Academic Summary of an Article

In her article “Writing for the World: Wikipedia as an Introduction to Academic Writing”, Tardy (2010) shows how writing an article for the online encyclopedia Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) can help second language (L2) writers acquire academic writing skills. She mentions some of the challenges that students face while learning to write academic papers in English, explains why writing for Wikipedia can be useful in an academic writing class, and describes her approach to introduce academic literacy skills by getting students to participate in a project that involves them in the production of an article for Wikipedia. She also describes the necessary steps to carry out such a project.

Among the challenges that students face when learning to write in academic contexts, Tardy (2010) mentions that students  are required to “conduct research, summarize and paraphrase, cite sources, adopt genre conventions that meet audience expectations,  and  select  words  and grammatical  patterns  that  are  characteristic  of  less  personal  and  more formal genres of writing” (p. 12)

Tardy (2010) claims that Wikipedia is “an excellent forum for students to begin confronting the challenges of academic writing: research, citation of generic conventions, and style” (p. 13). She also explains that familiarizing students with Wikipedia and its publishing requirements also helps L2 students to become more aware of “the credibility and reliability of information” (Tardy, 2010, p.13) that they may find in Wikipedia.

In the project that Tardy (2010) describes, students produce Wikipedia articles with the purpose of publishing them on Wikipedia, thus making those articles visible to a global audience. In order to comply with Wikipedia’s demand that “information be supported by reliable sources” (p. 14) learners need to carry out research on what they want to write about, and while doing so, they will have to find credible sources. As Wikipedia also expects that the information should be “supported by footnotes and general references, which require students to engage in correct citation practices” (Tardy, 2010, p. 14), learners need to learn how to cite sources appropriately.

Tardy (2010) also mentions and explains the necessary steps in the process of composing an article for Wikipedia. These include getting students to examine and understand Wikipedia and its conventions, asking students to get information about the topics they can write about, doing research, getting students to produce an outline for their articles -thus planning what content they are going to include and how to organize it-, writing a draft, peer editing, citing sources according to Wikipedia conventions, proofreading and final editing, and publishing.

In conclusion, Tardy (2010) claims that carrying out a project that involves students in the production and publishing of an article on Wikipedia can help L2 writers acquire the necessary academic literacy skills they need in order to write appropriately in academic contexts. In her article, she explains the reasons why such a project can be useful with L2 writers and the steps that are involved in the process.

 References

Tardy, C. M. (2010).Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to Academic Writing. English Teaching Forum, 1, pp. 12-19, 27

Analysis of In-Text Citations in an Article

This paper intends to run an analysis of the use of in-text-situations in the article “Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts”, by Iida (2010). Although Iida seems to have followed some of the requirements of the American Psychological Association (APA) style for academic writing, his article also shows some inconsistencies in the use of in-text citations according to that style.

According to Purdue OWL (2013), direct quotations have to include the author, year of publication and the page number preceded by “p” after the quotation, or if the author and year of publication  have already been mentioned when introducing the quotation, just the page number preceded by “p” after the quotation. But Iida (2010) has not included “p” before page numbers and has sometimes included the page number when introducing the quotation, not after it.

            The Purdue OWL (2013) also suggests using a comma after the author’s last name and before the year of publication, and Ida (2010) has cited authors whose words he has paraphrased by writing their last name and year of publication of their work without using a comma to separate these two pieces of information.

            To conclude, Iida (2010) seems not to have met all the requirements established by the American Psychology Association as regards the use of in-text citations in academic writing.

References

Iida, A. (2010).  Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts. English Teaching Forum, Nbr. 1. DOI: EJ914886

Purdue OWL. (2013). APA formatting and style guide. Retrieved September 2013, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/

Academic Summary of an Article

In the article “Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts”, Iida (2010) discusses how teaching haiku writing in EFL contexts using a social-expressivist approach can help students learn to express their voice and develop audience awareness, as well as helping them to improve their foreign language skills. He also presents some activities for use in the university EFL writing classroom.

According to Iida (2010) the social-expressivist approach “structures learning around communicative contexts where students learn to express their voice –the articulation of their personal needs, interests and ideas- in a social context that presumes an audience –the teacher, classmates, and even the community at large” (p. 28). He states that this approach not only helps students to “discover and reveal their unique perspectives of the world” (Iida, 2010, p. 28) and to improve their English, but that it also “makes EFL composition more focused, relevant, and meaningful” (Iida, 2010, p.28).

Iida (2010) claims that although writing poetry can be a challenging task for students, haiku is a kind of poem that can be used in the EFL classroom without much difficulty, as it is “a short, three-line Japanese poem with a specific number of syllables in each line”, and that haiku “encourages students to express their inner feelings to others” (Iida, 2010, p.28).

Iida (2010) suggests having students learn to read haiku before they begin to write it, and then, simplifying the writing stage by following some five steps, which include explaining students what haiku is and what the goals of writing it are, getting students to gather impressions for haiku, writing the haiku, reading it to their peers for the students to see their audience’s interpretations and reactions to what they have written, and finally publishing it.

In conclusion, Iida (2010) shows through his article how using a social-expressivist approach to teaching haiku in the EFL university classroom allows students to develop their own voice and express it, acquiring awareness of the audience through the interaction between readers and writers. This practice also makes students develop their fluency and vocabulary, besides enabling them to work with their classmates and engage in relevant and profitable discussions, thus developing their communication skills in the foreign language.

References

Iida, A. (2010).  Developing Voice by Composing Haiku: A Social-Expressivist Approach for Teaching Haiku Writing in EFL Contexts. English Teaching Forum, Nbr. 1. DOI: EJ914886

Analyzing the Use of American Psychological Association (APA) Style in an Article

The American Psychological Association (APA, 2010) has established a set of rules and procedures known as APA style for formatting academic papers and citing sources appropriately. This paper aims to provide some insights on the use of APA style in the article written by Dalvit et al. (2005).

Regarding the use of in-text citations it can be observed that, though most sources have been properly cited in the text, Dalvit et al. (2005) have not always followed the requirements proposed by the APA manual, because the names of the online dictionaries that have been cited have not been italicized or underlined as the APA manual states, according to Purdue OWL (2013). What’s more, Dalvit et al. (2005) have used a repeated pattern to acknowledge sources, as only paraphrasing has been used in order to do that, and direct quotations have not been included.

David et al. (2005) have not used a variety of signal phrases to introduce cited material. In fact, signal phrases have barely been used. The only signal phrase that they have used is “According to” when citing an author whose words have been paraphrased: “According to Heugh (2002)” (David et al, 2005, p.72).

The reference list in Dalvit et al. (2005) shows some inconsistences in the use of APA style too. In this article the reference list is not on a separate page and it has not been double-spaced. Besides, the word “References” has not been centered and it is in bold type. Secondly, according to the APA manual, in the reference list, only the first word of a title should be capitalized (Purdue OWL, 2013). In Dalvit et al. (2005) all major words in the titles have been capitalized. Furthermore, the APA style suggests that titles of books and journals should be italicized (Purdue OWL, 2013). But in this article the titles of journals and the titles of dictionaries have not been italicized. What’s more, the titles of journal articles have been italicized, when they should not have been.

 Concerning the documentation of online resources in the reference list, the APA manual illustrates that if they do not have a DOI assigned, they should be presented with the introductory phrase “Retrieved from” before the URL. (Purdue OWL, 2013).  Dalvit et al. (2005) have not used that introductory phrase before the URL when documenting online sources.

Finally, the graphic data included in the paper has not been properly documented in the reference list, as it does not include a description of what type of data is there and in what form it appears, nor does it include the project name and situational information, aspects which should have been included, according to the Purdue OWL (2013). Besides, the title of the table has not been italicized as it should have been.

To conclude, Dalvit et al. (2005) seem to have followed some of the requirements of APA style, but there are some divergences in the way the sources have been documented, mainly found in the reference list. So, it could be claimed that their article does not meet the requirements for appropriate formatting and citing in academic writing, according to the standards of APA.

  

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. (6^th ed.). Washington, DC:Author.

Dalvit, L., Murray, S. & Terzoli, A. (2005). Providing increased access

to English L2 students of computer science at a South African

University. US-China Education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol. 2 (9)

Purdue OWL. (2013). APA formatting and style guide. Retrieved September 2013, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/

Identifying  Discourse Communities

            A discourse community is a social group that uses discourse for a common purpose. The members within a discourse community use specialized vocabulary and genres in order to share their knowledge and exchange views and ideas, and consequently create new knowledge and achieve their goals. Swales (1990) states that a discourse community should meet certain requirements to be recognized as such.

            Swales (1990) believes a discourse community should have common goals. He believes the group should achieve certain objectives and have specific interests. For example, discourse communities in teacher reflection highlight how teacher reflection itself is “mobilized in particular contexts for particular political, pedagogical, and phenomenological purposes” (Ovens, 2002, p. 507, as cited in Hoffman-Kipp, Artiles & Lopez Torres, 2003).

            Other important requirements for a discourse community to be recognized as such are participatory mechanisms, so as to provide information and feedback, and information exchange, as Swales (1990) believes the group will not survive unless its members are communicated. In a discourse community its members communicate and interact sharing their knowledge, exchanging different views and opinions and collaborating. For example, Wenzlaff and Wieseman (2004) describe how important it is for teacher learning that teachers participate in a discourse community where they can interact in a collaborative culture exchanging ideas, thus learning from other teachers.

            Furthermore, other aspects of a discourse community mentioned by Swales (1990) are the use of community-specific genres and the use of highly specialized terminology. Regarding these, Kutz, (1997, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001) states the following about a discourse community:

 Its members have, over time, developed a common discourse that involves shared knowledge, common purposes, common relationships, similar attitudes and values, shared understandings about how to communicate their knowledge and achieve shared purposes, and a flow of discourse that has a particular structure and style. (p. 200)

 According to Bitzell (1992, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001 and 2004), a discourse community is “a group of people who share certain language using practices …[that] can be seen as conventionalized” (p. 222).

            Swales (1990) also considers that a high level of general expertise is essential in a discourse community, and that the group should achieve a certain level of knowledge.  As regards this, Hoffman-Kipp,  Artiles and Lopez Torres (2003) state that teachers who take part in discourse communities are participating in the construction of knowledge and that teachers function as resources for one another, providing each other with guidance and assistance on which to build new ideas.  Kelly-Kleese (2001) makes reference to the existence of a general level of expertise by stating that “only those qualified by some socially institutionalized agency may engage in the kind of discourse required for a particular discourse community and be taken seriously” (Zito, 1984, p. 89, as cited in Kelly-Kleese, 2001).

In conclusion, discourse communities have certain specific features which allow us to identify them as such. We have analyzed them and found out that many researchers provide us with evidence that supports Swales’ (1990) theory. Therefore, only those communities that meet the requirements stated by Swales (1990) can be considered discourse communities.

References

Hoffman-Kipp, P., Artiles, A. J., & Lopez Torres, L. (2003). Beyond reflection: teacher learning as praxis. Theory into Practice. Retrieved September 2013, from http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/theory_into_practice/v042/42.3hoffman-kipp.html

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2001). Editor’s Choice: An Open Memo to Community College Faculty and Administrators. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2013, from http://www.deepdyve.com/lp/sage/editor-s-choice-an-open-memo-to-community-college-faculty-and-5lPjH3hd0V

Kelly-Kleese, C. (2004). UCLA community college review: community college scholarship and discourse. Community College Review. Retrieved September 2013, from http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-121672231/ucla-community-college-review-community-college-scholarship

Swales, J M (1990). Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Setting. Cambridge (Ed.)

Wenzlaff, T. L., & Wieseman, K. C. (2004). Teachers Need Teachers To Grow. Teacher Education Quarterly. Retrieved September 2013, from

http://www.teqjournal.org/backvols/2004/31_2/wenzlaff&wieseman.pmd.pdf

Welcome Message

Dear colleagues,
Welcome to my blog, which has been created in order to share my academic papers from the English for Academic Purposes class at Universidad CAECE. I hope you find my articles interesting and, as I believe we can all benefit from sharing our knowledge, I will be glad to receive your comments and contributions.

Regards,
Anabella.