Name: James Christian V.

Cuneta Section: 12-JOSE

Performance Task 2: Aspects of Professional and Academic Language

Four Important Features of Language

1. Formality
2. Objectivity
3. Explicitness
4. Caution

1. Formality
Formality reflects your dignified stance in your writing as a member of the academic
community. This means that since your audience are fellow members of the academic community,
the language you use requires precision to make it a "legitimate" piece of academic writing.
Formality can be achieved through the following ways:
1. Choosing expanded modal forms over contracted forms, such as using cannot instead of can't, do
not instead of don't.
2. Choosing one verb form over two-word verbs, such as damage instead of mess up. 3. Choosing
expanded terms over their abbreviated equivalents, such as as soon as possible instead of ASAP.
4. Avoiding colloquial/trite/idiomatic expressions, such as kind of like,as a matter of fact, I need to go
to the John.

Task 1
A. Underline the words or expressions considered as colloquial.
1. With the growing number of health-conscious articles, a lot of young professionals are becoming
serious about maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
2. It is a bit improper to assume that the plan does not work.
3. Experts determined that a lot of health ingredients come from China.
4. Teachers say that a lot of incoming freshman students are interested in sports activities.
5. Lucas got together with Castro in conducting an experiment on effectively enhancing muscle
buildup.

B. Rewrite the following sentences to observe a more formal tone.

6. Writing can't be done effectively if you don't burn the midnight oil.
Writing cannot be done effectively if you do not stay overtime to put effort.
______________________________________________________
7. Parenting is a 24/7 job.
Parenting is an unending job.
______________________________________________________
8. Watching that romcom gave the audience the feels.
Watching that romantic comedy gave the audience the feels.
______________________________________________________
9. The class is cooking up something big.
The class is preparing for something great.
______________________________________________________
10. Adventure may mean doing something epic.
Adventure may mean doing risky and dangerous things.
______________________________________________________
C. Substitute the single-word verb for the two-word verb in the following
sentences. 11. Senate (set up) ____organize_________ the Meralco committee.
12. Mothers (cut down) ______reduce______ spending on rice.
13. Oil price has (gone up) __increase____________.
14. Students (come up) _propose_________ with a solution.
15. Students (looked into) ____analyze__________ the problem.
16. The dollar rate (went up and down)is _unpredictable___________.
17. Students (brought up) ___raise________ the uniform issue.
18. The school (gets rid) ____discard________ of tuition hike.
19. Parents (turned down) ____disapprove_________ the proposal.
20. The proposal (turned out) ___develop___________ a positive result.
21. Major oil players (put off) __postpone__________ oil price hike.
22. Employees did not (put up) ____stand__________ with the company's
expectations.
23. Parents could not (put away) __waste____________ money for their children's
education.
24. The chemical (gives off) _release___________ a foul odor.
25. The class (carried out) __conduct________ a research on the frequency of using SMS.

2. Objectivity
Academic writing requires special knowledge and use of more complex language and objectivity. This
means that the writing must be impersonal and maintains a certain level of social distance. Objectivity
can be achieved by:
1. Avoiding the use of personal pronouns such as you, I, and we.
Poor example: You need to conduct the experiment.
Improved version: The researchers need to conduct the experiment.
2. Avoiding rhetorical questions as it marks "closeness" with the reader, and constantly seeks his/her
attention.
Poor example: How can these problems be solved?
Improved version: Certain measures must be discovered to solve the
problems. 3. Avoiding emotive language that shows biases and lessens objectivity.
Poor example: The investigators were very shocked to see the outcome of the
tests. Improved version: The investigators did not expect the results.
Task 2
Improve the text below by rewriting it into a more objective, impersonal version. Write your version
on the lines provided.
I believe that incidence of drug overdose has indeed become prevalent nowadays. When people
are faced with difficult problems, I think that they can no longer bear the problem and that is why they
get into drugs. That's why if you are a psychologist, you should treat your patients in a way that helps
them to understand their problems and ways to deal with them. Yeah I know it can be very difficult but
hey, that's what you specialized in, right?
__________________________________________________________________
_____
The researchers believe that incidence of drug overdose has become prevalent nowadays.
Most of them who face struggles and hardships in life tend to release their stress through engaging
themselves into drugs. The reason why a psychologist plays a vital role in terms of these issues is due
to the fact that they specialize in understanding the human mind, capabilities and emotions and help
them deal with their problems.

3. Explicitness
Academic writing demands the use of signposts that allow readers to trace the relationships in
the parts of a study. If you intend to show a change in your line of argument, make it clear by using
however.
Example:
It is apparent that the government hopes to provide assistance to the poor. However, giving dole outs
to the "poorest of the poor" does not work in the long term.
The following phrases may be useful in making ideas explicit:
1. This is due to the...
A number of MERALCO consumers trooped to the City Hall to claim a PHP 500 cash incentive.
This is due to the Supreme Court ruling that overcharges must be returned to the end users
whose electric consumption for the April-May period was below 100kw/hr.
2. This resulted in...
With the Supreme Court ordering MERALCO to return overcharges to the end users,
government offices have been tapped to operate as claim centers. This resulted in a number of
MERALCO consumers trooping to the City Hall to claim the PHP 500.00 cash incentive.

When two ideas seem the same, expreșs each one clearly.
The study showed that eighty percent of the 200 participants involved in the study were
dissatisfied with the operations of MERALCO. Similarly, the data revealed that majority of the
participants were not aware of the charges imposed on them by MERALCO.

If you intend to give extra information in your sentence, make it clear by writing "In addition..."
 MERALCO has been operating as a business conglomerate involving foreign stakeholders and
independent power producers or IPP. In addition, MERALCO owns major IPPs operating in the
region.

If you are giving examples, do so explicitly by writing "For example..."

The MERALCO issue has led to disputes between opposition and administration senators. For
example, those who have been labeled as against the president considered the issue as the
administration's way of avoiding the NBN-ZTE scandal.
Task 3
Based on the examples given, write a sentence for each of the following expressions that would make
your idea explicit.
1. (However) Choosing a career is hard, however following your passion will make it easier.
2. (This is due to the) There are a lot of Filipino experiencing hunger. This is due to the imposed
lockdown in Metro Manila.
3. (Similarly) Covid cases rise each day in the Philippines similarly to the other SouthEast Asian
Countries like Singapore and Brunei.
4. (In addition) Implementing strict protocols indeed helps to lessen the covid cases. In addition to
this, no new type of variants has been recorded for the past four weeks.
5. (For example) We should always follow the minimum health protocols covid variants are now
everywhere. For example, the Delta variant which originated from India and the Alpha variant from
the United Kingdom that both makes the number of positive covid cases increase.

Scoring Rubric
3 points 2 points 1 point

The sentences effectively The sentences show some The sentences are not
communicate the intended lapses in the use of understandable due to the
meaning through the use of expressions that show misuse of expressions of
expressions that show explicitness but they could explicitness. There are at
explicitness. There are no still be understood. There are least three grammatical
grammatical errors and a one or two grammatical errors in the work. It does
formal academic writing style errors and lapses in the not use features of the
is used. academic writing style are academic writing style.
observed.

4. Caution
Academic writing requires care since knowledge is built from proven theories and concepts.
Therefore, caution is needed to avoid sweeping generalizations. Consider the following example:
Government officials are corrupt.
The statement is not completely true and the rhetorical impact of the statement may be
misleading. The statement can be improved through the use of devices such as modal verbs, adverbs,
or verbs.

Improved versions:
Some government officials may be corrupt. (modal verb)
Corruption is commonly linked to some key, government officials. (adverb)
A number of government officials tend to be linked with cases of corruption. (verb)

In academic writing, caution needs to be observed in the following parts of your

paper: 1. When a hypothesis needs to be tested
2. Drawing conclusions or predictions from your findings that may generalize certain matters or may
not be conclusive
3. Referencing others' work to build on your own paper

Below are some forms that you may use in observing caution in writing.
Verbs indicating caution: tends, suggests, appear to be, think, believe, doubt, indicate
Example:
The findings of the survey suggest that students who use the social networking in their
academic work tend to be more updated on recent developments in their respective subjects.

Modal verbs: will, must, would, may, can, might, could

Example:
The observations of students' use of social networking sites may lead to the different
behaviors that manifest in real-life communication.

Adverbs of frequency: often, sometimes, usually

The essays that were given marks were usually high.
Since academic writing draws on previous writings done related to your topic (in the case of
research writing), it is important that creating knowledge is expressed through means that do not lead
to sweeping generalizations that may directly attack other writers' point of view.

If your results show something different from another author's ideas, there are possible ways
in writing these points:
1. The results contradict Meyer's findings
2. The results appear to be different from Meyer's findings

While both sentences essentially mean the same thing, sentence 1 expresses on explicit
difference between your findings and of Meyer's. This may be interpreted by readers as an attempt to
highlight your findings as superior compared to Meyer. On the other hand, sentence 2 shows that you
are distancing yourself from your work (basing conclusions on what is observed) and comparing it to
previous works done by other researchers relating your contributions to other ideas in the discipline:
Remember that in academic writing, since you are part of a community, it is important that
you express ideas with openness, striking a balance between being concise and cautious.
Task 4
Examine the following expressions and think of ways to reduce the impact of the utterances.
Direct Expression Statement Using Hedging

He has halitosis. His tongue appears to have halitosis

You need to eat this to be healthy. You must it this often to be healthy

The different steps taken led to The different steps taken tend to led to their failure.
their failure.