Chapter III

The Documented Essay on a Concept

Lesson 1: Academic Research and the Documented Essay in the 21st Century

Academic Writing –it is the presenting of ideas in a rational, organized, systematic, reasonable,

and also in a logic way.

Academic Writing Should Be:

 Based on facts

 Researched and not the writer’s opinion

 To critically analyse the subject matter while taking previous research into account

Academic Writing Should not be:

 Sound pompous

 Difficult to read

 Ungrammatical/Non-Standard/Informal

Process of Academic Writing:

 Posing a question

 Problematizing a concept

 Evaluating opinion and ends with;

 Answering the question

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 Academic Discourse–it involves how we alter our communication when engaged in academic

discussions.

Example: Textbook, Presentation, Research Articles, Lectures/Discussion, Essay Writing...

Purpose of Academic Writing:

 Inform

 Argue

 Persuade

Informal/Non-Standard Usages More Formal/Precise Equivalents

Alright, alot, discuss about, cope up with All right, a lot, result in, discuss, cope with

Good as is “good” book Entertaining, insightful, instructive

Can’t, won’t, she’s, I’ll, didn’t Cannot, will not, she is, I will, did not

Gonna, gotta Going to, have to

Anyways, boring as hell, bored to death, major Anyway, boring or uninteresting, extremely

downer bored, depressing

I got here late: she got out of the office, he got a I arrived here late, she left the office, he

call, they got gas received a call, they loaded gas or they refuelled

ASAP, BTW, SOP As soon as possible, by the way, standard

operating procedure

University of the Philippines, Ateneo De Manila

UP, ADMU, DLSU University, De La Salle University

Hit the sack, loo, comfort room Sleep, toilet/bathroom

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 Laugh out loud, away from keyboard, no reply

Lol, adfk, nrn, #feels necessary, a wave of emotions

A Balanced and Credible Voice

-Besides using clear and specific languages, academic writing should not be stiff, or stilted and

somber tone.

-In academic writing, this means doing away emoting punctuation marks like exclamation

points(!) whether single or multiple (!!!), and dramatic ellipses (...) used as a way of trailing off.

Cluttered Writing:

-I found the dulaang UP play Haring Lear (King Lear) to be bot just entertaining, but also

insightful because I felt that the Tagalog translation effectively and humorously conveyed the

spirit of Shakespearoriginal dysfunctional family. To a contemporary Filipino audience.

Tighter Writing:

The dulaang UP play Haring Lear (King Lear) was not just entertaining but insightful because

theTagalog translation effectively and humorously conveyed the spirit of Shakespear original

dysfunctional family to a contemporary Filipino audience.

Writer Focused:

Our group conducted a survey on 100 University of the Philippines freshmen to find out their

opinions on the new academic calendar.

Focused on the Subject:

A survey on 100 University of the Philippines freshmen to find out their opinions on the new

academic calendar.
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Sample Informal Paragraph:

I usually go out with someone to be relaxed and have fun. As a student, I go out to escape all the

stress of school stuff. Which is why going out with someone who talks like a research paper

wouldn’t be such a good thing. I will end up getting bored, and still stuck, with the things I get

enough of in school. It would end up in boredom instead of fun and excitement.

Sample Revision:

People typically engaged in dating activities in order to relax and to enjoy themselves. For

students, dating is an escape from their hectic academic lives. Thus, if one’s date turns out to be

a person who talks like a research paper, the purpose of the activity will be defeated. These

experience would be neither engaging nor interesting because one would be faced with dreaded

academic topics and discussions. Essentially, the date will be a tedious rather than enjoyable one.

Socially and Culturally Relevant Topic

-one final important myth to debunk is academic papers deals with topics that are likely to bear

both the writers and the reader.

-in reality, students writer are often allowed to select their own topic within a more general area

specified by the teachers, the course and the discipline.

Documented Essays

Academic suggests more than just the style and tone of writing.

Documented Essay/Academic Papers essential aspect is the credibility and it’s contribution to

scholarly studies.

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Writers are required to:

1. To read and gathered information from a variety of relevant sources on a chosen

topic.

2. Clearly acknowledge the supporting sources

3. Add to scholarship by selecting, arranging, commenting on, or even debunking

the information from the sources.

Documented Essays vs. Standard Essays

1. Both consist of an introduction withexplicitly stated argument/thesis,

three or more supporting paragraphs, and conclusion.

Standard Essay- generally known facts, personal experiences of the writer.

Documented Essay-requires concrete supporting information from a relevant

sources.

2. FAILURE TO PROPERLY CITE A SOURCE RESULTS IN THE

DEADLIEST OF ACADEMIC SINS: PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism

1. Do not plagiarise.

2. Plagiarism is once you borrowed someone else words and make these appear as your

own.

3. When a person copies word for word, a sentence, paragraph, a whole article, a section of

book, or different sections of long article or book written by marks.

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 4. When a person borrows someone else ideas, rewards them to make ideas seem like

his/her own.

5. When a person translate to Filipino or other Philippine languages someone else ideas that

were expressed in English or other foreign languages and fails to be enclose the translated

material in quotation marks.

6. Even when a person frames the ideas of a writer in another way or in a different

language, and conveniently forgets to acknowledge the source of the ideas that still

constitutes plagiarism.

7. There is nothing wrong in borrowing an author’s ideas. We encourage students to

research the wealth of materials available in booms or the internet to expand their

knowledge and bolster their own critical position. But we never should forget or fail to

give recognition of who inspired us, whose conceptual framework we found applicable to

our research, or whose powerful ideas stirred us to develop our own.

8. I summarized my lecture on plagiarism with one Filipino word: KATAPATAN.

9. I liken a plagiarism to a mother who borrows a ganta of rice from a neighbour and forgets

that what saved her family for the day was kindness of the neighbour.

Tell tale signs of Plagiarism:

1. A plagiarist always leaves behind a trail of tell tale signs.

2. The trail begins with just a turn of phrase without the quotation marks. As human being,

we think a like but we develop and express our ideas in our own individual styles.

3. The students may become desperate and so surfs for an article in the internet in the

website she/he thinks is obscure enough.

4. A political science professor, for instance, had half of her class submitting an assignment

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 with exactly the same wordings.

5. Some students are not clever in plagiarising.

6. We would like to think that graduate students would already have attained sufficient

maturity and independence of thinking and would likely not commit plagiarism.

7. In UP we have been known to remove from our faculty roll a teacher who copied an

American textbook and simply change the American names to Filipino names.

Effects of Plagiarism:

8. Borrowing is not a crime. This is a statement in repeat over and over but; always warn

them to never fail use quotation mark and foot note or end note.

10. Why do students copy? It begins in the way of student in the elementary and high school

are trained for lack of information.

11. For undergraduate students, I believe that their plagiarism is born more out of desperation

intent.

12. Why do I said against? It is because claiming another one’s word dishonest.

13. KATAPATAN is all that required to keep us our integrity and dignity intact.

Writing a Document Essay and Avoiding Plagiarism

 Plagiarism is actually easily avoided by finding out how to properly “borrow” someone

else word of idea.

Paraphrase- read it and put it into your own words. Make sure that you did is not copying.

Cite- citing is one of the effective ways to avoid plagiarism follow the document formatting

guidelines.

Quoting-when quoting a source, use the quote exactly the way it appears. CITING QUOTES

-citing a quote can be different by citing paraphrased materials. REFERENCE

-One of the most important ways to avoid plagiarism is including reference page or page of work

cited at the end of the research paper.

 Be aware of the purpose and style of the document essay.

Document Essay-is piece of writing in which you incorporate information –facts,

arguments, opinion taking from the writings of authorities in a particular field.

 William H. Robert and Gregoire Turgeon Authors of about language. A reader for

writers defined this as one in which the supported for their own ideas as well be evidence.

Essay is the main argument and conclusion are thinking sources or reference to develop

her claim.

 A scholarly Documented Essay should be also written using appropriate level of

language, from middleto formal which means that there should be no contraction,

colloquial word choices, profanity or slang. Idiomatic expression, localized expressions

or non English words should be explained, translated or contextualized.

 When writing an academic essay you need to keep in mind that all borrowed materials

need to be documented.

 According to Roberts and Turgeon, plagiarism lies not in what you intend but in what

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 you actually do.

Three Essential Element of Attribution:

 In text or parenthetic citation

 A list of work cited, an attribution

 Reference to all author or title of the source and it necessary brief information to the

discussion.

 At the end of the paper must list all sources that have been cited or mentioned

 Bibliographic information about these sources will appear in alphabetically arranged list

of work cited.

The following information is required:

1. Author’s name

2. Title of the text

3. Publication place

4. Publisher

5. Publication Date

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 Lesson 2

Critical Thinking, Collaboration and the Writing Process

The Writing Stage of Writing Process

The second stage of writing process. This is writing or “The act or producing a first draft”.

Which Donald Murray (1973) says is the “fastest” part of the writing process, taking up as little

as 1% of writers time. That’s because if the essay is well planned, drafting will not be difficult.

Moreover, the product of drafting is only an initial draft.

According to Educator Murray Suid and Wanda Lincoln (1989) writing or drafting is “Like

making a sketch for painting: paint’s doesn’t worry about getting all the lines perfect the first

time”. Similarly the writer does not expect to get all the words and information right in the first

draft.

The Rewriting Stage of the Writing Process

The third involves “researching, rethinking, redesigning, rewriting and finally, line by line

editing, the demanding, satisfying process of making every word right” (Murray 1972). In this

stage, the writer reviews the paper to see how it may be improved asking questions such as:

 Is the title appropriate and effective?

 Is the first paragraph interesting and compelling? Is it related to the topic?

 Does the introduction include a clearly stated main idea?

 What needs to be added, omitted, or reorganized?

 Is there anything confusing or unclear in the content of the essay?

 What should be edited in properly acknowledged via intext citations and bibliographic
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 list?

In many writing classes, the writing stage becomes collaborative, not just when the instructor

gives the student writer feedback, but also when student read one another’s essay and comments

on these in a workshop or peer review sessions. It is ideal to get concrete feedback from more

than one reader on aspects of content, grammar, mechanics, documentation and style; so that

later drafts benefit from readers suggestions.

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 Lesson 3:

Concept of Social and Cultural Significance in the Philippines

The final lesson focuses more specifically on how to write a document essay on a concept of

social and cultural significance. In this final lesson, you will apply what you learned in the two

previous lessons to write a documented essay on a concept of social and cultural significance,

which you will read or represent to your peers.

Before Reading Task

1. Consider what you think of the term “concept”. Do a free-writing exercise in which you try to

define the word (A free-writing exercise is when you are told to write anything that comes to

mind connected to the word “concept”. This means that you should keep your pen continuously

moving for ten minutes without censoring yourself.)

2. After you have came up with your own overall definition of “concept” look up the definition

from three different credible source of the term “concept”. Don’t forget to jot down bibliographic

source information.

3. Then write one of documented paragraph that explains what “concept” means from both and

others that you would enjoy writing about, especially concepts relevant to Filipinos like you.

The Writing Concept

The term “concept” is a synonym for an idea, motion or thought. More importantly thought,

“concept” may also refer to a perception about something.

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