Advice on academic writing. Assingment for Language and Written Expression

1. UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, Writing Courses

2. Some General Advice on Academic
Essay-Writing
•When writing an academic essay it is important to develop a consitent
thesis. This should have an appropiate argument, which will help to
prove the idea proposed.
•The first step should be to formulate the question(s) you will seek to
answer in your essay.
• The organization of your text should be clear and appropiate.
Providing
evidence
Keep the essay's overall
purpose and organization in
mind
Start writing
early
Taking Notes from
Research Reading
Revise
extensively

3. Planning and Organizing
The best time to think about how to organize your paper is
during the pre-writing stage.
Most university essays are argumentative, and there is no set
pattern for the shape of an argumentative essay. To convince
your reader of the validity of your position, the organisation of
your text should be clear.
Using Thesis Statements
When you are asked to write an essay that creates an
argument, your reader will probably expect a clear
statement of your position. Typically, this summary
statement comes in the first paragraph of the essay,
though there is no rigid rule about position.

4. • Introductions and conclusions play
a special role in the academic
essay, and they frequently demand
much of your attention as a writer.
A good introduction should identify
your topic, provide essential
context, and indicate your
particular focus in the essay. It also
needs to engage your readers'
interest. A strong conclusion will
provide a sense of closure to the
essay
IIntroduction
and conclusion
•Thematic unit.
Paragraph
Topic Sentence
•It states the main point of a
paragraph: it serves as a mini-thesis
for the paragraph.

5. The Transition from High School to University
Writing
To meet the expectations of university writing, you will need to
unlearn rules you may have learned in high school. The reason
for this to happen is that university writing is a more complex
discipline. Several things to remember about these differences:
UNIVERSITY
 Discourages formulas.
 Provides freedom for you to come up with your own way of
structuring your argument.
 Offers discipline-specific guidelines for approaching written
work.
 Encourages critical thinking.
 Discourages repetition.
 Argumentative essays should be supported by evidence from
your sources.

6. Reading and Researching
Critical Reading Towards Critical Writing
Most of the papers you write will involve reflection on written texts -
the thinking and research that has already been done on your subject.
In order to write your own analysis of this subject, you will need to do
careful critical reading of sources and to use them critically to make
your own argument.
 Choose where to focus your critical efforts.
 Avoid foregrounding and isolating facts and examples.
 Use quotation critically. Quote appropiately.
 Critical reading may involve evaluation.

7. How to Get the Most Out of Reading
•Be aware of the structure of the text as you read.
•Know what kind of ideas you need to record.
• Consider to maintain an appropiate length for the text.
Research Using the Internet
Firstly, it is important to resort to the Internet in a responsible
and critic manner. There are a great many solid academic
resources available, keeping a detailed record of sites you visit
and the sites you use is a helpful idea to use them when
necessary. Guarantee the reliability and accuracy of the
resources.

8. New Vocabulary Words
It is important to comprehend with precision the meaning of the
words present in the different resources. In order to do this without
a constant interruption during the reading, there are certain
aspects to recollect:
SOUND CONTEXTSTRUCTURE DICTIONARY
Skimming and Scanning
One of the most effective methods for beginning the kind of
thoughtful reading necessary for academic work is to get a
general overview of the text before beginning to read it in
detail. This is called ´skimming´.
´Scanning´is reading with a more focused purpose, such as
locating a particular fact or figure.

9. Using Sources
• Using Quotations
-You must preserve the punctuation of a quoted passage,
or else you must enclose in square brackets any
punctuation marks that are your own.
-Indicate any alteration made when quoting.
- If an argument or a factual account from one of your
sources is particularly relevant to your paper but does not
deserve to be quoted consider:
Summarizing
The relevant passage if
you wish to sketch only
the most essential points
in the passage.

10. Be adequate in the use of the different resources and
qoutations, be careful not to plagiarise.
Paraphrasing
The passage if you wish to
convey the points in the
passage at roughly the
same level of detail as in
the original.
Provide a reference.
The paraphrase must be in your own words. You must
do more than merely substitute phrases here and there.
You must also create your own sentence structures.

11. Specific Types of Writing
The Book Review or Article Critique
An analytic or critical review of a book or article is not primarily a
summary; rather, it comments on and evaluates the work in the light
of specific issues and theoretical concerns in a course.
Some reviews summarize the book's content and then evaluate it;
others integrate these functions, commenting on the book and using
summary only to give examples.
An annotated bibliography
An annotated bibliography gives an account of the research that has
been done on a given topic. Like any bibliography, an annotated
bibliography is an alphabetical list of research sources. In addition
to bibliographic data, an annotated bibliography provides a concise
summary of each source and some assessment of its value or
relevance.

12. The Literature Review
A literature review is an account of what has been
published on a topic by accredited scholars and
researchers. In writing the literature review, the purpose
is to convey to your reader what knowledge and ideas
have been established on a topic, and what their
strengths and weaknesses are.
The Academic Proposal
An academic proposal is the first step in producing a thesis or major
project. Its intent is to convince a supervisor or academic committee
that your topic and approach are sound, so that you gain approval to
proceed with the actual research. As well as indicating your plan of
action, an academic proposal should show your theoretical
positioning and your relationship to past work in the area.

13. The Abstract
It is the first impression of the document that follows
abstract should represent as much as possible of the
quantitative and qualitative information in the document,
and also reflect its reasoning.
Writing about History
When writing about History it is important to resort to both
Primary and Secondary Sources. A primary source is a
document that was created at the time of the event or subject
you've chosen to study or by people who were observers of or
participants in that event or topic.
Effective Admission Letters
It is a letter or personal statement as part of applying for
graduate or professional school. It should have the
appropiate format and structure.

14. Style and Editing
Errors In Grammar, Punctuation, And Style
When editing your paper it is essential to revise these aspects:
•How well you've handled the topic and followed the
assignment.
•The quality of your ideas.
•The way you've organized your paper.
•The quality of your writing style and grammar.
Punctuation
Punctuation, when skillfully deployed, provides you with
considerable control over meaning and tone.

15. Some Tools and Rules to Improve Your Spelling
Use a dictionary.
Be consistent about using British or American
spellings in your writing.
Create your own "difficult-to-spell" lists.
Learn the standard pronunciations for frequently
misspelled words.
Watch out for homophones, near-homophones, and
other easily confusable words.
Use your computer spellchecker, but with caution.
Learn English spelling rules.

16. Common mistakes
Subject-Verb Agreement
The two essential parts of a complete sentence are the subject
and verb. It is extremely important to avoid this mistakes,
especially when using relatives clauses, long sentences and
when the subject of a sentence consists of a complex noun
phrase.
Plurals
The plural form of most nouns is formed by adding s to the
end of the word. Although the application of this rule is
wide, the irregularity of a number of words in English
should be known.
Possessives
There are different types of indicating possession in
English, such us pronouns, preposition, possessive s. To
know them all will enrich the writings.

17. English as a Second Language
Using Articles
To determine which article to place in front of almost any
noun, it is useful to know whether the noun is:
countable uncountable
singular plural
definite indefinite
Recognising the type of noun will help to know when to use a
definite article, such as a- an , indefinite one, as the, or a
zero-article Ø .

18. Expressions of Quantity: Special Cases of Subject-Verb
Agreement
Subject-verb agreement is generally quite straightforward in
English. However, with subjects that introduce the idea of
quantity, some additional rules are needed.
•With fractions, percentages and indefinite quantifiers
(e.g., all, few, many, much,some), the verb agrees with the
preceding noun or clause
• With a collective noun, use either a singular or a plural verb,
depending on whether you want to emphasize the single
group or its individual members.
•Expressions of time, money and distance usually take a
singular verb.
•Adjectives preceded by the and used as plural nouns take
a plural verb.

19. Using Gerunds and Infinitives
Both gerunds and infinitives can replace a noun as the object
of a verb. Whether you use a gerund or an infinitive depends
on the main verb in the sentence. In order to know which verb
is required, there is an abundance of resources, such as lists.
Remember gerunds can follow a preposition; infinitives
cannot.
Verbs for Referring to Sources
Writers indicate their attitude to the sources they cite by
choosing specific verbs to refer to them.
This is done in order to intensify the importance of the
bibliography quoted, the credibility of the sources and the
controversial aspects of them.
Due to the complexity of these verbs, it is needed to know the
structure they require.

20. •´SOME GENERAL ADVICE ON ACADEMIC ESSAY-WRITING´,Professor
Anderson Silber, Department of English, University of Toronto. 1987, revised
1995.
•´The Transition from High School to University´. Prepared by Rebecca Vogan
and Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre. A first draft of this
handout was developed at Innis College.
•´Organizing an Essay´. Prepared by Jerry Plotnick, Director of the University
College Writing Centre.
•´Introductions and Conclusions´. Prepared by Leora Freedman and Jerry
Plotnick, University College Writing Centre.
•´Paragraphs´. Prepared by Margaret Procter, Writing Support, and Vikki
Visvis, University College Writing Centre.
•´Using Topic Sentences´. Prepared by Jenny Hall and Jerry Plotnick,
University College Writing Centre.
•´CRITICAL READING TOWARD CRITICAL WRITING´. Prepared by Deborah
Knott, Director of the New College Writing Centre

21. •HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF READING, Prepared by Dr. Margaret
Procter, University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support.
• TAKING NOTES FROM RESEARCH READING. Prepared by Dr. Margaret
Procter, University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support.
•English language learning program (ell). L. Freedman 2012, University of
Toronto.
•HOW NOT TO PLAGIARIZE. Updated 14 July 2010 by Dr. Margaret Procter,
University of Toronto Coordinator, Writing Support.
•Using Quotations. Prepared by Jerry Plotnick, Director of the University
College Writing Centre.
•´THE ABSTRACT´. Prepared by Dr. Margaret Procter, University of Toronto
Coordinator, Writing Support.
•´The Comparative Essay´. Prepared by Vikki Visvis and Jerry Plotnick,
University College Writing Centre
• ´WRITING AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY´. Written by Deborah Knott,
New College Writing Centre. Copyright 2004.
•SPECIAL CASES IN THE USE OF THE DEFINITE ARTICLE. Prepared by Martine
Johnson, International Student Centre, University of Toronto.