LESSON 1

ANALYZING THE STRUCTURE AND

LANGUAGE OF ACADEMIC AND
PROFESSIONAL TEXTS
OBJECTIVES
• Determine the structure of a specific academic text;
• Differentiate language used in academic texts from
various disciplines.
• Explain the specific ideas contained in various academic
texts.
• Use knowledge of text structure the information he/she
needs
• Outline reading texts in various disciplines.
Understanding Academic Texts
Most academic texts follow structure to ensure that
readers can navigate ideas and arguments presented.
These are usually written by professionals in a certain
field, and used by educational institutions as rich sources
for information.
Reading academic texts published by those disciplinary
experts permits students to immerse in the culture of the
discipline and facilitates learning its conventions,
discourse, skills, and knowledge (Erickson, Peters, &
Strommer, 2006, p.122).
Understanding Academic Texts
Oftentimes, teachers use academic texts to
check his/her students’ understanding and
research skills. So, students are expected to be
good at processing academic and professional
texts. However, effective interaction with the
text is a common issue among learners.
Understanding Academic Texts
One good strategy is to be familiar with the
texts’ principles of organization to facilitate
one’s understanding of the information needed
to be learnt. Some of the visual reading
strategies which will be studied in this lesson
are text mapping, outlining, summarizing, and
paraphrasing.
 What is a text structure?
Text structure is the way an author
organizes information in order to achieve
a purpose (Williams et al., 2016).
 INFORMATIONAL TEXT STRUCTURE
1. Definition/Elucidation
2. Description
3. Recount of a Sequence
4. Cause and Effect
5. Problem and Solution
6. Compare and Contrast
7. Enumeration
8. Classification
9. Thesis-Evidence
 PURPOSE POSSIBLE TEXT STRUCTURES

To give instructions Recount, Description and Enumeration

To give explanation Definition, Description, Enumeration

and Classification
To argue a point or
Thesis-Evidence
position

To convey information All of the text structures

To narrate an event or Chronological rendition or recount

process
How to determine a text's structure?
1. By noting language cues
2. By making a graphic representation of the text (text
mapping)
Text Mapping - It is a general term for graphically
organizing and representing the various parts of a text in a
manner that shows how parts relate to each other.
3. By outlining
 LANGUAGE CUES
AND
VISUAL REPRESENTATION OF TEXT
STRUCTURES
1. DEFINITION
A definition text explains the nature
of something.
It describes the thing being defined
and/or cites examples of it.
Example:
Texting, as an abbreviation form of writing used on
mobile phones and pagers with tiny screens and
keyboards, suspends normal conventions of grammar,
spelling, and punctuation. It is a hybrid construct,
combining elements of writing with speech forms but its
mixing takes entirely new resonances and characteristics.
Texting appears as though people are talking when in
fact they are writing. Texting resembles speech because
of its “ethereal and fleeting” qualities. Yet it also
resembles written text because the text has physicality
in the form of the words and symbols printed on the
screen.
2. DESCRIPTION
A descriptive text gives concrete details
about appearance, characteristics, and
actions.
It usually uses adjectives and adjective
phrases.
 Mercado House... This early Spanish period house has the
typical elongated floor plan where rooms follow each other
in a train-like sequence. Typical too is the wooden projecting
upper floor cantilevered by the adobe Zaguan below. The
façade is severely simple windows of plain slatted capiz. Its
floor plan is quite introverted in the sense that bedrooms
dominate the upper area fronting the main street, thus
leaving no space for the usual “grandstand” where one
usually watched parades of processions outside. Recurring
themes are huge thick doors and grand arches.
 DESCRIPTION OF
GENERAL SPECIFIC PARTS
DESCRIPTION: - Wooden upper floor
- Old (early - windows of slatted
Spanish period) MAIN TOPIC
The Mercado house
capiz
- Elongated floor in Biňan, Laguna - rooms in train-like
plan sequence
- simple facade
- Introverted
- huge, thick doors
floor plan. - grand arches
3. RECOUNT OF A SEQUENCE
A recount of a sequence is a chronological
narration of a historical period, a sequential
description of a process or a procedure.
Some signal words are first, second, now,
before, after, then, finally, while, meanwhile,
during and other expressions of time and
duration describing the steps in a process or
procedure.
 Break four eggs in a bowl and beat for about 5 mins. or
until the white is evenly mixed with the yolk. Next, pour 1
small can of condensed milk and 1/2 small can of evaporated
milk into the bowl and mix. Set this aside. Then place a
llanera or leche flan mold over low fire and prepare the
caramel by melting 5 table spoons of washed sugar in a little
water until it thickens. Set this aside until the caramel cools
and hardens. Afterwards, pour the mixture of egg and milk
into the llanera and cover it with aluminum foil. Put the
llanera into a steamer and cook for about 10 mins. Finally, to
test if it is ready, use a toothpick: if some solid particles stick
to it, it's done.
Timeline

PRE-COOKING COOKING AFTER COOKING

Flow Chart

Cutting Drying Sorting

4. CAUSE-EFFECT

A cause-effect text presents reasons

why a situation is obtained.
 Filipino elementary and high school students are not dumb, but they
have consistently obtained score below the international average in
Math and Science. They have also fared poorly in the National
Achievement test (NAT, which is given to fourth year high school
students), in the High School Readiness Test (HSRT, given to first year
students), and in other evaluation tests.
This dismal performance has been attributed to problems such as
overcrowded classrooms, poorly trained teachers and lack of
textbooks... Because of the shortage of public school teachers,
physical, and health education instructors are forced to teach core
subjects such as Math and Science... The problems plaguing the public
school system are largely due to the decrease in real terms of the
budget for education. Government spends only about Php 10 per
elementary pupil and Php 35 per secondary student a month.
 EFFECT 1

CAUSE 1 EFFECT 2

EFFECT 3
 5. PROBLEM-SOLUTION
A problem-solution text starts off with a
negative situation (a problem) and ends with a
positive situation (a solution).
 To discover the reasons of poor achievement
among incoming freshmen, a survey of their reading
levels was likewise done following the 2002 NDT
test. The initial conclusions: incoming HS students in
Metro Manila were reading at the late Grade 4 and
early Grade 5 levels, or about two years behind in
terms of their age and grade levels. Little wonder
then that our public secondary students fared poorly
in the readiness and achievement tests.
To address this problem, DepEd set a number of
policy directions,
including: (a) a new grading system to reflect true
performance of students (with nio transmutation of grades),
(b) a High School Bridge program to help those that need the
most, and (c) “Every Child a Reader (by Grade 3)” program.
The permanent solution to this learning deficiency is to
make “Every Child a Reader” starting at the elementary level.
For this DepEd has embarked on a program to make every
child a reader by Grade 3 and to address the problem of poor
learning achievement in the formative years, including
preschool. This will take time to bear fruit, however, and it
will take a number of years before we see achievement test
scores improve dramatically. But it must start with raising the
level of independent readers at the end of the elementary
cycle from less than 20 percent to 100 percent.
 SOLUTION 1

PROBLEM SOLUTION 2

SOLUTION 3
 WHO:
WHAT:
PROBLEM WHY:

WHO:
ATTEMPTED WHAT:
SOLUTION

WHAT:
RESULT WHY:

POSITIVE:
FINAL OUTCOME NEGATIVE:
6. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST
In comparison and contrast text, similarities and
differences are presented. Some expressions that
point to similarities, in like manner, and in the
same way; to talk about differences, the following
expressions are commonly used: on the other
hand, on the contrary, the opposite, compared to,
in contrast, although, unless and however.
 POINT OF SUBJECT A SUBJECT B
COMPARISON (COGNITIVE TASK) (METACOGNITIVE TASK)
Focus of task - Problem Solving - Assessing one's own
- Answering a thinking processes
question
Target of Task - Getting the - Monitoring
correct answer effectiveness of own
thinking processes
- Correcting thinking
process
- Determining what
works best for oneself
 AC B

A= characteristics unique to A
B= characteristics unique to B
C= A's and B's commonalities VENN DIAGRAM
7. ENUMERATION
An enumeration is a listing, as in list of parts,
of characteristics, of examples, etc. Some
words that indicate are to start with, first,
second, in addition, next, then, another, finally,
and also. Enumeration appears as a numbered
list or a bulleted text.
Example:
Reasons for growth of cities
1. Growth of factories in cities
2. Establishments of schools that offer
better education in cities
3. Building of places of leisure and
entertainment
 8. CLASSIFICATION
A classification text presents groupings, types,
classes, categories, and sub-categories that constitute
a concept, presented in hierarchical order.
CONCEPTS

SEMI-CONCRETE
CONCRETE CONCEPTS ABSTRACT CONCEPTS
CONCEPTS
9. THESIS-EVIDENCE
Primarily to serve the purpose of arguing a
point/position or interpretation, the thesis-evidence
text organization or thought pattern may be
arranged deductively (general statement or thesis
followed by supporting details) or inductively
(details from which an inference or thesis is drawn).
THESIS/ MAIN IDEA

EVIDENCE 1

EVIDENCE 2
OUTLINING
Another way of determining text
structure, though it's not visual, is by
outlining. An outline shows the framework
of a text through division and subdivision
of the ideas.
 BASIC PRINCIPLES
AND
RULES IN OUTLINING
1. PRINCIPLE OF DIVISION
Every part of an outline that has
subtopics should have at least two parts or
subsections. You cannot claim to have
divided something and have only one part.
PRINCIPLE OF DIVISION
2. PRINCIPLE OF CLASSIFICATION
Similar ideas should go together. This
implies that there should be no overlapping
of topics and subtopics in an outline.
PRINCIPLE OF CLASSIFICATION
3. PRINCIPLE OF COORDINATION
Ideas of equal rank and value are coordinate,
therefore, they belong to the same level of the
outline. Coordinate headings must be expressed
in parallel construction.
PRINCIPLE OF COORDINATION
4. PRINCIPLE OF SUBORDINATION
There are big ideas and small ideas; small ideas
should fall under the appropriate big ideas.
PRINCIPLE OF SUBORDINATION
TYPES OF OUTLINE
1. SENTENCE OUTLINE
The heading of each level is one sentence.
Example:
I. There are two types of sports fan.
a. The first type is the spectator.
b. The second type is the analyst.
2. TOPIC OUTLINE
The heading of each level is a phrase.
Example:
I. Two types sports fan
a. The spectator
b. The analyst
TRADITIONAL FORMAT OF OUTLINE
1. Main ideas are labeled with Roman
numerals.
2. Supporting ideas developing the main
ideas are labeled with capital letters,
indented.
TRADITIONAL FORMAT OF OUTLINE
3. Details developing the supporting ideas
are labeled with Arabic numbers, indented.
4. Minor details developing the details are
labeled with small letters, indented.