Seeds of Academic Writing

By Paula Gabriela Ferrari - Academic Summary -             The purpose of this paper is to summarize the main ideas expressed in the article by Tardy (2010) Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing.  With the aim of helping second language (L2) writers sharpen their academic writing skills, the author delineates the steps to compose an article for Wikipedia ( www.wikipedia.org ).             According to Tardy (2010), students begin this writing process by examining Wikipedia articles of their interest in order to answer a set of questions aimed at identifying genre-based patterns.  Once students are well acquainted with the language, forms and conventions of the encyclopedia, they choose a topic and collect and assemble data about it.  In her article, Tardy (2010) highlights the importance of keeping a record of the sources s...

- An Analytical Essay -             There are several systems currently used in journal writing to document sources.  Within the social sciences, APA (American Psychological Association, 2010) style is frequently used by journal publishers.  The purpose of this paper is to analyze the techniques for crediting sources in the journal article Providing Increased Access to English L2 Students of Computer Science at a South African University (Dalvit, Murray, Terzoli, Zhao & Mini, 2005).   The specific mechanisms of in-text citations, signal phrases and referencing are subjected to examination in the light of the conventions of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (2010) in its 6 th edition.              With regard to the use of in-text citations, APA (2010) style requires writers to include the author’s last name, the...

Swales’ (1990) Delineation of Discourse Communities in Practice For many years scholars have directed their efforts to identify the key features that define a discourse community as such.  It should come as no surprise that it was not until 1990 that those features became clearly delimited, thanks to Swales’ (1990) research in this field.  According to Swales (1990), there are six key characteristics that are necessary to identify a group of individuals as a discourse community.  The purpose of this paper is to examine four prescribed articles under the light of Swales’ theory as regards discourse community requirements. As a first requirement, Swales (1990) postulates that, whether tacitly or explicitly, a discourse community pursues a set of common goals which are public.  In accord with this concept, Kelly-Kleese (2004) contends that the community college should be considered a discourse community in its own right because ¨Its members have, over time, develop...

Dear all,             Welcome to ‘Seeds of Academic Writingʼ, my blog.  As a blogger, I am a complete novice but I hope to use this corner of cyberspace to share my reflections upon education in general and ELT in particular. This term I have begun studying English for Academic Purposes at the university and, as a student, I have been introduced to many different genres in academic writing.  The most influential element in helping me sharpen my skills has undoubtedly been the invaluable opportunity to work collaboratively with two peers: Laura Reyes and Natalia Eberle.  Honestly, keeping up with the course has been a major enterprise but a very gratifying and fecund one.  I sincerely believe in the importance and benefits of a strong, sustained critiquing process in order to produce better academic papers which do state my views on educational issues.  Therefore, I embrace this blog as an opportunity ...

Welcome to ‘Seeds of Academic Writing¨, my blog. As a blogger, I am a complete novice but I hope to use this corner of cyberspace to share my reflections upon education in general and ELT in particular.  I sincerely believe in the importance and benefits of a strong, sustained critiquing process in order to produce better academic papers which do state my views on educational issues. Therefore, I embrace this blog as an opportunity to grow, learn and refine both as a scholarly writer and as educator under the critical eye and nurturing hand of other professionals who also feel the need to take this journey into academic writing.  Anchors aweigh!