User:Extr17/Academic Writing notes

esther´s notes
TYPES OF WRITING ILLUSTRATIVE: It uses examples to show, explain, or prove a point. A good Illustrative writing: 	*Makes a point. NARRATIVE: It tells a story of an event or an experience. A good narrative writing: 	*Revels something of importance *Includes all of the important events of the story. *Begins the story to life with a detail account of what happened. *Presents events in a clear order. DESCRIPTIVE: Creates a clear and vivid impression of the topic, translates your experience of a person, places or things into words. A good descriptive writing: 	*Creates a main impression about the topic. *Uses concrete and specific details to support the main point. *Uses details that appeals to the five senses. PROCESS ANALYSIS: Either explains how to do something or how something works. Presents the steps involved in the process. Good process analysis writing:	*Either helps readers to perform the steps or help them to understand how something works. *Presents the essential steps in a process. *Express the steps in details. *Presents the steps in a logical order. CLASSIFICATION: Organizes or sorts, people or items into categories. Good classification writing:	*Make sense of a group of people or items by organizing them into categories. *Uses useful categories. *Uses a simple organizing principle. *Gives example of what fits into each category.
 * Gives detailed and specific examples to show explain or prove the point.	*Gives enough examples to get the point across.

COMPARISON AND CONTRAST: Shows the similarities and differences among subjects, people, ideas, situation or items. Good Comp &Cont writing:	*Uses objects that have enough in common to be compared and contrasted. *Serves a purpose. *Presents several important parallel points of comparison. CAUSE AND EFFECT: Is what made an event happened, an effect is what happens as a result of the event. Good cause & effect writing:	*Clearly distinguishes between a cause and an effect, *Does not confuse an event that happened after another one. *Gives clear and detailed examples. ARGUMENTATIVE: Takes a position on an issue and offers reasons and supporting evidence to persuade someone. Good argumentative writing: 	*Takes a strong and definite position on an issue or advises a particular action. *Gives good reasons and supporting evidence to defend the position or recommended action. *Has enthusiasm and energy from start to finish.

example of a paragraph: Larry suddenly woke up from a deep sleep. The sun was dazzling his half-open eyes, and he couldn’t figure out what time it was. The door to his room was closed; the house was immersed in some sort of reckless silence. He slowly got out of his bed and approached the bench right next to the window. For a moment, he thought, he heard a tapping sound coming from the attic. Then again he heard the sound, only this time it seemed to be somewhat closer. He looked outside the window and saw a man going by the left side of the road. On seeing Larry, the man approached his garden’s fence and whistled. At this point, Larry recognized Nick and waved his hand. He quickly got dressed and was about the get down to open the gate, but he again heard someone murmuring in the other part of the house. Larry decided to go to the attic and see what was causing this, now buzzing, sound. He got to the second floor of his house and looked toward the attic. He quickly opened its door and looked inside. Nothing was found. He was about to turn back and attend to his guest when he, suddenly, slipped on the stairs and fell. He called out to Nick to help him get up.

Read more at Suite101: Example of a Narrative Paragraph: Definitions and Examples of Different Kind of Paragraphs http://www.suite101.com/content/example-of-a-narrative-paragraph-a106737#ixzz10M2VZYe3

23/09/2010 TASK# 3



task #4 30 sep

“FROM TEACHING TO LEARNING A NEW PARADIGM FOR UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION” By Robert B. Barr and John Tagg

The teaching-learning process is being updating constantly in order to make this process faster and meaningful to find out the knowledge for the undergraduate students. A college with a vision of Instructional Learning was very relevant in past times; nonetheless nowadays colleges need to open its visions and objectives into producing learning to produce the best job when teaching. According to Barr´s example “We call the traditional dominant paradigm the Instruction Paradigm. Under it, colleges have created complex structures to provide for the activity of teaching conceived primarily as delivering 50-minute lectures- the mission of a college is to deliver instruction”. In addition, we have seen ourselves in the necessity of exploring what learning paradigm is to be deeply submerged into this interesting topic in the Educational Field. To consider the Learning Paradigm has always lived in our hearts. For example, teachers want to their students to learn and succeed  to become the proud of the educational outcomes and certainly this is a very important aspect to focus on when giving classes because their  priority as teachers have to be always students and to try to offer them the best of ourselves and of the knowledge. In fact, our heads are beginning to understand what our hearts have known. However, none of us has yet put all the elements of the Learning Paradigm together in a conscious, integrated whole; consequently this new paradigm includes many elements of the old within its larger domain of possibilities, and that is why maybe this method has adopted many elements used in the past but that are essential to develop the learning-teaching process in a suitable way and to be successful in this mentioned process. In the same way, the aim of the mission of the Learning Paradigm is to produce learning. The method and the product are not linked each other. The paradigm is divided in two sides, and this is the opposite of the Instruction Paradigm or the old method. On one hand in the Learning Paradigm, colleges take responsibility for learning at two distinct levels; at the organizational level. On the other hand, a college also takes responsibility for the process of pupils learning and success. Indeed a learning paradigm college aims for ever-higher graduation rates increasing learning standards by shifting the intended institutional outcome from teaching to learning, the Learning Paradigm continuous improvement in productivity. That is why a learning paradigm college is concerned with learning productivity, not teaching productivity. Thought, there is a reason for success when the Learning Paradigm embodies the perspectives of the assessment movement. One faculty evaluation systems, for example, evaluate the performance of faculty in teaching terms, not learning terms. Of course, some will argue, true education cannot be measured. Certainly learning is not an easy task, even impossible to measure. But, it does not follow that useful and meaningful assessment is impossible. In fact Learning outcomes include whatever students do as a result of a learning experience. So that, the Learning Paradigm requires us to heed the advice of the Wingspread Group: “New forms of assessment should focus on establishing what college and university graduate have learned-the knowledge and skill levels they have contributed their potential for goes beyond independent learning”. To sum up, it is considered that the Learning Paradigm is an updated approach in which there are implied evaluations or assessments, taking into consideration distinct mission and purposes, it is important to mention another important view in which some teaching and learning structures are meant. In other words, this new Learning Paradigm is significant because it has to be in the facilitator’s mind around the world to start a revolution in the Teaching-Learning trial to become successful in our field showing the best of our roles because a teacher has to have a special gift of motivating our learners to become in the best. It will happen when the importance of implementing this new Learning Paradigm all the Educational System may be improved and successful.

research questions Do I know the field and its literature well? What are the important research questions in my field? What areas need further exploration? Could my study fill a gap? Lead to greater understanding? Has a great deal of research already been conducted in this topic area? Has this study been done before? If so, is there room for improvement? Is the timing right for this question to be answered? Is it a hot topic, or is it becoming obsolete? Would funding sources be interested? If you are proposing a service program, is the target community interested? Most importantly, will my study have a significant impact on the field?

reference: http://www.theresearchassistant.com/tutorial/2-1.asp unit 3 A thesis statement:

tells the reader how you will interpret the significance of the subject matter under discussion. is a road map for the paper; in other words, it tells the reader what to expect from the rest of the paper. directly answers the question asked of you. A thesis is an interpretation of a question or subject, not the subject itself. The subject, or topic, of an essay might be World War II or Moby Dick; a thesis must then offer a way to understand the war or the novel. makes a claim that others might dispute. is usually a single sentence somewhere in your first paragraph that presents your argument to the reader. The rest of the paper, the body of the essay, gathers and organizes evidence that will persuade the reader of the logic of your interpretation.

How do I get a thesis? A thesis is the result of a lengthy thinking process. Formulating a thesis is not the first thing you do after reading an essay assignment. Before you develop an argument on any topic, you have to collect and organize evidence, look for possible relationships between known facts (such as surprising contrasts or similarities), and think about the significance of these relationships. Once you do this thinking, you will probably have a "working thesis," a basic or main idea, an argument that you think you can support with evidence but that may need adjustment along the way.

How do I know if my thesis is strong? If there's time, run it by your instructor or make an appointment at the Writing Center to get some feedback. Even if you do not have time to get advice elsewhere, you can do some thesis evaluation of your own. When reviewing your first draft and its working thesis, ask yourself the following:

Do I answer the question? Re-reading the question prompt after constructing a working thesis can help you fix an argument that misses the focus of the question. Have I taken a position that others might challenge or oppose?If your thesis simply states facts that no one would, or even could, disagree with, it's possible that you are simply providing a summary, rather than making an argument. Is my thesis statement specific enough? Thesis statements that are too vague often do not have a strong argument. If your thesis contains words like "good" or "successful," see if you could be more specific: why is something "good"; what specifically makes something "successful"? Does my thesis pass the "So what?" test? If a reader's first response is, "So what?" then you need to clarify, to forge a relationship, or to connect to a larger issue. Does my essay support my thesis specifically and without wandering? If your thesis and the body of your essay do not seem to go together, one of them has to change. It's o.k. to change your working thesis to reflect things you have figured out in the course of writing your paper. Remember, always reassess and revise your writing as necessary. Does my thesis pass the "how and why?" test? If a reader's first response is "how?" or "why?" your thesis may be too open-ended and lack guidance for the reader. See what you can add to give the reader a better take on your position right from the beginning. top

Examples Suppose you are taking a course on 19th-century America, and the instructor hands out the following essay assignment: Compare and contrast the reasons why the North and South fought the Civil War. You turn on the computer and type out the following:

The North and South fought the Civil War for many reasons, some of which were the same and some different.

This weak thesis restates the question without providing any additional information. You will expand on this new information in the body of the essay, but it is important that the reader know where you are heading. A reader of this weak thesis might think, "What reasons? How are they the same? How are they different?" Ask yourself these same questions and begin to compare Northern and Southern attitudes (perhaps you first think, "The South believed slavery was right, and the North thought slavery was wrong"). Now, push your comparison toward an interpretation—why did one side think slavery was right and the other side think it was wrong? You look again at the evidence, and you decide that you are going to argue that the North believed slavery was immoral while the South believed it upheld the Southern way of life. You write:

While both sides fought the Civil War over the issue of slavery, the North fought for moral reasons while the South fought to preserve its own institutions.

Now you have a working thesis! Included in this working thesis is a reason for the war and some idea of how the two sides disagreed over this reason. As you write the essay, you will probably begin to characterize these differences more precisely, and your working thesis may start to seem too vague. Maybe you decide that both sides fought for moral reasons, and that they just focused on different moral issues. You end up revising the working thesis into a final thesis that really captures the argument in your paper:

While both Northerners and Southerners believed they fought against tyranny and oppression, Northerners focused on the oppression of slaves while Southerners defended their own right to self-government.

reference: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/thesis.html

types of variables Independent variable The variable that is manipulated by the research in experimental research Dependent variable Variable, measured by the researcher, which is expected to change as a result of the independent variable manipulation Constants Variables that are not allowed to vary Every experiment has at least two types of variables: independent and dependent. The independent variable (IV) is often thought of as our input variable. It is independent of everything that occurs during the experiment because once it is chosen it does not change. In our experiment on college performance, we chose two groups at the onset, namely, those with work experience and those without. This variable makes up our two independent groups and is therefore called the independent variable.

The dependent variable (DV), or outcome variable, is dependent on our independent variable or what we start with. In this study, college grades would be our dependent variable because it is dependent on work experience. If we chose to also look at men versus women, or older students versus younger students, then these variables would be other independent variables and the outcome, our dependent variable (college grades), would be dependent on them as well. Remember that whatever is the same between the two groups is considered a constant because they do not vary between groups but rather remain the same and therefore do not affect the outcome of each group differently.

Confounding Variables. Researchers must be aware that variables outside of the independent variable(s) may confound or alter the results of a study. As previously discussed, any variable that can potentially play a role in the outcome of a study but which is not part of the study is called a confounding variable. If, for instance, we had two groups in the above mentioned study but did not control for age then age itself may be a confound. Imagine comparing students with work experience with a mean age of 40 with students without work experience and a mean age of 18. Could we reasonably say that work experience caused the student to receive higher grades? This extraneous variable can play havoc on our results as can any intervening variable such as motivation or attention. Addressing confounds before they alter the results of your study is always a wise decision. REFERENCE: http://allpsych.com/researchmethods/variables.html

ANNTOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

WHAT IS AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY?

An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a brief (usually about 150 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited. THE PROCESS

Creating an annotated bibliography calls for the application of a variety of intellectual skills: concise exposition, succinct analysis, and informed library research.

First, locate and record citations to books, periodicals, and documents that may contain useful information and ideas on your topic. Briefly examine and review the actual items. Then choose those works that provide a variety of perspectives on your topic.

Cite the book, article, or document using the appropriate style.

Write a concise annotation that summarizes the central theme and scope of the book or article. Include one or more sentences that (a) evaluate the authority or background of the author, (b) comment on the intended audience, (c) compare or contrast this work with another you have cited, or (d) explain how this work illuminates your bibliography topic. REFERENCE: http://olinuris.library.cornell.edu/ref/research/skill28.htm#what

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1.	Tedick,J. (1998)research on error correctional implications for classroom teaching.indianapolis.indiana REASON: this an important article that helps me to introduce my paper because it refers to the general idea about what an error is; and also it helps me to make a distinction form error and mistake taking into consideration the field of study, in this case, second language acquisition. 2.	Karra, M. (2006). Second language acquisition learner´s errors and error correction in language teaching. Retrieved from REASON: this is an article that is very useful for developing my topic because it contains a lot of information about the theories and applied linguistics and all the theory that supports the idea about this process in error correction when learning and teaching a new language. 3.	Handra,K. (2005) correction of errors in English. Sarup&sons.india REASON: this is a book that is related of a whole investigation about error correction in language teaching, and also it contains some evidence about investigations and actions surveys to be more objective in this case it focuses on the speaking and some writing mistakes and errors that students tend to make. 4.	Haluska, A. preserving students motivation when improving oral skills in the foreign language classroom. REASON: this is an article very meaningful because it is a research about what are the implications of l1 transfer to commit mistakes and errors when learning a new language, and also  it shows some theoretical part in which the author mention some linguistic theory that supports his ideas. 5.	Erdom,V. (2005).contribution of error analysis to foreign language teaching. Mersin university REASON: in this book the author makes emphasis in the error correction analysis, but the most important of the book is that the author is criticizing others points  of view about  the same topic, but he uses to refuse the others ‘ideas,  but in a meticulous way.

6.	Kennedy-scanlon,M, Cebrian, J.brandbury,j(2009)guided error correction(execises for Spanish –Speaking students of English)universidad autonoma de barcelona, servei de publicacions This book is going to support my topic because the author shows good surveys that I can use to evaluate some of the most common mistakes that students can have when they produce the language; above all the author is talking about ESL students, and also he focuses on Spanish transfer important contribution for my file because it refers to the real context that I am talking about. 7.	Gamon, M. (2007) using contextual speller techniques and language modeling for ESL error correction. This is a journal that supports my topic offering percentages of evaluation and also the author is referring to an audience that use to have problems with grammar and writing. Aspect that is one of the most during the last decades; however, the most meaningful aspect of this journal is that students commit a lot of writing mistakes.

JUSTIFICATION OF MY TOPIC English Language teaching an ample field of study, in which there are two relevant aspects to talk about teaching or learning. The impact of learning a second language in Aguascalientes has become in a controversial topic within the learning language process. About all talking about the UAA English language learners, but inside the learning process there are some implications caused by different phenomenon such as error-correction and its implications in the English language learners.

Through several years, there have been different authors that have tried to analyze the process and implications of error-correction on students´ language development. And it has been discovered that Speaking and writing skills are the subjects that have been affected the most. In other words, the weaknesses of students in English language learning are these skills, in which Error-correction plays important roles because students can learn from they own errors or some others they can fail or interrupt their learning process.

The topic has been very controversial and some authors have studied the phenomenon taking into consideration different and specific points of the theme (Error-correction) for example Kraken’s theory one of the most controversial hypotheses that talks about the natural approach and Audio-lingual method.