AULA 6

ESTUDOS AVANÇADOS DE
LÍNGUA INGLESA –
COMUNICAÇÃO ESCRITA E
ESCRITA ACADÊMICA

Profª Thereza Cristina de Souza Lima

CONVERSA INICIAL

The objective of this chapter is to introduce academic writing to students

who have never dealt with this topic and to deepen the knowledge of those who
have already used academic writing at university.
In order to achieve this goal, the lesson has been developed with the
following sections: the qualities of academic writing, academic conventions,
plagiarism, vocabulary in academic writing and corpus linguistics and academic
writing.
Some of the sections have also been developed in subsections dealing with
controversial issues, such as, clearness, formality, paraphrasing, summarizing,
quoting etc.

CONTEXTUALIZANDO

Writing is not an easy task and Writing for Academic Purposes (WAP) tends
to be considered even more difficult. However, no matter how hard it may be, if we
understand what is expected of a college-level student and if we try to meet these
high academic standards, we can communicate in writing effectively.
In order to succeed in this task, it is advisable to understand certain terms
used in WAP. Therefore, we rely on Osmond (2016), according to whom an
argument means “using evidence and logic to reach a conclusion”, which is related
to using reason to convince the audience of something.
Another point to keep in mind concerns the idea of essay and assignment.
“Two words which may be used almost interchangeably” (Osmond, 2016). In other
words, “any piece of writing, longer than 250 words” (Osmond, 2016).
In addition, it is important to understand the idea of critical thinking, which is
“a frame of mind in which you analyze your research, do not take anything for
granted and look at all sides of other arguments before reaching your own
conclusion” (Osmond, 2016.) This expression, “frame of mind”, represents the
opposite idea to simple facts memorization, as college-level students are not
supposed to just memorize, but to understand, to present the conclusions they
have reached and to defend their argument.
Finally, it is worth remembering that success also depends on how
everything is conveyed in written form. An important rule is:

The academic writing should be simple and clear.

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TEMA 1 – THE QUALITIES OF ACADEMIC WRITING

To approach the qualities of academic writing, it is necessary to be aware

of the importance of reading. As an university student, reading is supposed to be
part of the way you should occupy your time. However, when reading, it is essential
to focus not only on content, but also try to absorb how the passage was written in
relation to what we call the qualities of the academic writing. This is the best way
of developing academic written communication. These qualities are:

• Clearness
• Formality
• Objectivity

1.1 Clearness

Academic writing should always have a clear focus on the research question
under investigation, so you should write in such a way that the information sounds
credible and is easily understood.
Therefore, avoid words and sentences that are too long, which means: write
to express, not to impress.
Remember that the key word is communication. Technical terms and over-
complex sentences will make it difficult for the reader to understand what you are
trying to say. So they should be avoided.
Also, give clear non-subjective descriptions and definite figures. For
instance, use “after 20 years”, rather than “after a long period of time”, use “82%
of the participants” rather than “most participants”. Finally, try not to be vague and
avoid ambiguity, as well as redundancy 1. For example:

INSTEAD OF USE
Due to the fact that Because
Basic fundamentals Fundamentals
Completely eliminate Eliminate
Alternative choices Alternatives
In as few words as possible Concisely

1
Adapted from: <https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/485/academic_skills/331/academic_writing/5>.
Access on: 15 Jan. 2018.

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 Another important point concerning ambiguity is that there are some
ambiguous references to take care of. For instance: “this”, “these”, “it”, “they”,
“that”, “those” etc. When using these words, make sure that the noun to which they
refer has been explicitly mentioned only before its reference. For example: The
research question was not answered adequately, so the student was asked to
answer it again. The “it” in the sentence refers to the research question, which is
mentioned just before.
Finally, watch out for homonyms, as it is common to use the incorrect one if
the writer is a bit absentminded. Some of them are:

It’s/its;
their/there/they’re;
whether/weather;
to/too/two;
whole/hole;
forth/fourth;
throughout/through out;
fare/fair;
past/passed etc.

The last suggestion concerns reading: always read your work out loud as it
helps identify mistakes.

1.2 Formality

Academic texts are always expected to be written in a formal way, so the

writer should follow certain rules, such as2:

RATHER THAN USE

Colloquialism such as “basically”, “thing”, “get” “Fundamentally”, “point”, “obtain” “receive”
Contractions such as “don’t”, “isn’t” “Do not”, “is not” etc
Clichés such as “in the nick of time” “At the critical moment”
Assertiveness such as “Research proves”; “It is possible that”; “a possible explanation is”;
“Research suggests that;
Phrasal verbs such as “put up with”; “bring “Tolerate”, “cause”, etc.
about”

2
Adapted from: <https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/485/academic_skills/331/academic_writing/5>.
Access on: 15 Jan. 2018.
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 In relation to acronyms, it is advisable to use the full term the first time, as
the acronym may not be familiar to the reader. Thereafter, it is possible to
abbreviate.

1.3 Objectivity

Being objective is essential in academic writing. Report what the evidence

tells you even if it is not the expected. But remember that certain adjectives and
adverbs show value judgment, which is not welcome in this kind of writing. For
example: Unsurprisingly, interviewees who answered questions immediately were
nicer people. “Unsurprisingly” and “nicer” are examples of value judgment that
should not be used.
Another point concerns writing directly, that is, avoid letting the reader try to
figure out what you mean. For instance, “an analysis was performed on the result”
is not as direct as “the results were analyzed”.
Finally, regarding the use of the passive voice. If you are writing for a
scientific magazine, for instance, it is worth reading the instructions for guidelines
about this, as the use of passive voice used to be recommended. But, presently,
there are some universities that suggest avoiding it. Some scholars recommend
the use of passive voice when it does not cause ambiguity and when the writer
wants to make clear that the object, not the subject, is to be emphasized.

TEMA 2 – ACADEMIC CONVENTIONS

College students must be aware that there are rules and conventions to
follow in academic writing, so the writers’ knowledge of a subject is as important
as the appropriateness of the presentation. Again, reading plays a relevant role
since students are supposed to read for the content. But they should also pay
attention to the conventions according to which the text was written.
What is called a “convention” is, in many cases, a rule to be followed, a
technique the tutors expect to see used in assignments and it is important to
remark that professors also have to follow certain conventions when they publish
books and journal articles.
Let’s have a look at some aspects related to conventions, outlined by Jordan
(2012).

The academic writer’s approach to his/her material should be:

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 a) analytical rather than impressionistic
b) objective rather than subjective
c) intellectual rather than emotional
d) rational rather than polemical

The academic writer’s tone should be:

a) serious rather than conversational

b) impersonal rather than personal
c) formal rather than informal

The aspects of academic writing related to approach and tone may be

illustrated with the following examples, in which it is possible to compare:

In relation to: Less suitable More suitable

Objectivity I would feel really hurt if Students must follow ethical
someone passed on personal conventions so as not to
information about me without undermine confidence.
my knowledge.
Colloquial language It is widely accepted that It is widely accepted that
election campaigns go the election campaigns increase
extra mile in their final weeks. their efforts in the final weeks.
Personal tone Frost’s work is best Reading Frost’s work out loud
appreciated when spoken gives the reader a better
aloud. sense of the poems.
Informal verbs and words After a long time in Intensive After a long period of time in
Care, the patient got better. Intensive Care, the patient
recovered.

Besides the points mentioned above, university students should be aware

of the importance of paraphrasing, summarizing and quoting.

2.1 Paraphrasing

According to Jordan (2012), paraphrasing is “expressing someone else’s

idea in your own words, structure and style”. Although the writer is using his/her
own words, it must be attributed to the original source as it constitutes an
alternative to too many direct quotes in the writing.
In order to paraphrase well, students should firstly identify a relevant point
in the reading and then rewrite it in his/her own words remembering to change not
only the words, but the sentence structure as well.
The writing needs to flow. So when paraphrasing, students need to use
suitable reporting words to introduce the paraphrase and adequate linking words
to connect the ideas. For example:

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 ● Almeida Filho (2010) asserts that…
● Brown (2012) argues that...
● Smith (2015) suggests that…
● Silva (2016) maintains that...
● Machado (2017) predicts that... etc.
● Lima (2014) concludes that...

Regarding the linking of words, there are many of them, but some of the
most common are:

● To add information:

• Furthermore…
• Moreover…
• Besides…
• In addition to…

● To present cause and effect:

• Consequently…
• Therefore…
• Thus…
• Since…
• As a result…

● To describe similarities:

• Likewise…
• Similarly…
• Correspondingly…

● Contrasting:

• Nevertheless
• However…
• On the other hand…
• On the contrary…

2.2 Summarizing

Another important aspect of academic writing is summarizing. A suggestion

about how to train students to summarize is to have them working in pairs on a

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text, producing notes on each paragraph in turn, discussing areas of difficulty and
agreement. Then, they reconstitute their notes into a summary of the original text.
This is very important because, as it has already been mentioned, university
students are supposed to read a lot, select what is relevant for their research and
either summarize or paraphrase it in order to include it in their essay. Besides, for
paraphrasing and summarizing students need to demonstrate their understanding
and interpretation of the someone’s ideas, allowing them to incorporate it in their
own text and to present these ideas in a logical way to support their arguments.
There is some difference between paraphrasing and summarizing: whereas
the paraphrase usually has the same size as the original text, the summary is
generally shorter. In addition, the focus of paraphrasing is on the meaning, which
must be the same, whereas with a summary, the focus is on the main points only.

2.3 Quoting

To quote is to copy the exact words of an author, inserting it into quotation

marks. Similarly to paraphrasing, it is necessary to use suitable reporting verbs
and to articulate the quoted words to the argument.
Many students fill their text with quotes imagining they are writing their text
suitably, but if they do not incorporate the quote and explain the significance to
their argument, the text may become nothing more than a patchwork without
meaning.

Picture 1 – Quote

A last point to emphasize is that paraphrasing, summarizing and quoting are

ways to avoid plagiarism.

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TEMA 3 – PLAGIARISM

According to the University of Oxford 3, “plagiarism is presenting someone

else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it
into your work without full acknowledgement”.
It is important to remark that published and unpublished material, no matter
whether it is handwritten, printed or electronic is included in this definition.
In fact, concerning writing, plagiarism may happen even when a writer repeats his
own sentences in another piece of writing without referencing himself. In this way,
he should cite his name and the date that sentence was previously published.
Otherwise, there will be identical pieces of work submitted concurrently, which will
be considered to be auto-plagiarism.
Ragin (2016), in the University of Stanford’s site 4 states that “in the
academic world, plagiarism is considered as a serious offense because stealing
the work of another writer is an unacceptable tactic”.
With the advent of technology, falling into the plagiarism trap became very
easy and even tempting because the internet has all the information that could
possibly be needed for a research paper or essay. However, it is not difficult to
identify plagiarism because there are many sophisticated software programs at
educational institutions that recognize it easily.
Finally, plagiarism is unprofessional, illegal and represents the writer’s lack
of ethics. Today, there are heavy penalties for plagiarism which vary from
“destroyed academic reputation, zero grade, and even expulsion from the
educational institution” (Ragin, 2016).

3.1 How to avoid plagiarism

In order to avoid plagiarism, the writer should take the topics mentioned
above into account, that is to say, he should paraphrase, summarize and quote,
and as it has been mentioned before, always reference the quote. Another
interesting suggestion is to use footnotes, in which the writer may introduce the
reference.

3 Available at: <https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism?wssl=1#>.

Access on: 15 Jan. 2018.
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Available at: <https://collegepuzzle.stanford.edu/plagiarism-in-academic-writing-how-to-identify-
and-avoid-it/>. Access on: 15 Jan. 2018.
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TEMA 4 – VOCABULARY IN ACADEMIC WRITING

Vocabulary is one of students’ major concerns because although it is not a

specific skill, it is related to all language learning skills. Besides this, and perhaps
most importantly, students usually want to increase their vocabulary range,
regarding it as a reference of their language improvement. Nevertheless, there is
certain evidence that teachers tend to relate vocabulary acquisition to reading
comprehension and the result of this is that it can be left up to students’
independent learning, which may be inefficient.
Drawn on Carter (1987), it is believed that the vocabulary for university
students should be more advanced than the core 2000-3000 words that provide
the basis of 80% of the words likely to be encountered in English. Sinclair and
Renouf (1988) are more specific concerning the criteria for vocabulary acquisition.
They mention that three points should be considered:

a) the most commonest words;

b) their central pattern of usage;
c) the combination or collocation they typically form.

The last item above takes us to corpus linguistics, an area that has
contributed to the development of many other fields, including academic writing.

TEMA 5 – CORPUS LINGUISTICS AND ACADEMIC WRITING

To write about the contribution of corpus linguistics to academic writing, it is

necessary, firstly, to present the definition of corpus and, secondly, the definition
of corpus linguistics.
In Kennedy’s words (1998), in the language sciences, a corpus and corpus
linguistics are, respectively:

A corpus is a body of written text or transcribed speech which can serve

as a basis for linguistic analysis and description. Over the last three
decades the compilation and analysis of corpora stored in computerized
databases has led to a new scholarly enterprise known as corpus
linguistics. (Kennedy, 1998)

Today, many universities in the world have departments responsible for the
creation and storage of different kinds of corpora, which enable researchers to
investigate, compile and analyze the frequency and the association of words used
in language. This also occurs in relation to academic writing resulting in specialized
wordlists that may be used:

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 a) as a guide and focus for teachers in different activities;
b) as a checklist and aim for students.

Thus, when students investigate vocabulary in a academic English corpus,

they can find different categories of words, such as:

a) low-frequent words
b) technical words
c) non-technical words
d) medium-frequent words
e) high frequent words

The interdisciplinary nature of the academic vocabulary is discussed in

Martin (1976), who divides the academic vocabulary into three groups:

a) The research process: the vocabulary is primarily verbs and nouns related
to the five steps of research: formulating, investigation, analysing, drawing
conclusions and reporting results.
b) The vocabulary of analysis: it includes high frequency and the associations
of verbs and prepositions, necessary to present information in an organized
sequence: consist of, group, result from, based on, be composed of, be
made of etc.
c) The vocabulary of evaluation: it includes adjectives and adverbs such as:
controversial, coherent, indispensable, comprehensive, objective,
subjective, implicit, explicit, inductive, deductive, significant, and
insignificant.

Considering the importance of a Corpus-linguistics approach to language

teaching and learning and, more specifically, in relation to academic writing, this
chapter is finished with the suggestions of free sites that present academic
wordlists:

• <https://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/resources/academicwordlist> (from the

Victoria University in New Zealand).
• <https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/globalpad/openhouse/academicenglishski
lls/vocabulary/academic_words/#What> (from the University of Warwick).
• <https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlist/english/academic/>
(from the University of Oxford).
• <http://www.uefap.com/vocab/select/awl.htm> (with permission from the
University of Cambridge).

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 • <http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/alzsh3/acvocab/> (from the University of
Nottingham).

FINALIZANDO

Academic writing may frighten many university students, as they are not
usually used to writing considering the academic standards of written
communication. However, the subjects approached in this route aim to help
students accomplish their academic tasks in a more effective way. In order to this,
the following subjects have been observed:

• the qualities of academic writing;

• the academic conventions;
• plagiarism;
• vocabulary in academic writing;
• corpus linguistics and academic writing.

It is advisable to consider each of them in your next academic text.

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