years ago would have been utterly incapable of a telephone
conversation but would have been able to make voluntary movements of hands and face that
could the least serve as a platform upon which to build a language.

(2) Evidence suggests that the vocal machinery necessary for autonomous speech developed
quite recently in hominid evolution. Grammatical language may well have begun to emerge
around 2 million years ago but would at first have been primary gestural, though no doubt
punctuated with grunts and other vocal cries that were at first largely involuntary and
emotional. The complex adjustments necessary to produce speech as we know it today would
have taken some time to evolve, and may not have been complete until some 170,000 years
ago, or even later, when Homo sapiens emerged to grace, but more often disgrace, the planet.
These adjustments may have been incomplete even in our close relatives the Neanderthals;
arguably, it was this failure that contributed to their demise.

(3) The question now is what were the selective pressures that led to the eventual dominance
of speech? On the face of it, an acoustic medium seems a poor way to convey information
about the world; not for nothing is it said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Moreover,
signed language has all the lexical and grammatical complexity of spoken language. Primate
evolution is itself a testimony to the primacy of the visual world. We share with monkeys a
highly sophisticated visual system, giving us three- dimension information in colour about us,
and an intricate system for exploring that world through movement and manipulation. Further,
in a hunter- gatherer environment, where predators and prey are major concern, there are
surely advantages in silent communication since sound acts as a general alert. And yet we
came to communicate about the world in a medium that in all primates except ourselves is
primitive and stereotyped- and noisy.

(4) Before we consider the pressures that may have favoured vocalization over gestures, it
bears repeating that the switch from hand to mouth was almost certainly not an abrupt one. In
fact, manual gestures still feature prominently in language; even as fluent speakers gesture
almost as much as they vocalize, and of course deaf communities spontaneously develop
signed language. It has also been proposed that speech itself is in many respects better
conceived as composed of gestures rather than sequences of these elusive phantoms called
phonemes. In this view, language evolved as a system of gestures based on movements of
the hands, arms and face, including movements of the mouth, lips, and tongue. It would not
have been a big steps to add voicing to the gestural repertoire, at first as mere grunts, but
later articulated so that invisible gestures of the oral cavity could rendered accessible, but to
the ear rather than the eye. There may therefore have been continuity from the language that
was almost exclusively manual and facial, though perhaps punctuated by involuntary grunts,
to one in which the vocal component has a much more extensive repertoire and is under
voluntary control. The essential feature of modern expressive language is not that it is purely
vocal, but rather that the component can function autonomously and provide the grammar as
well as meaning of linguistics communication.

(5) What, then, are the advantages of a language that can operate autonomously through
voice and ear, rather than hand and eye? Why speech?

Advantages of Arbitrary Symbols

(6) One possible advantage of vocal language is its arbitrariness. Except in rare cases of
onomatopoeia, spoken words cannot be iconic, and they therefore offer scope for creating
symbols that distinguish between object or actions that look alike or might otherwise be
confusable. The names of similar animals, such as cats, lions, tigers, cheetahs, lynxes, and
leopards, are rather different. We may be confused as to which animals is which, bur at least
it is clear which one we are talking about. The shortening of words overtime also makes
communication more efficient, and some of us have been around long enough to see this
happen: television has become TV or telly, microphone has been reduced to mike (or mic),
and so on. The fact that more frequent words tends to be shorter than less frequent ones was
noted by the American philologist George Kingsley Zipf, who related it to a principle of “least
effort.” So long as signs are based on iconic resemblance, the signer has little scope for these
kinds of calibration.

(7) It may well have been very important for hunter-gatherers to identify and name a great
many similar fruits, plants, trees, animals, birds, and so on, and attempts at iconic
representation would eventually only confuse. Jared Diamond observes that the people living
largely traditional lifestyle in New Guinea can name hundreds of birds, animals, and plants,
along with details about each of them. These people are illiterate, relying on word of mouth to
pass on information, not only about potential foods, but also about how to survive dangers,
such as crop failures, droughts, cyclones, and raids from other tribes. Diamond suggests that
the main repository of accumulated information is elderly. He points out that humans are
unique among primates in that they can expect to live to a ripe old age, well beyond the age
of child bearing (although perhaps it was not always so). A slowing down of senescence may
well have been selected in evolution because the knowledge retained by the elderly enhanced
the survival of their younger relatives. An elderly, knowledgeable granny may help us all live
a little longer, and she can also look after the kids.

(8) In the naming and transmission of such detailed information, iconic representation would
almost certainly be inefficient: edible plants or berries could be confused with poisonous ones,
and animals that attack confused with those that are benign. This is not to say that gestural
signs could not to do the trick. Manual signs readily become conventionalized and convey
abstract information. Nevertheless, there may be some advantage to using spoken words,
since they have virtually no iconic content to begin with, and so provide a ready-made system
for abstraction.

(9) I would be on dangerous ground, however, if I were to insist too strongly that speech is
linguistically superior to signed language. After all, students at Gallaudet University seem
pretty unrestricted in what they can learn; signed language apparently functions well right
through to university level- and still requires students to learn lots of vocabulary from their
suitably elderly professor. It is nevertheless true that many signs remain iconic, or at least
partially so and are therefore somewhat tethered with respect to modifications that might
enhance clarity or efficiency of expression. But there may well be a trade- off here. Signed
language may easier to learn than spoken ones. Especially in initial stages of acquisition, in
which the child comes to understand the linking of objects and the action with their linguistic
representations. But spoken languages, ones acquired, may relay messages more accurately,
since spoken words are better calibrated to minimize confusion. Even so, the iconic
component is often important, and as I look the quadrangles outside my office I see how freely
the students there are embellishing their conversations with manual gestures.

In The Dark
(10) Another advantage of speech over gesture is obvious: we can use it in the dark! This
enables us to communicate at night, which not only extends the time available for meaningful
communications but may also have proven decisive in the competition for space and
resources. We of the gentle species Homo sapiens have a legacy of invasion, having migrated
out of Africa into territories inhabited by other hominins who migrated earlier. Perhaps it was
the newfound ability to communicate vocally, without the need for a visual component that
enabled our fore-bearers to plan, and even carry out, invasion at night, and so vanquish the
earlier migrants.

(11) It is not only a question of being able to communicate at night. We can also speak to
people when objects intervene and you can’t see them, as when you yell to your friend in
another room. All this has to do, of course, with the nature of sound itself, which travels equally
well in the dark as in the light and wiggles its way around obstacles. The wall between you
and the base drummer next door may attenuate the sound but does not completely block it.
Vision, on the other hand, depends on light reflected from an external source, such as the sun,
and is therefore ineffective when no such source is available. And the light reflected from the
surface of an object to your eye travels in rigidly straight lines, which means that it can provide
detailed information about shape but is susceptible to occlusion and interference. In terms of
the sheer ability to reach those with whom you are trying to communicate, words speak louder
than actions.

Listen to Me!
(12) Speech does have one disadvantage, though: it is generally accessible to those around
you and is therefore less convenient for sending confidential or secret messages or for
planning an attack on enemies within earshot. To some extent, we can overcome this
impediment by whispering. And sometimes, people resort to signing. But the general alerting
function of sounds also has its advantages. When Mark Anthony cried, “Friends, Romans,
countrymen, lend me ears.” he was trying to attract attention as well as deliver a message.

(13) In the evolution of speech, the alerting component of language might have consisted at
first simply of grunt that accompany gestures to give emphasis to specific actions or encourage
reluctant offspring to attend while a parent lays down the law. It is also possible that non-vocal
sounds accompanied gestural communication. Russell Gray has suggested to me that clicking
one’s fingers as children often do when putting their hands up in class to answer a question,
may be a sort of “missing link” between gestural and vocal language. I know of no evidence
that chimpanzees or other nonhuman primates are able to click their fingers as humans can,
although lip smacking, as observed in chimpanzees, may have played a similar role. Sounds
may therefore have played a similar and largely alerting role in early evolution of language,
gradually assuming more prominence in conveying the message itself.

(14) For humans, visual signals can only attract attention if they occur within a fairly restricted
region of space, whereas the alerting power of sound is more or less independent of where its
source is located relative to listener. And sound is a better alerting medium in other respects
as well. No amount of gesticulation will wake a sleeping person, whereas a loud yell will usually
do the trick. The alerting power of sound no doubt explains why animals have evolved vocal
signals for sending messages of alarm. Notwithstanding the peacock’s tail or parrot’s gaudy
plumage, even birds prefer to make noises to attract attention, whether in proclaiming territory
or warning of danger. Visual signals are relatively inefficient because they may elude our gaze,
and in any case we can shut them out by closing our eyes, as we vulnerable to auditory
assault.
(15) Speech has another, and subtler, attentional advantage. Manual gesture is much more
demanding of attention, since you must keep your eyes fixed on gesturer in order to extract
her meaning, whereas speech can be understood regardless of where you are looking. There
are a number of advantages in being able to communicate with people without having to look
at them. You can effectively divide attention, using speech to communicate with a companion
while visual attention is deployed elsewhere, perhaps to watch a football game or to engage
in some joint activity, like building a boat. Indeed, the separation of visual and auditory
attention may have been critical in the development of pedagogy.

Three Hands Better than Two

(16) Another reason why vocal language may have arisen is that it proves an extra medium.
We have already seen that most people gesture with their hands, and indeed their faces, while
they talk. One might argue then, that the addition of vocal channel provides additional texture
and richness to the message.

(17) But perhaps it is not a simply a matter of being better. Susan Golden-Meadow and David
McNeill suggest that speech may have evolved because it allows the vocal and manual
components to serve different and complimentary purposes. Speech is perfectly adequate to
convey syntax, which has no iconic or mimetic aspect, and can relieve the hands and arms of
this chore. The hands and arms, of course, well adapted to providing the mimetic aspect of
language, indicating in analogue fashion the shapes and sizes of things, or the direction of
movements, as in the gesture that might accompany any statement “he went that a-way.” By
allowing the voice to take over the grammatical component, the hands are given free rein, as
it were, to provide the mimetic component.

(18) But speech may have evolved, not because it gave the hands freer rein for mimetic
expression, but rather because it freed the hands to do other activities. Charles Darwin, who
seems to have thought of almost everything, wrote, “We might have used our fingers as
efficient instruments, for a person with practice can report to a deaf man every word of a
speech rapidly delivered at a public meeting, but the loss of our hands, while thus employed,
would have been a serious inconvenience.” It would clearly be difficult to communicate
manually while holding an infant, or driving a car, or carrying a shopping, yet we can and do
talk while doing these things.

(19) Speech has the advantage over manual gestures in that it can be accomplished in parallel
with manual demonstration. Demonstrations might themselves be considered gestures, of
course, but the more explanatory aspect of pedagogy, involving grammatical structure and
symbolic content, would interfere with manual demonstration if they were too conveyed
manually. Clearly, it is much easier and more informative to talk while demonstrating than to
try to mix linguistic signs in with the demonstration. This is illustrated by a good TV cooking
show, where chefs is seldom at a lost for either word or ingredients. It may not be far fetch to
suppose that the selective advantages of vocal communication emerged when the hominins
began to develop a more advanced tool technology, and they could eventually verbally explain
what they were doing while they demonstrated tool-making techniques. Moreover, if vocal
language did not become autonomous until the emergence of Homo sapiens, this might
explain why tools manufacture did not really begin to develop true diversity and sophistication,
and indeed to rival language itself in this respect, until within the last 100,000 years.

(20) Thus, it was not the emergence of the language itself that gave rise to the evolutionary
explosion that has made our lives so different from our near relatives, the great apes. Rather,
it was the invention of autonomous speech, freeing the hands for more sophisticated
manufacture and allowing language to disengage from other manual activities, so that people
could communicate while changing the baby’s diapers, and even explain to a novice what they
were doing. The idea that language may have evolved relatively slow, seems much more in
accord with biological reality than the notion of linguistic “big bang” within the past 200,000
years. Language and manufacture also allowed cultural transmission to become the dominant
mode of inheritance in human life. That ungainly bird, the jumbo jet, could not have been
created without hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years of cultural evolution, and the brains
that created it were not biologically superior to the brains that existed in 100,000 years ago in
Africa. The invention of speech may have merely been the first of many developments that
have put us not only on the map, but all over it.
LESSON 2:

Legal English- the

type of English as
used in legal
writing. This is used
in legal documents
such as contracts,
licenses, etc. and
other legal
correspondence.

Figurative language- refers to language that deviates from the conventional order and
meaning in order to convey a complicated ad colorful meaning.

Read the following poem and evaluate the text structure and language use in the poem by
answering the activities the follows

Trees
by Joyce Kilmer
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
LESSON 3:
LESSON 4:
LESSON 5:

LESSON 6:
Critical approaches, sometimes called lenses, are different perspectives we can consider
when looking at a piece or several pieces of Literature. Their purpose to help us answer the
following questions, as well as helping us interpret and understand literary works:
1. What do we read?
2. Why do we read?
3. How do we read?

Critical approaches are used to analyze, question, evaluate, interpret, and synthesize literary
works with a specific mindset or “lenses”.

Formalist Criticism: This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge
that needs to be examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for understanding
the work are contained within the work itself. Of particular interest to the formalist critic are the
elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.—that are found within the text. A
primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work together with the
text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.
Biographical Criticism: This approach “begins with the simple but central insight that
literature is written by actual people and that understanding an author’s life can help readers
more thoroughly comprehend the work.” The biographical critic “focuses on explicating the
literary work by using the insight provided by knowledge of the author’s life.
Historical Criticism: This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by investigating the
social, cultural, and intellectual context that produced it—a context that necessarily includes
the artist’s biography and milieu.” A key goal for historical critics is to understand the effect of
a literary work upon its original readers.
Gender Criticism: This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the creation and
reception of literary works.”
Sociological Criticism: This approach “examines literature in the cultural, economic and
political context in which it is written or received,” exploring the relationships between the artist
and society. Sometimes it examines the artist’s society to better understand the author’s
literary works; other times, it may examine the representation of such societal elements within
the literature itself.
Reader-Response Criticism: This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that “literature”
exists not as an artifact upon a printed page but as a transaction between the physical text
and the mind of a reader. It attempts “to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while
interpreting a text” and reflects that reading, like writing, is a creative process.

LESSON 7:
A reaction paper, a review, and a critique are specialized forms of writing in which a
reviewer or reader evaluates any of the following:
→ a scholarly work (like academic books and articles)
→ b. a work of art (play, film/movie, exhibit)
→ c. designs (fashion, furniture)
→ d. graphic design (posters, billboards, commercials, digital media)

A very important expository discourse that students must know how to write is the reaction
paper or review, or critique. It is mainly written to communicate a fair assessment of situations,
people, events, and literary and artistic works and performances.
Purposes of Reaction Paper, Review or Critique
Reaction papers, reviews, and critiques are not merely summaries but are critical
assessments, analyses, or evaluation of different works. As advanced forms of writing, they
involve skills in critical thinking and recognizing arguments; using both proofs and logical
reasoning to substantiate comments. However, the word critique should not be connected to
cynicism and pessimism.
A review, which is sometimes called a critique or an evaluative paper, critically and carefully
examines another writer's work, almost like a peer review. Reviews usually provide:
1) some general background about the author and the work,
2) an overview of the topics the author covers,
3) an acknowledgment of what the author does well or of the contribution the work has made
to the field, and
4) an analysis of what could have be done better.

Basic Qualities of an Adequate Critical Judgment

a. Provides accurate and relevant information on the event, show, or work
b. Exhibits full appreciation of the purpose behind the event, show, or work
c. Shows a clear understanding of the means (strategies, techniques, devices, etc.) and their
appropriateness and power in achieving the purpose
d. Exhibits fairness and balance in the judgment made
e. Projects incisive and profound insights into its
(1) analysis of the event on artifact,
(2) interpretation of the underlying meaning or significance of the event or artifact,
and
(3) appreciation of the values “(moral and/or aesthetic) unfolded in every detail of the
event or artifact”

A Sample Format for Reviews

Introduction
• Introduce the work fully (e.g., Author, title, publisher, year, # of pages).
• Briefly describe the kind of work being reviewed, its main subject, audience, purpose.
• Summarize your evaluation, especially any problem or question you will tackle later.

Section I
• Place the work into some context--that of the course, your own experience, or the
academic discipline, in terms of the problem the work addresses.

Section II
• Summarize the main points of the work, using paraphrase and quotation to highlight the
contents.
• Be sure to distinguish between your summary and your reaction to the text

Section III
• Evaluate the work by discussing it in terms of what you have learned about the subject
from the course text and your own experience. Be critical; if you see problems with the
author's argument or methods, note them.
• How do the categories it uses compare to those of the course text? Do they extend the
categories, conflict with them, argue with them?
• How do the conclusions compare?

Conclusion
Synthesize the questions you raised in the previous section, so that you can place the work
in the larger context of the issues raised by the course overall

LESSON 8:
Concept papers should range from 1 - 2 double-spaced pages (250-500 words). The point of
a concept paper is to provide a clear summary of the research project. It should enable a
casual reader to understand what the researcher is investigating, why it is important, and how
the investigation will proceed.

All research projects need a concept paper: a short summary that tells the reader what the
project is, why it is important, and how it will be carried out. Even if no one else ever reads it,
the concept paper helps a researcher spot holes in her or his project that might later prove
fatal. It is far better to be clear at the beginning than to put in a lot of effort for nothing!
Typically, a concept paper contains these elements:
1. A title in the form of a question. This may be the last part of the concept paper that you
write, but it should appear at the heading of the paper.
2. A clear description of the research topic, including a summary of what is already known
about that topic.
3. A one-sentence statement of the research question that the project will seek to answer.
(This is almost always something that is not known.) The concept paper should elaborate on
how this question can be answered -- something that almost always takes more than one
sentence to accomplish.
4. A demonstration of why it is important to answer this research question. What good comes
of this answer? Why is this project worth writing?
5. A description of how the researcher plans to answer the research question.
This includes:
a. a description of the data or evidence that the researcher plans to gather or use;
b. a description of how the researcher will analyze these data; and
c. a demonstration of how these data and this analytic method will answer the research
question.

Funders often ask for brief 1- to 5-page concept papers (also called “white papers” in
the government contracting sector) prior to submission of a full proposal. This helps
them save time by eliminating ideas that are not likely to be funded.

Applicants may use concept papers in any of the following ways:

• to interest potential funders
• to develop potential solutions or investigations into project ideas
• to determine whether a project idea is fundable
• to serve as the foundation of a full proposal

Three Ways to Elucidate a Concept

1. Definition is the method of identifying a given term and making its meaning clearer.
Its main purpose is to clarify and explain concepts, ideas and issues by answering the
question, “What does it mean?” This mode of explanation contains the term to be
defined and the detailed exposition of the term through the use of illustration,
examples, and descriptions.
A definition can be presented in three ways:
1.1. An informal definition is done through a parenthetical or brief explanation.
Example:

Tocopherol (Vitamin E) is naturally found in vegetable oil, fish and nuts.

1.2. A formal definition explains a term by incorporating the term to be defined

(species), the general category of the term (genus), and the quality that makes the
term different from other terms in the same category (differentia). Example:

Vitamin E is a light yellow fat-soluble vitamin that acts as an anti-oxidant.

1.3. An extended definition is a detailed way of defining a term and is usually

composed of at least one paragraph. This type of definition incorporates various
patterns of development to explain a given concept. Example:

Subsequent to materials design is the preparation of learning materials. Learning

materials refer to both printed and non-printed objects or items that teachers and
learners use to facilitate language learning. Nowadays, materials are becoming
 more and more sophisticated, incorporating authentic language samples and
realias that help make connection between classrooms and real life activities.

2. Explication is a literary technique in criticism and research, used for a close analysis
of an excerpt or text taken from a lengthy piece of work. It originates from the French
word, “explication de texte,” meaning explanation of a text. It is neither a summary, nor
a rewording, nor a paraphrase, but a commentary that reveals the meanings of a
literary work. It usually tells about figures of speech, tone, setting, connotations, points
of view, themes, contrasts, and anything else that could add to the meaning of a text.

Example:

The Scarlet Letter (by Nathaniel Hawthorne) Nathaniel Hawthorne opens his novel,
The Scarlet Letter, with a paragraph that depicts a crowd assembled in front of a prison
door. The people are waiting for Hester Prynne to show up with her scarlet letter “A.”
The author describes the crowd as a “throng,” suggesting a mob- like and densely
packed group. The mood is not pleasant, but somber – displayed by their “sad-colored”
garments, hoods, and gray hats. Another interesting description about the men’s hats
is that they were “steeple-crowned,” which suggests that the people of the town are
associated with the church that had punished Hester. The author’s description of
women as “intermixed” with men, alludes to the people in town lacking individuality.
The use of passive voice “was assembled” further implies lack of individuality.

3. Clarification is a method of explanation in which the points are organized from a

general abstract idea to specific and concrete examples. It entails the analysis of the
concept by looking at the examples and specifying some of its characteristics to arrive
at one working definition which can be used throughout the paper.
Signal Words for Clarification
after all as an example consider the following for example
for instance in other words in particular in short
namely put another way specifically stated differently
that is to be specific to clarify to illustrate
Example:
Justice is a broad concept which encompasses a wide set of ideas, most of which also
branch out into smaller notions. For instance, it can refer to the sentencing of a criminal based
on due process. When an individual gets what he deserves, even outside the hands of the
law, it is also considered justice in some contexts. In the context of this paper, justice will be
clearly delineated into any instance in which the law is successfully and fairly applied to an
individual, resulting in either an arrest or a release. To illustrate, if a thief is caught and tried
in court through due process, and is found to be guilty and then sentenced accordingly, it can
be said that justice is served. However, if the same thief is caught by a band of villagers and
was beaten right there and then, it will be considered justice in the context of the paper, as the
process has not undergone due process.