English for Academic and

Professional Purposes

Online Distance Learning Modalities

11 – Ingenious
English for Academic and
Professional Purposes
Module 2, Quarter 1
Use knowledge of text structure to glean
for information he/she
needs
 We
Follow
Lesson Objectives:

At the end of the lesson, the learner

should be able
1. to use knowledge of text structure to
glean the information he/she needs.
(CS_EN11/12A-EAPP-Iac-4)
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’.
 You have six general classifications of academic texts to cover
in this subject. Each is used for different purposes; thus, each
has unique content and structure. 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. Concept
paper defines an idea or a concept and clarifies its ‘whatness’;
thus, its most prominent structure is the use of definition.
Reaction paper is generally an informed and insightful
perspective on art, popular culture, and a technical topic.
Position paper asserts an argument. Report retells data,
incident, or event. Research are a highly formal kind of reports.
 The flow charts below will give you an idea about how texts
generally organize their content. All compositions in paragraph
forms basically have the three parts: introduction, body, and
conclusion. However, there may be variations in the terms used,
in the approximate location (i.e. near the beginning, anywhere in
the body, or about at the end), and in the preformatted forms
prescribed by agencies. Doctor’s report and police blotter may
have different appearances. The researches that you know may
have chapters 1 to 5. Thesis may be at the second or later
paragraphs but definitely before the details are given. Long texts
may also be divided into several subheadings. You must
remember that there is no single, foolproof method of successful
writing. What you have in figures 1 and 2 are the general
structure and content for the common academic texts.
Introductions or the opening paragraph(s) aims to
make a good impression on readers. If you run out of
ideas on how to start your paper, you may consider any
of the common strategies used in opening an essay,
such as telling a story (anecdote or parable), quoting a
reputable person, using sayings, mentioning startling
facts like statistics, citing a law or the Bible, asking
rhetorical questions, or sharing a personal experience
and realization.
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 one sentence 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 writeup 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.
The table 1 below lists the common examples of these questions and the parts you can turn to for the
information.