NEW BRIGHTON SCHOOL OF THE PHILIPPINES, INC.

Module No. ___

Subject: Date of Submission: ____________
Name of Student: __________________________________________________
Course and Year: __________________________________________________
Semester and School Year: __________________________________________

TOPIC Nature of Academic Text

What Is This Module About?

How many times have you been asked to write about your summer or you Christians vacation? How many
times have you been assigned to do a book review or a reaction paper? Maybe, at some point, you were also asked
to write a poem, skits, letter and etc. In all of this, would you know the difference of academic texts and personal
narrative?
This module will help you know what is an academic text and its purpose. Herein, will introduce you to different
way of writing and how to do it properly by explain those of the process and what entails that process. Aside from that,
this will direct you to the texts that you need to read critically using your critical thinking and analysis.

OBJECTIVES What are we aiming here?

After studying this module, you should be able to:
 differentiates language used in academic texts from various disciplines
 uses knowledge of text structure to glean the information he/she needs
 uses various techniques in summarizing a variety of academic texts
 states the thesis statement of an academic text
 outlines reading texts in various disciplines

INTRODUCTION Think and Share!

Read the following questions and answer them in 2-3 sentences. Answer this activity on a separate
sheet of paper.

1. What is the easiest writing assignment you have done so far?

2. How about the most difficult writing assignment you have done?

3. What do you think made the writing assignment difficult or easy?

LESSON 1 Nature of Academic Texts

We have been oriented with different kinds of writing. In each level, writing becomes complex as we
learn new concepts of it. and those of the concepts should not remain concepts without using them formally
just how they are to be written in a formal way. That is why, we have to employ academic writing to produce academic
texts in which we will get to focus on the formal way of writing and what are those things that we consider formal and
what are those of the informal.

Academic Writing

The process that starts with posing a question, problematizing concept, evaluation and opinion and ends in
answering the question or questions posed clarifying the problem, and/or arguing for a stand is called Academic
Writing.

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Academic Writing is Thinking.
You have to abide by the set of rules and practices in writing. You are to consider the following:
 Language must be appropriate and formal without forgetting that your goal in writing is to make your
readers engage them in whatever that you have written by giving clear ideas and points to evaluate and
question.

 Consider the knowledge of your audience in a way that you have to make sure that your purpose is clear
and that your language, style, and tone are appropriate to convey your purpose to your readers. For your
audience is varied and you have to make sure that when you write, you have to keep the readers in mind.

E.g.
Your audience are group of experts on language policies, it is acceptable that you use jargons such as
vernacular, mother tongue, first language, Englishes.

 Statement must have a strong and valid evidence.

That is why, academic texts such as papers require deliberate, thorough, and careful thought and this is why
is involves research.

Purpose of Academic Writing

 Inform
 Argue a specific point
 Persuade

This is when you address something to a specific audience. For example, in writing, your teacher will be your
teacher, or your peers who will read and evaluate your work, and the academic community that may also read your
work. The assumption is your audience is composed of people who are knowledgeable on the subject you are writing
about; thus, you have to demonstrate a thorough understanding of your subject at hand.

As you write, you need to consider the following:

1. Content. Clarity o the purpose and the thesis statement, relevance of the supporting points to the thesis
statement, knowledge on the subject matter.
2. Structure. Coherence and logical sequence of the ideas.
3. Language and Style: word choice, sentence construction
4. Mechanics: grammar, punctuations, capitalization, formatting, documentation

Examine the texts below:

Text 1 Text 2
I decided to write an extended essay on how hip- This extended essay on how the lyrics of hip-hop
hop works as protest of the lower classes because I developed as a form of protest against a society
think the music is cool and really gets people segregating the working classes is based on the
dancing, inspiring those people who wouldn’t premise of the music having a distinct and
normally think there’s any point in being against energizing rhythm that really inspires people to
anything to listen to the message. Being an move, thereby reaching out to audiences who
enthusiastic hip-hop dancer myself, I really wanted wouldn’t normally believe in protest, let alone speak
to find out some more about this. out in public. Thus, the music becomes a vehicle for
words of protest that can and indeed have changed
the world. My own experience with dancing hip-hop
at a relatively advanced and skilled level fueled my
desire to research this topic in more depth.

1.1. Which of the texts is considered a formal text?

1.2. Why do you think the text is formal?
What is the point-of-view used?

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 Give example words that you can say that the text is formal?
1.3. What makes the other informal?
What is the point-of-view used?
Give example words that you can say that the text is not formal?

LESSON 2 •Reading Texts Critically (Critical Reading)

Research must be done so you can find credible sources to support your claims in your paper.
Ever since Google and Wikipedia have become available, too. This is where critical reading comes into
play. You have to be able to discriminate between the valuable and not so valuable sources if you want to write
academic papers.

Ponder on this statement of Gary Goshgarian:

“Critical Reading is an active process of discovery.”
 What does it mean to read Critically?
 Why did Goshgarian say that critical reading is an active process of discovery?

Map out your answers by writing words/phrases that you associate with critical reading, active, and process of
discovery. Write them on bullets given in each encircled concept.

• ______ • ______ • ______

Critical • ______ • ______ Process • ______
Active of
Reading • ______ • ______ Discovery • ______
• ______ • ______ • ______

What is Critical Reading?

Read the statements below:

 Girls most likely do well in academics during high school years but boys get ahead of them.
 Female teenagers are more concerned with their physical appearance than male teenagers
From those of the statements, answer the following questions:
1. Referring to the two sentences, do believe and agree with the statements after reading them?

2. What is your reaction upon reading such text

Critical Reading

 involves scrutinizing any information that you read or hear

 not easily believing information offered to you by a text
 “Read not to contradict or confute; nor believing and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but
weight and consider” –Francis Bacon
 Active process of discovery
 The interactive happened when you question the writer’s claims and assertions and when you comment on
the writer’s ideas
Requirements in critical thinking (Ramage, Bean and Johnson):
1. The ability to pose problematic questions
2. The ability to analyze a problem in all its dimensions-to define its key terms, determine its causes,
understand its history, appreciate its human dimension and its connection to one’s own personal
experience, and appreciate what makes it problematic and complex

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 3. The ability to find, gather, and interpret data, facts and other information relevant to the problem
4. The ability to imagine alternative solutions to the problem, to see different ways in which the question might
be answered and different perspective for viewing it
5. The ability to analyze competing approaches and answers, to construct arguments for and against
alternatives, and to choose the best solution in the light of values, objectives, and other criteria that you
determine and articulate
6. The ability to write an effective argument justifying your choice while acknowledging counter-arguments

Suggested ways to help you become a critical reader:

1. Annotate what you read.
 One ways to interact with the writer is to write on the text.
 You can underline, circle, or highlight words, phrases, or sentences that contain important details,
or you can write marginal notes asking questions or commenting on the ideas of the writer.
 There are no clear and definite guidelines to annotating a text, you can create your own style

Who wrote this Why Do They Say That Our English Is Bad?
essay? What is the (An Excerpt)
writer’s stand on the Grace M. Saqueton
subject matter?

English teachers in the Philippines often find themselves in a very frustrating situation-no matter how hard
Yeah, I they try to teach the rules of written English to their students, the students still commit errors in word What
also order, word choice, subject-verb agreement, tenses, prepositions, articles, punctuation, and the like. account
notice Teachers get frustrated when they hear or read sentences such as “They decided to got married,” “What for
that did the students watched?” or “Ana go to the canteen.” It is also alarming because the rules that apply to these
these are these sentences are supposedly simple rules that the students should have learned in grade school. Yet, errors?
common here they are in college, still committing those same errors.
errors. Teachers and linguist alike have sought and (probably) are still seeking for ways and strategies to teach
English effectively especially in the light of teaching English as second language or as a foreign language.
Different research studies have been conducted and different theories have been used to address the
situation. One of the topics that the researchers have explored is the recurring errors in phonology,
Look these morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse of second language learners. They believe that studying
terms up these recurring errors is necessary to address the supposed grammar problems of the Filipino college
students.

2. Outline the text.

 This is when you need to identify the main points of the writer and list them down so you can also
identify the ideas that the writer has raised to support his/her stand
 You don’t necessarily have to write a structured sentence or topic outline for this purpose, you can
just write in bullet or in numbers.
For Example:
Thesis statement:
Supporting Details:
Point 1:
Point 2:
Point 3

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 3. Summarize the text.
 You can also get the main points of the text you are reading and write its gist in your own words
 This will test how much you have understood the text and will help you evaluate it critically
 A summary is usually one paragraph long

4. Evaluate the text

 This is the most challenging part in critical reading
 This is the point to where the three techniques-annotating, outlining, summarizing-will be helpful
 When you evaluate a text, you question the author’s purpose and intentions, as well as his/her
assumptions in the claims.

Max Shulman: Love is a Fallacy

Cool was I and logical. Keen, calculating, perspicacious, acute and astute—I was all of these. My brain was as powerful
as a dynamo, precise as a chemist’s scales, as penetrating as a scalpel. And—think of it!—I only eighteen.
It is not often that one so young has such a giant intellect. Take, for example, Petey Bellows, my roommate at the
university. Same age, same background, but dumb as an ox. A nice enough fellow, you understand, but nothing
upstairs. Emotional type. Unstable.
Impressionable. Worst of all, a faddist. Fads, I submit, are the very negation of reason. To be swept up in every new
craze that comes along, to surrender oneself to idiocy just because everybody else is doing it—this, to me, is the acme
of mindlessness. Not, however, to Petey. One afternoon I found Petey lying on his bed with an expression of such
distress on his face that I immediately diagnosed appendicitis. “Don’t move,” I said, “Don’t take a laxative. I’ll get a
doctor.”
“Raccoon,” he mumbled thickly.
“Raccoon?” I said, pausing in my flight.
“I want a raccoon coat,” he wailed.
I perceived that his trouble was not physical, but mental. “Why do you want a raccoon coat?” “I should have known it,”
he cried, pounding his temples. “I should have known they’d come back when the Charleston came back. Like a fool I
spent all my money for textbooks, and now I can’t get a raccoon coat.”
“Can you mean,” I said incredulously, “that people are actually wearing raccoon coats again?”
“All the Big Men on Campus are wearing them. Where’ve you been?”
“In the library,” I said, naming a place not frequented by Big Men on Campus.
He leaped from the bed and paced the room. “I’ve got to have a raccoon coat,” he said passionately. “I’ve got to!”
“Petey, why? Look at it rationally. Raccoon coats are unsanitary. They shed. They smell bad. They weigh too much.
They’re unsightly. They—”
“You don’t understand,” he interrupted impatiently. “It’s the thing to do. Don’t you want to be in the swim?”
“No,” I said truthfully.
“Well, I do,” he declared. “I’d give anything for a raccoon coat. Anything!”
My brain, that precision instrument, slipped into high gear. “Anything?” I asked, looking at him narrowly.
“Anything,” he affirmed in ringing tones.
I stroked my chin thoughtfully. It so happened that I knew where to get my hands on a raccoon coat. My father had had
one in his undergraduate days; it lay now in a trunk in the attic back home. It also happened that Petey had something
I wanted. He didn’t have it exactly, but at least he had first rights on it. I refer to his girl, Polly Espy.
I had long coveted Polly Espy. Let me emphasize that my desire for this young woman was not emotional in nature.
She was, to be sure, a girl who excited the emotions, but I was not one to let my heart rule my head. I wanted Polly for
a shrewdly calculated, entirely cerebral reason.

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I was a freshman in law school. In a few years I would be out in practice. I was well aware of the importance of the right
kind of wife in furthering a lawyer’s career. The successful lawyers I had observed were, almost without exception,
married to beautiful, gracious, intelligent women. With one omission, Polly fitted these specifications perfectly.
Beautiful she was. She was not yet of pin-up proportions, but I felt that time would supply the lack. She already had the
makings.
Gracious she was. By gracious I mean full of graces. She had an erectness of carriage, an ease of bearing, a poise
that clearly indicated the best of breeding. At table her manners were exquisite. I had seen her at the Kozy Kampus
Korner eating the specialty of the house—a sandwich that contained scraps of pot roast, gravy, chopped nuts, and a
dipper of sauerkraut— without even getting her fingers moist.
Intelligent she was not. In fact, she veered in the opposite direction. But I believed that under my guidance she would
smarten up. At any rate, it was worth a try. It is, after all, easier to make a beautiful dumb girl smart than to make an
ugly smart girl beautiful.
“Petey,” I said, “are you in love with Polly Espy?”
“I think she’s a keen kid,” he replied, “but I don’t know if you’d call it love. Why?”
“Do you,” I asked, “have any kind of formal arrangement with her? I mean are you going steady or anything like that?”
“No. We see each other quite a bit, but we both have other dates. Why?”
“Is there,” I asked, “any other man for whom she has a particular fondness?”
“Not that I know of. Why?”
I nodded with satisfaction. “In other words, if you were out of the picture, the field would be open. Is that right?”
“I guess so. What are you getting at?”
“Nothing , nothing,” I said innocently, and took my suitcase out the closet.
“Where are you going?” asked Petey.
“Home for weekend.” I threw a few things into the bag.
“Listen,” he said, clutching my arm eagerly, “while you’re home, you couldn’t get some money from your old
man, could you, and lend it to me so I can buy a raccoon coat?” “I may do better than that,” I said with a
mysterious wink and closed my bag and left.
“Look,” I said to Petey when I got back Monday morning. I threw open the suitcase and revealed the huge, hairy,
gamy object that my father had worn in his Stutz Bearcat in 1925.
“Holy Toledo!” said Petey reverently. He plunged his hands into the raccoon coat and then his face. “Holy Toledo!” he
repeated fifteen or twenty times.
“Would you like it?” I asked.
“Oh yes!” he cried, clutching the greasy pelt to him. Then a canny look came into his eyes. “What do you want for it?”
“Your girl.” I said, mincing no words.
“Polly?” he said in a horrified whisper. “You want Polly?”
“That’s right.”
He flung the coat from him. “Never,” he said stoutly.
I shrugged. “Okay. If you don’t want to be in the swim, I guess it’s your business.”
I sat down in a chair and pretended to read a book, but out of the corner of my eye I kept watching Petey. He was a
torn man. First he looked at the coat with the expression of a waif at a bakery window. Then he turned away and set
his jaw resolutely. Then he looked back at the coat, with even more longing in his face. Then he turned away, but with
not so much resolution this time. Back and forth his head swiveled, desire waxing, resolution waning. Finally he didn’t
turn away at all; he just stood and stared with mad lust at the coat.
“It isn’t as though I was in love with Polly,” he said thickly. “Or going steady or anything like that.”

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“That’s right,” I murmured.
“What’s Polly to me, or me to Polly?” “Not a thing,” said I.
“It’s just been a casual kick—just a few laughs, that’s all.”
“Try on the coat,” said I.
He complied. The coat bunched high over his ears and dropped all the way down to his shoe tops. He looked like a
mound of dead raccoons. “Fits fine,” he said happily.
I rose from my chair. “Is it a deal?” I asked, extending my hand.
He swallowed. “It’s a deal,” he said and shook my hand.
I had my first date with Polly the following evening. This was in the nature of a survey; I wanted to find out just how
much work I had to do to get her mind up to the standard I
required. I took her first to dinner. “Gee, that was a delish dinner,” she said as we left the restaurant. Then I took her to
a movie. “Gee, that was a marvy movie,” she said as we left the theatre. And then I took her home. “Gee, I had a
sensaysh time,” she said as she bade me good night.
I went back to my room with a heavy heart. I had gravely underestimated the size of my task. This girl’s lack of
information was terrifying. Nor would it be enough merely to supply her with information. First she had to be taught to
think. This loomed as a project of no small dimensions, and at first I was tempted to give her back to Petey. But then I
got to thinking about her abundant physical charms and about the way she entered a room and the way she handled
a knife and fork, and I decided to make an effort.
I went about it, as in all things, systematically. I gave her a course in logic. It happened that I, as a law student, was
taking a course in logic myself, so I had all the facts at my fingertips. “Poll’,” I said to her when I picked her up on our
next date, “tonight we are going over to the Knoll and talk.”
“Oo, terrif,” she replied. One thing I will say for this girl: you would go far to find another so agreeable.
We went to the Knoll, the campus trysting place, and we sat down under an old oak, and she looked at me expectantly.
“What are we going to talk about?” she asked.
“Logic.”
She thought this over for a minute and decided she liked it. “Magnif,” she said.
“Logic,” I said, clearing my throat, “is the science of thinking. Before we can think correctly, we must first learn to
recognize the common fallacies of logic. These we will take up tonight.”
“Wow-dow!” she cried, clapping her hands delightedly.
I winced, but went bravely on. “First let us examine the fallacy called Dicto Simpliciter.” “By all means,” she urged,
batting her lashes eagerly. “Dicto Simpliciter means an argument based on an unqualified generalization. For
example: Exercise is good. Therefore everybody should exercise.”
“I agree,” said Polly earnestly. “I mean exercise is wonderful. I mean it builds the body and everything.”
“Polly,” I said gently, “the argument is a fallacy. Exercise is good is an unqualified generalization. For instance, if you
have heart disease, exercise is bad, not good. Many people are ordered by their doctors not to exercise. You must
qualify the generalization. You must say exercise is usually good, or exercise is good for most people. Otherwise you
have committed a Dicto Simpliciter. Do you see?”
“No,” she confessed. “But this is marvy. Do more! Do more!”
“It will be better if you stop tugging at my sleeve,” I told her, and when she desisted, I continued. “Next we take up a
fallacy called Hasty Generalization. Listen carefully: You can’t speak French. Petey Bellows can’t speak French. I must
therefore conclude that nobody at the University of Minnesota can speak French.”
“Really?” said Polly, amazed. “Nobody?”
I hid my exasperation. “Polly, it’s a fallacy. The generalization is reached too hastily. There are too few instances to
support such a conclusion.”
“Know any more fallacies?” she asked breathlessly. “This is more fun than dancing even.”

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I fought off a wave of despair. I was getting nowhere with this girl, absolutely nowhere. Still,
I am nothing if not persistent. I continued. “Next comes Post Hoc. Listen to this: Let’s not take Bill on our picnic. Every
time we take him out with us, it rains.”
“I know somebody just like that,” she exclaimed. “A girl back home—Eula Becker, her name is. It never fails. Every
single time we take her on a picnic—”
“Polly,” I said sharply, “it’s a fallacy. Eula Becker doesn’t cause the rain. She has no connection with the rain. You are
guilty of Post Hoc if you blame Eula Becker.”
“I’ll never do it again,” she promised contritely. “Are you mad at me?”
I sighed. “No, Polly, I’m not mad.”
“Then tell me some more fallacies.”
“All right. Let’s try Contradictory Premises.”
“Yes, let’s,” she chirped, blinking her eyes happily.
I frowned, but plunged ahead. “Here’s an example of Contradictory Premises: If God can do anything, can He make
a stone so heavy that He won’t be able to lift it?” “Of course,” she replied promptly.

“But if He can do anything, He can lift the stone,” I pointed out.

“Yeah,” she said thoughtfully. “Well, then I guess He can’t make the stone.” “But He can do anything,” I
reminded her.
She scratched her pretty, empty head. “I’m all confused,” she admitted.
“Of course you are. Because when the premises of an argument contradict each other, there can be no argument. If
there is an irresistible force, there can be no immovable object. If there is an immovable object, there can be no
irresistible force. Get it?”
“Tell me more of this keen stuff,” she said eagerly.
I consulted my watch. “I think we’d better call it a night. I’ll take you home now, and you go over all the things you’ve
learned. We’ll have another session tomorrow night.”
I deposited her at the girls’ dormitory, where she assured me that she had had a perfectly terrif evening, and I went
glumly home to my room. Petey lay snoring in his bed, the raccoon coat huddled like a great hairy beast at his feet.
For a moment I considered waking him and telling him that he could have his girl back. It seemed clear that my project
was doomed to failure. The girl simply had a logic-proof head.
But then I reconsidered. I had wasted one evening; I might as well waste another. Who knew? Maybe somewhere in
the extinct crater of her mind a few members still smoldered. Maybe somehow I could fan them into flame. Admittedly
it was not a prospect fraught with hope, but I decided to give it one more try.
Seated under the oak the next evening I said, “Our first fallacy tonight is called Ad Misericordiam.”
She quivered with delight.
“Listen closely,” I said. “A man applies for a job. When the boss asks him what his qualifications are, he replies that he
has a wife and six children at home, the wife is a helpless cripple, the children have nothing to eat, no clothes to wear,
no shoes on their feet, there are no beds in the house, no coal in the cellar, and winter is coming.”
A tear rolled down each of Polly’s pink cheeks. “Oh, this is awful, awful,” she sobbed.
“Yes, it’s awful,” I agreed, “but it’s no argument. The man never answered the boss’s question about his qualifications.
Instead he appealed to the boss’s sympathy. He committed the fallacy of Ad Misericordiam. Do you understand?”
“Have you got a handkerchief?” she blubbered.
I handed her a handkerchief and tried to keep from screaming while she wiped her eyes. “Next,” I said in a carefully
controlled tone, “we will discuss False Analogy. Here is an example: Students should be allowed to look at their
textbooks during examinations. After all, surgeons have X-rays to guide them during an operation, lawyers have briefs
to guide them during a trial, carpenters have blueprints to guide them when they are building a house. Why, then,
shouldn’t students be allowed to look at their textbooks during an examination?” “There now,” she said enthusiastically,

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“is the most marvy idea I’ve heard in years.” “Polly,” I said testily, “the argument is all wrong. Doctors, lawyers, and
carpenters aren’t taking a test to see how much they have learned, but students are. The situations are altogether
different, and you can’t make an analogy between them.” “I still think it’s a good idea,” said Polly.
“Nuts,” I muttered. Doggedly I pressed on. “Next we’ll try Hypothesis Contrary to Fact.” “Sounds yummy,” was Polly’s
reaction.
“Listen: If Madame Curie had not happened to leave a photographic plate in a drawer with a chunk of pitchblende, the
world today would not know about radium.”
“True, true,” said Polly, nodding her head “Did you see the movie? Oh, it just knocked me out. That Walter Pidgeon is
so dreamy. I mean he fractures me.”
“If you can forget Mr. Pidgeon for a moment,” I said coldly, “I would like to point out that statement is a fallacy. Maybe
Madame Curie would have discovered radium at some later date. Maybe somebody else would have discovered it.
Maybe any number of things would have happened. You can’t start with a hypothesis that is not true and then draw
any supportable conclusions from it.”
“They ought to put Walter Pidgeon in more pictures,” said Polly, “I hardly ever see him any more.”
One more chance, I decided. But just one more. There is a limit to what flesh and blood can bear. “The next fallacy
is called Poisoning the Well.” “How cute!” she gurgled.
“Two men are having a debate. The first one gets up and says, ‘My opponent is a notorious liar. You can’t believe a
word that he is going to say.’ … Now, Polly, think. Think hard. What’s wrong?”
I watched her closely as she knit her creamy brow in concentration. Suddenly a glimmer of intelligence—the first I had
seen—came into her eyes. “It’s not fair,” she said with indignation. “It’s not a bit fair. What chance has the second man
got if the first man calls him a liar before he even begins talking?”
“Right!” I cried exultantly. “One hundred per cent right. It’s not fair. The first man has poisoned the well before
anybody could drink from it. He has hamstrung his opponent before he could even start … Polly, I’m proud of
you.” “Pshaws,” she murmured, blushing with pleasure.
“You see, my dear, these things aren’t so hard. All you have to do is concentrate. Think— examine—evaluate. Come
now, let’s review everything we have learned.”
“Fire away,” she said with an airy wave of her hand.
Heartened by the knowledge that Polly was not altogether a cretin, I began a long, patient review of all I had told her.
Over and over and over again I cited instances, pointed out flaws, kept hammering away without letup. It was like
digging a tunnel. At first, everything was work, sweat, and darkness. I had no idea when I would reach the light, or even
if I would. But I persisted. I pounded and clawed and scraped, and finally I was rewarded. I saw a chink of light. And
then the chink got bigger and the sun came pouring in and all was bright.
Five grueling nights with this took, but it was worth it. I had made a logician out of Polly; I had taught her to think. My
job was done. She was worthy of me, at last. She was a fit wife for me, a proper hostess for my many mansions, a
suitable mother for my well-heeled children.
It must not be thought that I was without love for this girl. Quite the contrary. Just as
Pygmalion loved the perfect woman he had fashioned, so I loved mine. I decided to acquaint her with my feelings at
our very next meeting. The time had come to change our relationship from academic to romantic.
“Polly,” I said when next we sat beneath our oak, “tonight we will not discuss fallacies.”
“Aw, gee,” she said, disappointed.
“My dear,” I said, favoring her with a smile, “we have now spent five evenings together. We have gotten along
splendidly. It is clear that we are well matched.” “Hasty Generalization,” said Polly brightly.
“I beg your pardon,” said I.
“Hasty Generalization,” she repeated. “How can you say that we are well matched on the basis of only five dates?”
I chuckled with amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons well. “My dear,” I said, patting her hand in a tolerant
manner, “five dates is plenty. After all, you don’t have to eat a whole cake to know that it’s good.”
“False Analogy,” said Polly promptly. “I’m not a cake. I’m a girl.”

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I chuckled with somewhat less amusement. The dear child had learned her lessons perhaps too well. I decided to
change tactics. Obviously the best approach was a simple, strong, direct declaration of love. I paused for a moment
while my massive brain chose the proper word. Then I began:
“Polly, I love you. You are the whole world to me, the moon and the stars and the constellations of outer space.
Please, my darling, say that you will go steady with me, for if you will not, life will be meaningless. I will languish. I
will refuse my meals. I will wander the face of the earth, a shambling, hollow-eyed hulk.” There, I thought, folding
my arms, that ought to do it.
“Ad Misericordiam,” said Polly.
I ground my teeth. I was not Pygmalion; I was Frankenstein, and my monster had me by the throat. Frantically I fought
back the tide of panic surging through me; at all costs I had to keep cool.
“Well, Polly,” I said, forcing a smile, “you certainly have learned your fallacies.” “You’re darn right,” she said with
a vigorous nod.
“And who taught them to you, Polly?”
“You did.”
“That’s right. So you do owe me something, don’t you, my dear? If I hadn’t come along you never would have learned
about fallacies.” “Hypothesis Contrary to Fact,” she said instantly.
I dashed perspiration from my brow. “Polly,” I croaked, “you mustn’t take all these things so literally. I mean this is just
classroom stuff. You know that the things you learn in school don’t have anything to do with life.”
“Dicto Simpliciter,” she said, wagging her finger at me playfully.
That did it. I leaped to my feet, bellowing like a bull. “Will you or will you not go steady with me?”
“I will not,” she replied.
“Why not?” I demanded.
“Because this afternoon I promised Petey Bellows that I would go steady with him.” I reeled back, overcome with the
infamy of it. After he promised, after he made a deal, after he shook my hand! “The rat!” I shrieked, kicking up great
chunks of turf. “You can’t go with him, Polly. He’s a liar. He’s a cheat. He’s a rat.”
“Poisoning the Well ,” said Polly, “and stop shouting. I think shouting must be a fallacy too.”
With an immense effort of will, I modulated my voice. “All right,” I said. “You’re a logician. Let’s look at this thing logically.
How could you choose Petey Bellows over me? Look at me—a brilliant student, a tremendous intellectual, a man with
an assured future. Look at
Petey—a knothead, a jitterbug, a guy who’ll never know where his next meal is coming from.
Can you give me one logical reason why you should go steady with Petey Bellows?”
“I certainly can,” declared Polly. “He’s got a raccoon coat.”

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 LESSON 3 •Writing Academic Texts

It was emphasized that critical reading is a requirement in order to become a critical writer. Reading
gives you more knowledge about the world and makes you aware of the different issues happening around you,
helps you explore and discover new things, etc. Reading in this sense, can enrich your writing.
In writing, there are three stages:
 The Pre-Writing Stage
 Writing and Rewriting
 The Post-Writing Stage

A. The Pre-Writing Stage

Prewriting is a term that describes any kind of preliminary work that precedes the actual paper writing.
It doesn't necessarily have to be writing. In fact, prewriting can just be concentrated thinking about what you
want to write your paper on.
Prewriting exercises provide structure and meaning to your topic before the beginning to write a draft.
Using prewriting strategies to organize and generate ideas to prevent a writer from becoming frustrated or
“stuck”. Prewriting exercises can help you focus your ideas, determine a topic and develop a logical structure
for your paper.

There are prewriting techniques and these are the following:

1. Brainstorming
 Brainstorming refers to quickly writing down or taking inventory of all your thoughts as fast as they
come to you. In this sense, your ideas are like a gigantic storm swirling around in your brain, and it's
your job to get them out of your head.
 Brainstorming is a method student can use to generate ideas for writing a paper. The goal of
brainstorming is to pour thoughts onto paper without worrying about whether they make sense or
how they fit together.
Example:
Brainstorming for Toni Morrison's Beloved.
Sethe's relationship with her children.
Significance of milk and the breast. Possible connection to mother/child relationship.
Familial relationships under slavery. Perhaps Morrison is examining (or complicating) this through Sethe's
extreme relationship with her children. Possible connection to milk and breast imagery. Breastfeeding her
children may be so important because mother/child relationshps are often destroyed under slavery.
Motherly love. Sethe seems to think murder can be taken as an act of motherly love. Maybe she's
rewriting the role of the mother under slavery.

2. Freewriting
 Freewriting is very similar to brainstorming in that it gets all your thoughts out onto paper.
However, where brainstorming often looks more like a list of ideas, freewriting usually takes the
shape of more formal sentences.
 Even so, grammar, punctuation, and the like should be far from your mind. Like brainstorming,
you should follow the flow of your ideas, and you shouldn't pressure yourself to fully tease out
everything. You may be quick to discount an idea, but if you give it a chance, it may take you
somewhere totally unexpected and extremely productive in terms of writing a successful paper.

Example:
I have to write a paper on Beloved for my English class. There's a lot to write on in this book. When I
first read it, I noticed a lot of things about Sethe and her relationship with her kids. Her motherly
relationship with her children seemed important to her, especially in terms of breastfeeding them.
Perhaps this is symbolic of something. Like milk and the breast represent motherhood itself. This might
be why it was so important for Sethe to get milk to her baby; she may have wanted to retain that motherly
bond. Perhaps that's important because of the fact that slavery interferes with the mother/child
Module
relationship. for English
In slavery, for and
Sethe Academic and Professional
her children are just her Purposes, Nelma Mae
master's property, C. Morante
so she's not the Page 11
ultimate
guardian/owner of them. Maybe breastfeeding is her way of reestablishing the bond that slavery
attempts to destroy by making humans into property.
 3. Journalist’s Questions

 This is one of the best and most useful approaches to get yourself started on writing a paper,
especially if you really have no idea where to start. Here, you write down all the questions that
seem relevant to your material. These should definitely be legitimate questions, possibly ones
you have yourself.
 By generating a lot of questions, as well as forcing yourself to contemplate answers to those
questions, you'll get out a lot of the ideas, issues, thoughts, etc. that could potentially get you
started on paper writing. Similarly, a lot of great essay topics come out of a question. By
focusing on a question that is not easily answered, you'll have a framework for your argument.

Six questions are usually asked in writing, 5 W’s and H.

Who? Where? When? Why? How?

Example:
Suppose that your professor has asked to write about the political conflict in the Middle East.
Using the journalistic technique, you could begin working on the paper by asking yourself the
following questions:

 Who is involved in the conflict?

 What issues most clearly divide those engaged in this dispute?
 When did the troubles in the Middle East begin, and how have they developed over
time?
 Where does the conflict seem most heated or violent?
 How might this conflict be resolved?

4. Clustering or Mind mapping

 Once again, clustering and mind mapping, like brainstorming and freewriting, allow you to take
inventory of your ideas. However, they both focus you on a central word (usually something that
embodies a theme, topic, motif, etc. that is important to your ideas), which you then work out
from by associating other words, thoughts, and ideas to that central word.
 These may be very useful techniques for extremely visual people. A lot of online diagrams of
clustering have the central word in a circle, with all the associated words in their own circles and
lines connecting them back to the central word. Similarly, there are very elaborate and
decorative examples of mind maps online.

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Avoiding Plagiarism
The next stage will be the Writing and Rewriting Stage but before you start doing such, you need to make
sure that the assumptions that you have about your topic can be supported by evidence. Of course, you cannot just
copy an idea in a paragraph and incorporate it to your paper, in doing so, it would be considered as Plagiarism.
 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.
 All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under
this definition.
 Plagiarism may be intentional or reckless, or unintentional.
 Under the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offence.
1. One way to avoid plagiarism is through Paraphrasing.
 It is rendering the essential ideas in a text (sentence or paragraph)
 Paraphrased materials are shorter than the original text
 It is advised that you first understand what is text all about, then write your own rendition of the text
without referring to it as you write
Example:
“No historian should begin research with someone else’s notes. Taking notes is the first (and perhaps most
important step) in developing our own interpretation of a subject. It forces us to decide (again and again)
what is interesting and important” (Reuben, 2005, p. 413).
If your paraphrase the statement, it can be…
Reuben (2005) states that in order to develop an original analysis of their topic, historians must commence
research with their own “notes” rather than relying on a secondary analysis of another’s.
2. Another way to avoid plagiarism is through the use of direct quotation.
 Quotations must be identical to the original text
 A direct quotation is preferred to a paraphrase when the author’s ideas are so important that
paraphrasing them will change the essence of ideas
 There are two forms of direct quotation:
-Short Quotation
-Long Quotation
Short Quotation

 To indicate short quotations (four typed lines or fewer of prose or three lines of verse) in your text, enclose
the quotation within double quotation marks. Provide the author and specific page citation (in the case of
verse, provide line numbers) in the text, and include a complete reference on the Works Cited page.
 Punctuation marks such as periods, commas, and semicolons should appear after the parenthetical citation.
Question marks and exclamation points should appear within the quotation marks if they are a part of the
quoted passage but after the parenthetical citation if they are a part of your text.

Example:
When quoting short passages of prose, use the following examples:
According to some, dreams express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes 184), though others
disagree.
According to Foulkes's study, dreams may express "profound aspects of personality" (184).
Is it possible that dreams may express "profound aspects of personality" (Foulkes 184)
Long Quotation

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  A long quotation contains more than four lines of quoted material. Place a colon after the
introduction to the quotation, and indent the whole quotation one inch from the left side.
 These quotations can be either single or double spaced, and should not contain quotation marks
unless they occur in the original text. Additionally, the parenthetical citation should occur after the
quote’s punctuation. Note: This differs from the placement for a short quotation citation.
Example:
Ken Binmore discusses the definition of common knowledge in game theory:
Something is common knowledge if everybody knows it, everybody knows that everybody knows it,
everybody knows that everybody knows that everybody knows it; and so on. If nothing is said to the
contrary in a rational analysis of a game, it is always implicitly being assumed that both the game
and the rationality of the players are common knowledge. (43)

B. The Writing Stage

Developing your Thesis Statement

A thesis statement is the claim or stand that you may develop in your paper. This has big part in
the writing statement, a thesis statement can be considered as the following:
 A thesis statement makes a promise to the reader about the scope, purpose, and direction of the
paper.
 It summarizes the conclusions that the writer has reached about the topic.
 A thesis statement is generally located near the end of the introduction
 A thesis statement is focused and specific enough to be proven within the boundaries of the paper
 In the first stages of writing, thesis or purpose statements are usually rough or ill-formed and are
useful primarily as planning tools
 The statement can be restricted or clarified and eventually worked into an introduction

 A strong thesis statement takes some sort of stand

A thesis statement needs to show conclusions about a subject
Examples:
Weak: There are some negative and positive aspects to the Banana Herb Tea Supplement.
Strong: Because Banana Herb Tea Supplement promotes rapid weight loss that results in the loss
of Muscle and lean body mass, it poses a potential danger to customers.

 A strong thesis statement justifies discussion

A thesis statement should indicate the point of the discussion.
Examples:
Weak: My family is an extended family
Strong: While most American families would view consanguine marriage as a threat to the nuclear
family structure, many Iranian families, like my own, believe that these marriages help
reinforce kinship ties in an extended family.

 A strong thesis statement expresses one main idea

Readers need to be able to see that your paper has one main point
Examples:
Weak: Companies need to exploit the marketing potential of the Internet, and Web pages can
provide both advertising and customer support.
Strong: Because the Internet is filled with tremendous marketing potential, companies should
exploit this potential by using Web pages that offer both advertising and customer support.
 A strong thesis statement is specific
A thesis statement should show exactly what your paper will be about, and will help you keep your
paper to a manageable topic
Weak: World hunger has many causes and effects.

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 Strong: Hunger persists in Glandelinia because jobs are scarce and farming in the infertile soil is
rarely profitable.
Organizing Your Paper
The Outline
• One of the most important elements of the prewriting process is the outline, which allows writers to
organize their thoughts before they sit down to create a first draft.
• An outline is nothing more than a relational hierarchy of ideas. “Relational” means that it shows a
specific relationship; “hierarchy” means, in this case, that it goes from general to specific.
• An outline is a helpful organization tool.
• It presents a picture of the main ideas and the subsidiary ideas of any subject. Some typical uses
of outlining are: a class reading assignment, an essay, a term paper, a book review or a speech.
For any of these, an outline will show a basic overview and important details.

Two types of Outlines:

1. A TOPIC outline uses words or phrases for all points; uses no punctuation after entries. It generally
easier and faster to write than a sentence outline.
Example:
Major Aspects of Aids
I. Transmittal of AIDS
A. Transfusions
B. Body fluids
1. Sexual
2. Non-sexual
II. Societal Consequences of AIDS
A. Epidemic disease pattern
1. Teenagers
2. Women
3. Homosexuals
B. AIDS babies
C. Increased homophobia
D. Overburdened health care
III. Research Solutions to AIDS
A. AZT
B. HIV virus
C. Other viruses

2. A SENTENCE outline uses complete sentences for all entries; uses correct punctuation. It presents a
more detailed overview of work including possible topic sentences; is easier and faster for writing the
final paper.
Example:
Negative Effects of Divorce on Adolescents
I. When family conflicts arise as a result of divorce, adolescents suffer.
A. During the first year, these young people may be depressed due to conflicts between the
custodial and non-custodial parents.
B. Grandparents, aunts, and uncles are often restricted by visitation provisions.
C. Almost without exception, adolescents find divorce very painful, but they react in differing degrees
depending on their age.
II. Some of the most negative effects on adolescents may be associated with economic
problems.
A. The family will most probably experience a lower standard of living due to the cost of maintaining
two households.
B. Some female custodial parents have poor job skills and must train before entering the job market.
C. The lower standard of living may result in misunderstanding and conflicts within the family.

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 D. The decreased standard of living, particularly for an untrained female custodial parent, often
causes relocation.
1. The family may have to move to a poorer neighborhood in order to cut costs.
2. As a result, the adolescent may have to attend a different school.
III. Adolescents from divorced families often experience peer problems.
A. Due to relocation and prejudice, adolescents may lose friends.
B. The lack of a solid relationship with both parents affects an adolescent's attitude toward the
opposite sex.
IV. Conclusion
Basic outline form
 The main ideas take roman numerals.
 Sub-points under each main idea take capital letters and are indented.
 Sub-points under the capital letters, if any, take italic numbers and are further indented.

I. MAIN
A. Subsidiary idea or supporting idea to I
B. Subsidiary idea or supporting idea to I
1. Subsidiary idea to B
2. Subsidiary idea to B
a.) Subsidiary idea to 2
b.) Subsidiary idea to 2
II. MAIN IDEA
A. Subsidiary or supporting idea to B. Subsidiary idea to II.
C. Subsidiary idea to II.
III. MAIN IDEA

Developing Paragraph

 Paragraphs are the building blocks of papers. Many students define paragraphs in terms of length:
a paragraph is a group of at least five sentences, a paragraph is half a page long, etc. In reality,
though, the unity and coherence of ideas among sentences is what constitutes a paragraph.
 A paragraph is defined as “a group of sentences or a single sentence that forms a unit” (Lunsford
and Connors 116). Length and appearance do not determine whether a section in a paper is a
paragraph. For instance, in some styles of writing, particularly journalistic styles, a paragraph can be
just one sentence long. Ultimately, a paragraph is a sentence or group of sentences that support one
main idea. In this handout, we will refer to this as the “controlling idea,” because it controls what
happens in the rest of the paragraph.

Three parts of the paragraph:

• A topic sentence
• Supporting sentences
• Concluding sentence

• Topic sentence- The main or the controlling idea in a paragraph is generally contained a topic sentence,
often at the beginning of a paragraph. Although this is the most typical paragraph pattern, topic sentence
may be placed in any position in a paragraph or in more than one sentence.

Examples:
Too General
Studying overseas was deemed to be very difficult.
Too Specific
Studying overseas was deemed to be very difficult for 63% of the people surveyed who cited a
range of difficulties including homesickness, loneliness, difficulty making Australian friends,
changes to diets, health problems, weight gain, and difficult with money and jobs.

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Good
Studying overseas was deemed to be very difficult in three main respects for 63% of the people
surveyed.
Studying overseas was deemed to be very difficult for 63% of the people surveyed due to the
impacts of the culture shock, financial concerts and health concerns

• Supporting sentences- Supporting sentences provide examples for the topic sentence. If a writer claims, for
instance, that "early childhood education programs provide cognitive benefits well beyond preschool," the
second, third, and fourth sentences will include information supporting the main idea in the topic sentence
Example:
(1) Early childhood education programs such as Head Start provide cognitive benefits well beyond preschool.
(2) Recent studies that compare student test scores show that children who are exposed to structured learning
activities outside the home environment are better able to adapt to formalized instruction in grades
kindergarten through third grade than children who remain at home. (3) This is particularly true among children
from low-income families and children whose parents have a limited proficiency in English. (4) Children living
in states that do not provide early childhood programs, on the other hand, lag behind their peers. (5) State
and local governments must continue to bridge the achievement gap so that students may reach their full
potential at an early age.

• Concluding Sentence- The last sentence in the paragraph is the concluding sentence. It refers the reader's
attention to the topic sentence, and if there are more paragraphs that follow, the concluding sentence may
offer some kind of a transition to the next paragraph.
Example:
(1) Early childhood education programs such as Head Start provide cognitive benefits well beyond
preschool. (2) Recent studies that compare student test scores show that children who are exposed
to structured learning activities outside the home environment are better able to adapt to formalized
instruction in grades kindergarten through third grade than children who remain at home. (3) This is
particularly true among children from low-income families and children whose parents have a limited
proficiency in English. (4) Children living in states that do not provide early childhood programs, on
the other hand, lag behind their peers. (5) State and local governments must continue to bridge the
achievement gap so that students may reach their full potential at an early age.

C. The Post Writing Stage

There are two processes involved in post-writing:

 Revising
 Editing
According to Murray, revising is “re-seeing the entire draft so that the writer can deal with the large issues
that must be resolved before he or deals with the line-by-line, word-by-word issues involved in editing.”
Murray provided this checklist for revising:
Subject

 Do I have something to say?

 Are there readers who need to hear what I have to say?
Focus

 Does the draft make a clear dominant point?

 Are there clear, appropriate limits to the draft that include what needs to be included and exclude
what is unnecessary?
Authority

 Are the writer’s credentials to write this draft established and clear?
Context

 Is the context of the draft clear?

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Voice

 Does the draft have an individual voice?

 Is the voice appropriate to the subject?
 Does the voice support and extend the meaning of the draft?
Reader

 Can you identify a read who will need to read the draft?
 Are the reader’s questions answered where they will be asked?
 Does the draft fulfill the reader’s expectations of that form?
Structure

 Will the leader attract and hold a reader?

 Does each point lead to the next point?
 Does each section support and advance the meaning?
 Is the reader’s hunger for specific information satisfied?
Documentation

 Does each reader have enough evidence to believe each point in the draft?
Quantity

 Where does the draft need to be developed?

 Where does it need to be cut?

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 VALUING Contemplate and Reflect!

One of the challenging things to do is to write. Human as we are we’ve got to attach ourselves with different
perspectives, thus, we get easily influenced by any other point of views without knowing the facts in those
information. Come to think of Academic Writing, herein, we have to write in an objective manner applying critical thinking from
our critically reading text. As time goes by, we need to be more meticulous in reading texts and as we become meticulous, we
have to really scrutinize texts with critical way of thinking.
Critical way of thinking must be applicable to writing. Writing is a skill and we must be able apply in an organized
manner. The stages of writing in this module are very important and as you exercise whatever that you have learned, you
must open yourself for new learnings to come because these are just basic things, as you level up in your learning, things in
the academe become complex and you must be ready in everything.

SUMMARY In short…

 The process that starts with posing a question, problematizing concept, evaluation and opinion and ends
in answering the question or questions posed clarifying the problem, and/or arguing for a stand is called Academic
Writing.
 Purpose of Academic Writing
o Inform
o Argue a specific point
o Persuade
 As you write, you need to consider the Content, Structure, Language and Style and Mechanics
 Critical Reading involves scrutinizing any information that you read or hear
 There Requirements in critical thinking (Ramage, Bean and Johnson).
 Suggested ways to help you become a critical reader: Annotate, Outline, Summarize and Evaluate
 In writing, there are three stages and these stages have techniques underlying
o The Pre-Writing Stage
 Brainstorming
 Freewriting
 Journalist’s Questions
 Clustering or Mind mapping
o Writing and Rewriting
• Brainstorming
• Freewriting
• Journalist’s Questions
• Clustering or Mind mapping
o The Post-Writing Stage
 Revising
 Editing
 And in Writing, we must be avoiding Plagiarism.

REFERENCES Here are your references:

 Saqueton, G.M. et. Al (2016). English for Academic and Professional Purposes.
 Dapat, J.R.O (2013), Applied English for Academic and Professional Services.

END

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