Lesson 2

USE KNOWLEDGE OF TEXT

STRUCTURE TO GLEAN
FOR INFORMATION HE
/ SHE NEEDS
What’s structure? Simply put, it’s how you organize
and emphasize all the important points that you want to
say in your composition. It is what allows for the logical
flow of ideas in a cohesive text. Structure is particularly
critical in academic texts because the sequencing of your
ideas give them an acceptable and easy to understand
shape. Thus, you also guide your readers to easily
navigate through your points.
 Academic texts are written for professional audience or
persons specializing in a specific field. You can sense the
formality in their tone because they express thought on a
serious subject matter using complex sentences, and
technical and academic language. In contrast, non-academic
texts are written with friends, family, and general readers
as target audience. You can sense the informality in the tone
because the content is conversational and is expressed using
simple and compound sentences joined by conjunctions like
‘and’ and
‘but’.
six general classifications of academic texts
Essay is generally the proforma for all
analytical compositions. However, not all essays
are academic. Only those that are written for
professional audience and exhibit formal tone
in subject matter, sentence structure, and
language can be considered academic.
six general classifications of academic texts

Concept paper defines an idea or a concept and

clarifies its ‘whatness’; thus, its most prominent
structure is the use of definition.
six general classifications of academic texts

Reaction paper is generally an informed and

insightful perspective on art, popular culture,
and a technical topic.
six general classifications of academic texts

Position paper asserts an argument.

six general classifications of academic texts

Report retells data, incident, or event.

six general classifications of academic texts

Research are a highly formal kind of reports.

 All compositions in paragraph
forms basically have the three
parts: introduction, body, and
conclusion.
Whichever strategy will be fine, but you need to process them and connect
them to your most important goal in the introduction – the thesis
statement. Your thesis is the onesentence gist or summary of your entire
paper. All your evidence and discussion in the body will revolve around your
thesis. This comes usually at the end of the first paragraph or in the
second paragraph. Beginning writers can introduce the thesis this way:
“Thus, this paper is written to prove…,” “For this reason, this essay will
focus on…,” “In this paper, you will understand…,” “In order to discuss …,
this position paper will analyze…” or etc
 Remember to avoid writing what Shiach (2007) calls a ‘waffle’ in
your opening paragraph. What is ‘waffle’? It is an empty
paragraph. You may commit this when you attempt to hide your
topic by making generalized, empty statements. Look at the
example below. It can apply to a whole range of topics, but which
manage to say nothing relevant.
Academic papers may also mention at the introduction about how
your ideas will flow in the body to fully discuss your thesis. Because
there are many great things you need to mention in your
introduction, long texts may need more paragraphs. However, your
goal is to make the introduction as much as possible as short as one
paragraph, that is about five sentences.
The body is composed of several paragraphs that cohesively discuss the
thesis. These paragraphs are your means to lead your readers, so they can
make sense of your composition. Have you experienced reading a
composition without paragraphing? Its tiring to read and hard to absorb.
Hence, you should order paragraphs in a way that readers can follow the
points you want to stress, as you present them.
 As a general rule, one paragraph should deal with only one main topic. The
sentence that has the main topic is called the key or topic sentence. In
academic papers, paragraphs are advised to start with the key sentence. This
is because you have professional and busy readers who need to be guided as
to the content of your paragraphs. After presenting evidence through the
point-by-point analysis of hard data, stories, events, and opinions, your closing
sentence should round off the paragraph or dovetail to the next paragraph.
In order to maintain the appearance of “continuous, coherent and integrated
whole,” you may link one paragraph to the next using these transitional
expressions: “Another essential feature of …,” “While it can be argued that …, it
is also true that …,”” However, many critics disagree with this …,” “To counter
this argument, …,” “Nevertheless, the evidence is that …,” “Secondly, …,” “The
bulk of the available evidence, then, points to the fact that …,” “On the
contrary, …,” “Having analyzed this aspect, I would now like to …,” “Furthermore,
…,” “In order to emphasize this point, I would like to point to …,” “Moreover,
there are other convincing arguments to back up …,” and “Therefore, …”.
 Lastly, you need to bring the write up to an emphatic conclusion and
leave the impression that the topic has been relevantly and thoroughly
dealt with. Some appropriate words or phrases that you can use to signal
this include, “Finally, …,” “As I have argued, …,” “As I have shown, …,”
“Therefore, …,” “The bulk of the evidence, then, points to …,” “However,
as I have shown, …,” and “Based on this evidence, ….”
Summarizing is an important element of conclusion, but you
should find a fresh and concise way of doing this. You should not
repeat what you said in the body. The neat final sentence leaves
the reader something to think about. Sometimes, it can be a call
for action; it is something you want them to do after every point
you raised in the body.
So, if your readers are looking for specific information, they are
somehow guided as to where to find them. Likewise, if you are looking
for an information, you are also guided as to the part of the text to
turn to. In addition to the general contents of academic texts that are
mentioned in the flowcharts, the usual information that are asked for
when reading are the 5W’s and 1H (what, who, when, where, why and
how) information.
ACTIVITY 2