Handouts in English for Academic and Professional Purposes

I. Critical Reading
  Critical Reading involves scrutinizing any information that you read or hear. Critical
reading means not easily believing information offered to you by a text. “Read not to
contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse;
but to weigh and consider” as Francis Bacon stated in The Essays.
 Critical Reading is an active process of discovery because when you read critically, you
are not just receiving information but also making an interaction with the writer. The
interaction happens when you question the writer’s claim and assertions and when you
comment on the writer’s ideas.

*The following are some suggested ways to help you become a critical reader:
 Annotate what you read- one of the 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.
 Outline the text- in order to fully engage in a dialogue with the text or with the
writer of the text. You need to identify the main points of the writer and list them
down so you can identify the ideas that the writer has raised to support his/her stand.
 Summarize the text- aside from outlining, you can also get the main points of the
text you are reading and write its gist in your own words.
 Evaluate the text- the most challenging part in critical reading is the process of
evaluating what you are reading.

II. Academic text

 Academic text is defined as critical, objective, specialized texts written by experts or
professionals in a given field using formal language. Academic texts are objective. This
means that they are based on facts with solid basis. The emotions of the authors cannot be
felt from texts or materials. Academic texts often take years to publish because of intense
writing and review.

*Purpose of Academic Text

 The primary purpose of academic text is to convey knowledge and understanding of a
topic in a persuasive, formal, objective manner. ... In order to be convincing, writers are
expected to use specific and logical details, examples, facts, statistics and case studies to
support generalizations.

*The Four main types of Academic Text

 Descriptive
 Analytical
 Persuasive
 Critical

*Examples of Academic Text

1.Essay-a short written piece, usually narrative in nature.
2.Position paper-structure is almost the same with essay. The difference is the purpose. 
3.Critique paper-written in paragraph form, but here you are making a judgement base on a given
criteria.
4. Research-the structure is institutional. Normally, this is divided into different chapters.
5. Articles-This may come in any form.
6. Biographies-Story of someone’s life written by another person.
7. Autobiographies-Story of life written by the author himself.

III. CONTEXT CLUES

 Context clues are hints – or “clues” – to the meaning of a word that are quite literally
hidden in plain sight, right there in every reading passage you or your child has ever
encountered. Context clues are hints in the passage, paragraph or individual sentence that,
if considered, can tell you the meaning of a word you are not familiar with. Sometimes
even the title of a piece or the illustrations that come with it offer context clues, as well.
*There are Six basic types of Context Clues.

1. Synonym or restatement clues – When an author uses these types of clues, he or she
will say the same thing twice: once with the more difficult word, and then again in a more
simple way, often right in the same sentence. If your child doesn’t understand a word in a
sentence, tell her to keep reading. A restatement clue may be coming right up.
2. Antonym or contrast clues – These types of context clues give us hints to the meaning
of words by telling us what they’re not. Often the word “but” is included in the sentence
to tell us that an opposite thought is about to be presented. That opposite is the antonym
we’re looking for. Point out the antonym to your child. Then ask her, “What’s the
opposite?”
3. Definition or explanation clues – With this type of context clue, the definition of the
word is literally given to the reader in the form of an explanation. Sometimes the author
will add very specific words to tell us an explanation is upcoming. These can include
phrases like “which means” or “that is” or “in other words.”
4. General or inference clues – These types of context clues are a little more subtle. They
usually require readers to look beyond the sentence they’re reading for understanding,
sometimes even at the entire passage, the topic of the piece or the illustrations. If other,
more specific context clues are missing, looking for inference clues is your child’s best
bet.
5. Punctuation or font clues – The clues hidden here are found in capitalization,
italicization, quotation marks and even parentheses. These clues tell the reader that the
word could be a name, a book title or even that, in the case of parentheses, the word is
being defined for us.
 6. Tone or mood clues – Sometimes the mood that the author has set for us helps us guess
at a word’s meaning. If the setting is a ghost story for instance, and the protagonist is
“brooding,” we can be pretty sure it doesn’t mean he’s happy. Asking your child how she
would feel in the setting of the story is one way to clue her into the meaning of a new
word.
*Context Clues Examples

 Synonym or Restatement Context Clues:

 Miguel was very loquacious. He really loved to talk.

 The rambunctious kids ran out to the bus and climbed on board. They jumped and
yelled and just couldn’t settle down.
 Antonym or Contrast Context Clues:
 Everyone said that Yesinia could be very stubborn. She would never let someone else
talk her out of something once she’d made up her mind.
 The team felt victorious. They knew they would never lose again.
 Definition or Explanation Context Clues:
 Police officers often must interrogate witnesses, that is, the officers must ask their
witnesses important questions and try to get truthful answers.
 Every time that Jamal went to the library, he tried to expand his understanding of the
world, which means he tried to learn something new.
 General or Inference Context Clues
 Sheila spearheaded the new product line. She learned what people were buying. She
started the new advertising campaign. She even designed the webpage and product
logo.
 The relationship between the native people and the new government was complicated.
Sometimes they got along and everyone was happy with the outcome. Other times,
there were disagreements, arguments and fights.
 Punctuation or Font Context Clues
 Everyone at the theater really enjoyed Idomeneo.
 Every morning the teacher checked the classroom barometer (a device that measures
atmospheric pressure).

 Tone or Mood Context Clues

 When the children at the birthday party saw the cake, the balloons and the clown,
they were ecstatic.
 Tired from the long march, the hot sun and the bad food, the boy scouts sat down by
the trail in despair.

IV. Subject verb agreement

 simply means the subject and verb must agree in number. This means both need to be
singular or both need to be plural.
* Subject
 a person or thing that is being discussed, described, or dealt with.

* Verb

 a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the
predicate of a sentence.

* Main Rule of the subject and verb agreement

 If the subject is singular, the verb must be singular too.
Example: She writes every day.
*yellow- subject *green-verb
And if the subject is plural, the verb must also be plural.
Example: They write everyday
*yellow- subject *green-verb
*Here are nine subject-verb agreement rules.
1. A phrase or clause between subject and verb does not change the number of the
subject.

2. Indefinite
pronouns a
s subjects
 Singular
indefinite
pronoun
subjects ta
ke singular
verbs.

 Plural indefinite pronoun subjects take plural verbs.

  Some indefinite pronouns may be either singular or plural: with uncountable,
use singular; with countable, use plural.

*Sugar is uncountable; therefore, the sentence has a singular verb.

Marbles are countable; therefore, the

sentence has a plural verb.

3. Compound subjects joined
by an d are always plural.

4. With co mpound subjects

joined by or/nor, the verb agrees with the subject nearer to it.

*In the above example, the plural verb are agrees with the nearer subject actors.

*In this example, the singular verb is agrees with the nearer subject director.

5. Inverted Subjects must agree with the verb.  

6. Collective Nouns (group, jury, crowd, team, etc.) may be singular or plural, depending
on meaning.

 *In this example, the jury is acting as one unit; therefore, the verb is singular.

*In this example, the jury members are acting as twelve individuals; therefore, the
verb is plural.

7. Titles of single entities (books, organizations, countries,  etc.) are always singular. 

8. Plural form subjects

 Plural form subjects with a singular meaning take a singular verb. (e.g. news,
measles,  mumps, physics, etc.)

 Plural form subjects with singular or plural meaning take a singular or plural

verb, depending on meaning.  (e.g. politics, economics, etc.)
 *In this example, politics is a single topic; therefore, the sentence has a singular
verb.

 Plural form subjects with a plural meaning take a plural verb. (e.g.  scissors,

trousers)

*Note:  In this example, the subject of the sentence is pair; therefore, the verb
must agree with it.  (Because scissors is the object of
the preposition, scissors does not affect the number of the verb.)

9. With subject and subjective complement of different number, the verb always agrees
with the subject.

V. 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.

*Plagiarism could be any of the following:

  Deliberate copying of somebody else’s work and claiming that work to be his/her own;
 Using somebody else’s work or ideas without proper acknowledgement or citation;
 Copy text without paraphrasing it.

*Ways to avoid Plagiarism:

 Paraphrasing- it rendering the essential ideas in a text.
 Quotations- directly quote the sentence or the paragraph that you will use in your paper.

VI. The Writing Process

*Prewriting
 is where you find an idea for a project and write it down. This step is done before drafting,
revising, editing, and publishing. Prewriting is the thinking and organizing stage.

1. Prewriting is the first step in the writing process.

2. Prewriting is the idea — creating/organizing step of the writing process.
3. Prewriting has no time limit, can occur over time/at any time.
4. Keep a notebook/pen or use an app like Google Docs if you’re not by your
computer.
5. There are many methods — brainstorming, webs, using flashcards, free writing,
etc.

*Ideas and Inspiration

Ideas are all around you. If you want to write but you don’t have any ideas, try:

 Using a writing prompt to get you started.

 Writing about incidents from your daily life, or childhood.
 Keeping a notebook of ideas – jotting down those thoughts that occur throughout
the day.
 Creating a vivid character, and then writing about him/her.

See also How to Generate Hundreds of Writing Ideas.

Tip: Once you have an idea, you need to expand on it. Don’t make the mistake of jumping
straight into your writing – you’ll end up with a badly structured piece.

*Building on Your Idea

These are a couple of popular methods you can use to add flesh to the bones of your idea:

 Free writing: Open a new document or start a new page, and write everything that comes
into your head about your chosen topic. Don’t stop to edit, even if you make mistakes.
 Brainstorming: Write the idea or topic in the center of your page. Jot down ideas that
arise from it – sub-topics or directions you could take with the article.

Once you’ve done one or both of these, you need to select what’s going into your first draft.
*Planning and Structure
Some pieces of writing will require more planning than others. Typically, longer pieces and
academic papers need a lot of thought at this stage.
*First, decide which ideas you’ll use. During your free writing and brainstorming, you’ll have
come up with lots of thoughts. Some belong in this piece of writing: others can be kept for
another time.
*Post Writing
 Step in writing process where the written text is shared with other audiences such as a
peer-editor or the instructor or even with the general public.
*The basic components of post-writing activities:
 Re-read your story, make sure sentences make sense.
 Add phrases to make the story flow smoothly (cohesion markers, pronouns,
conjunctions).
 Eliminate "fluff" (unnecessary or redundant details).
 Proofread for spelling, vocabulary, grammar (checklist).
 Edit your paper (peer-editing, post-teacher editing).
 Share with audience (website, print, etc.).

*Proofreading
 Means carefully checking for the errors in a text before it is published or shared.
 It is the last stage of revising a text.
*10 Principles Of Effective Writing

1. Brevity
 It is bad manners to waste [the reader’s] time. Therefore brevity first, then, clarity.

2. Clarity
 It is bad manners to give [readers] needless trouble. Therefore clarity… . And how is
clarity to be achieved? Mainly by taking trouble and by writing to serve people rather
than to impress them.

3. Communication
 The social purpose of language is communication—to inform, misinform, or otherwise
influence our fellows… . Communication [is] more difficult than we may think. We are
all serving life sentences of solitary confinement within our bodies; like prisoners, we
have, as it were, to tap in awkward code to our fellow men in their neighbouring cells… .

4. Emphasis
 Just as the art of war largely consists of deploying the strongest forces at the most
important points, so the art of writing depends a good deal on putting the strongest words
in the most important places… .

 One of the most important things, to my mind, in English style is word-order. For us, the
most emphatic place in a clause or sentence is the end. This is the climax; and, during the
momentary pause that follows, that last word continues, as it were, to reverberate in the
reader’s mind. It has, in fact, the last word.
5. Honesty
 As the police put it, anything you say may be used as evidence against you.
If handwriting reveals character, writing reveals it still more. You cannot fool all your
judges all the time… .

 Most style is not honest enough. Easy to say, but hard to practice. A writer may take to
long words, as young men to beards—to impress. But long words, like long beards, are
often the badge of charlatans. Or a writer may cultivate the obscure, to seem profound.
But even carefully muddied puddles are soon fathomed. Or he may cultivate eccentricity,
to seem original.

 But really original people do not have to think about being original—they can no more
help it than they can help breathing. They do not need to dye their hair green.

6. Passion and Control

 This, indeed, is one of the eternal paradoxes of both life and literature—that without
passion little gets done; yet, without control of that passion, its effects are largely ill or
null.

7. Reading
 One learns to write by reading good books, as one learns to talk by hearing good talkers.
[Read Why You Need To Read More Books]

8. Revision
 Every author’s fairy godmother should provide him not only with a pen but also with a
blue pencil.

[You may enjoy these useful posts:

1. An Editing Checklist For Writers

2. 12-Steps to Self-Editing – your stress-free guide to preparing a manuscript
3. What 20 Famous Authors Had to Say About Rewriting
4. How to rewrite and revise your manuscript – I’ve learnt to stop
5. Rewriting Checklist For Authors]

9. Sophistication and Simplicity

 My point is merely that the sophisticated (ready though they may be to suppose so) do
not necessarily express themselves better than the simple—in fact, may often have much
to learn from them. [Read Why You Need To Write In Plain Language]

10. Sound and Rhythm

 Apart from a few simple principles, the sound and rhythm of English prose seem to me
matters where both writers and readers should trust not so much to rules as to their ears.
*Steps in the Writing Process

 In broad terms, the writing process has three main parts: pre-writing, composing, and
post-writing. These three parts can be further divided into 5 steps: (1) Planning; (2)
Gathering/Organizing; (3) Composing/Drafting; (4) Revising/editing; and (5) Pro
ofreading. Each of these steps are outlined below, with links to more specific and
complete information.

I. Planning
1. Determine General Purpose
2. Determine Appropriate Format
3. Choose a Topic
4. Write a Statement of Purpose
II. Gathering/Organizing
1. Practice Divergent Thinking
2. Practice Convergent Thinking
III. Composing/Drafting
1. Write One Section of the Rough Draft at a Time
2. Write Connecting Devices
IV. Revising/Editing
1. Begin with Higher-Order Concerns
2. Finish with Lower-Order Concerns
V. Proofreading
1. Print a "Hard" Copy for Review
2. Read Hard Copy Out-Loud
3. Use "Cover Sheet" for Line-by-Line Review
4. Get Feedback from Others

Prepared by:
ROSELYN B. MULETA
EAPP Teacher