ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES REVIEWER

ACADEMIC TEXT DEFINED…

➢ They are critical, objective, and specialized texts that are written by professionals or
experts in a particular field.

➢ They are written in formal language and has a formal style and tone. Since these are
objective texts, they are based on facts.

It utilizes Academic Language.

Academic language defined…

➢ It represents the language demands of school (academics). Academic language includes

language used in textbooks, in classrooms, on tests, and in each discipline.

➢ It is different in vocabulary and structure from the everyday spoken English of social
interactions.

Major Examples of Academic Texts

1. Textbooks

➢ These are specifically designed to help the learners for specific subjects or disciplines. They
have highly set languages depending on the discipline to which the textbooks will be used for.
2. Essays

➢ Essays usually help you show how deep you have learned a topic or lesson. They usually need
to include citations of sources.
3. Theses

➢ You will probably have to write longer texts when and if you decide to enroll in a post
graduate course in the future.
4. Research Articles

➢ Research articles are written mainly for a specialist audience, meaning other researchers,
academics, and postgraduate students.
5. Case Studies

➢ These may be found in any discipline, though they are most common in disciplines such as
humanities, example business, sociology, and law. They are descriptive and in-depth studies
into the lives of particular individuals.
6. Reports

➢ The purpose of reports is to describe what happened and discuss and evaluate its importance.

➢ Reports are found in different disciplines, such as science, law, and medicine.

NON-ACADEMIC TEXTS DEFINED…

➢ Non-academic texts include writings that are informal and dedicated to a lay audience.

➢ Non-academic articles are written for the widespread public. They are published rapidly
and can be written by anyone.
Non-academic texts may also include research or verifiable material but are less likely to include
references to any source material and may be published in a rather informal setting.
Characteristics of Non-Academic text

❖ Less formal (may idioms, slangs, contractions)

❖ Casual language
❖ Use any point of view
❖ Opinion-based
❖ Free of rigid structures
❖ On general topics

Major Examples of Non-Academic Texts

1. Emails
▪ Simple and informal. They are sent or received over a computer network and can be sent to
multiple recipients and carry multiple attachments at the same time.

2. Newspapers
▪ A publication and form of mass communication and mass media usually issued daily, weekly,
or at other regular times that provides news, views, features, and other information of public
interest.
3. Magazines
▪ is another kind of non-academic text which is usually used for leisure time.
4. Blogs or Social Media posts
▪ Blogs or social media contents can add more ideas about a particular thing but it’s not good to
be a source of research, like for a thesis, except if your topic is about social media.

THE STRUCTURES OF A TEXT

1. THE STRUCTURE OF DEFINITION

• The focus of this text is to explain or give a comprehensive understanding of a concept, a
term or an idea.

• To define a term, a writer provides a general definition, then gives clear details to support.

The Types of Definition

1. Formal definition
• This type is factual by nature. The definitions provided in dictionaries are examples
of formal definition, which generally include three elements:

• term, the word being defined;

• class, which refers to the (big) group to which the term belongs; and
• Differentiating features, the word or phrase that makes it different with the
others from the same class.

2. Subjective definition
• This type aims to define complex terms in a personal way where it is influenced by personal
feelings or emotions.
2) THE STRUCTURE OF DESCRIPTION
• This pattern of development gives characteristics or details on what an object, a person
or a place looks like.
• When using this pattern, use powerful and appropriate adjectives and use effectively the
five senses (sight, smell, taste, hear, touch) to create a clear image on a reader’s mind.

Types of Description

1. Objective description

• is used in scientific writing to describe factual and scientific characteristics.

• It describes something without conveying the writer’s own emotions.

2. Subjective description

• is used in fiction wherein a writer uses their own perspective or impressions to describe a
person, an event or a thing.

3. THE STRUCTURE OF CLASSIFICATION

• This pattern allows you to either divide a topic into its component parts, or to categorize
(or classify) a group of related items or events.
• It divides and organizes ideas or concepts in classes, groups or categories based on
criteria and relationships between the items.

4. THE STRUCTURE OF CHRONOLOGY

• Present ideas or events in the order in which they happen.
• used to show order of things, how something happens and the logical arrangement of
things.
• Words such as first, next, during, and finally can signal this text structure to tell the dates
and events that happened in the text.

5. THE STRUCTURE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

• It is used to explain why things happen, and the results of a certain phenomenon. Writers
enumerate factors and possible outcomes resulting to phenomena or events.
• It uses words like because, as a result, resulted, caused, affected, since, due to, effect, and
so to present the cause and effect of the topic.

Examples:
1. Because of the viral Takoyaki video, our fishball stand was successful.

Cause: The viral Takoyaki video

Effect: The fishball stand was successful

2. Long ago, humans used weapons because they needed to find food.

Cause: Humans needed to find food.

Effect: Humans used weapons.

6. THE STRUCTURE OF COMPARISON AND CONTRAST

• The purpose of a compare–contrast text structure is to describe how two or more things
are similar and different.
• A compare–contrast text structure will frequently use words like both, unlike, similarly,
and in contrast.
SUMMARIZING DEFINED…

➢ An act of reducing a text to one-third or one-quarter its original size, clearly articulating the
author’s meaning, and retaining its main ideas.
➢ It is a short restatement of the main idea of the text. The output is called a Summary.
➢ It involves re-stating a work’s thesis and main ideas “simply, briefly, and accurately”.

THE TECHNIQUES IN SUMMARIZING

1. OUTLINE defined…
➢ An outline is a snapshot of one’s paper as it captures the important points.
➢ An outline is a general plan of the material that is to be presented in a speech or a paper.
➢ It is a list of the main points (indicated by Roman numerals) and supporting ideas (indicated by
capital and small letters) that the writer intends to discuss in writing. It uses keywords or key
phrases instead of complete sentences.

An outline is made up of:

▪ The headings represent the main ideas and are indicated by Roman numerals.
▪ The subheadings represent the supporting ideas; they are indicated by capital letters and are
indented. Sub-subheadings are the specific details or concrete examples of the supporting ideas.

2. GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS defined…

➢ Graphic Organizers are a communication tool that uses visual symbols to express knowledge,
concepts, thoughts, or ideas, and the relationships between them.
➢ They are a way to organize information visually to see how ideas relate to one another.
➢ Each graphic organizer possesses its own purpose in presenting and organizing information.

3. 5 W’s and 1 H defined…

➢ This technique relies on six crucial questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, & How.
➢ These questions make it easy to identify the main character, important details, and main
idea.

To specify, the questions are:

“WHAT”- WHAT HAPPENED ON THE NARRATIVE? WHAT IS THE NARRATIVE ALL ABOUT?
“WHO”- WHO ARE THE CHARACTERS ON THE NARRATIVE?
“WHY”- WHAT CAUSED THE EVENTS ON THE NARRATIVE?
“WHEN”- WHAT’S THE TIME AND YEAR OF THE NARRATIVE?
“WHERE”- WHAT’S THE PLACE OF THE NARRATIVE?
“HOW”- HOW DID THE NARRATIVE PLAY OUT?

LITERARY CRITICISM defined…

➢ It carefully examines a text, or one element of a text, such as character, setting, plot or
theme of a story.
➢ It is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is
often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and
methods.
 ➢ It utilizes Literary approach in order to get a specific angle of meaning from the text.

LITERARY APPROACH defined…

➢ They are the body of ideas and methods we use in the practical reading of literature.
➢ Literary theory is a description of the underlying principles, one might say the tools, by which
we attempt to understand literature.

THE FOUR LITERARY APPROACHES

1. Formalism
➢ It compels readers to judge the artistic merit of literature by examining its formal elements,
like form and technical skill.
➢ It examines the form of the work, the form of each individual part of the text (the individual
scenes and chapters), the characters, the settings, the tone, the point of view, the diction, and all
other elements of the text which join to make it a single text.
➢ FOCUS: THE TEXT AND HOW WAS IT WRITTEN
➢ In this approach, there are no interpretations necessary.

The critic should evaluate the following contents:

▪ The literary elements
▪ The language used
▪ The literary style

2. Feminism
➢ It is concerned with "the ways in which literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or
undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women".
➢ A feminist criticism is usually a careful analysis of the feminist issues, represented in the book,
which are basically concerned with the images of the female characters and their role in the
narrative.
It makes usage of the following guide questions:
❖ Who is/are the woman/women in the narrative?
❖ What is the status of the female entity in the narrative?
❖ What are the strengths of the female entity in the narrative?
❖ What are the weaknesses of the female entity in the narrative?
❖ What is the importance/relevance of the female entity in the narrative?

3. Marxism
➢ This viewpoint considers particular aspects of the political content of the text; the author; the
historical and socio-cultural context of the work.
➢ Came from Karl Marx.

Focus on the following aspects of the literary work:

➢ Determine the Bourgeois (higher class) and the Proletariat (lower class) in the society
of the text.
➢ How do the characters struggle in their society? What is the dynamic of the Bourgeois (higher
class) and the Proletariat (lower class) in the society?
 ➢ What is the connection between the society of the text (the world inside the text) and
the reality (the world outside the text)?

4. Reader-Response Criticism
➢ The reader-response criticism is rooted in the belief that a reader's reaction to or interpretation
of a text is as valuable a source of critical study as the text itself.
➢ Any interpretation is acceptable as long as the critic has supporting evidence in order to defend
their claim/s.