1. Today everyone uses credit cards for all their shopping.
2. Drinking wine is bad for you.
3. Global warming will have disastrous consequences for the whole world.
4. Teleworking leads to isolation.
5. Women are worse drivers than men.
| Exercise 4. Read the following extract from a medical report. It does not include any tentative language. Highlight any verbs which sound assertive. Then rewrite the parts you have underlined to make the writer's claims less assertive and more tentative. |
Evidence shows that environmental factors play a significant role in
the development and course of bipolar disorder, and that individual psychosocial variables interact with genetic dispositions. Evidence proves that recent life events and interpersonal relationships contribute to the likelihood of onsets and recurrences of bipolar mood episodes, as they do for onsets and recurrences of unipolar depression. There have been repeated findings that between a third and a half of adults diagnosed with bipolar disorder report traumatic / abusive experiences in childhood. The total number of reported stressful events in childhood is higher in those with an adult diagnosis of bipolar spectrum disorder compared to those without. These events stem from a harsh environment rather than from the child's own behavior.
Unit 3. Academic writing
TEXT 1
| Exercise 1. Skim the text about academic prose and define the features of this kind of writing. |
Types of Academic Texts
Academic writing / prose is conceived of as "any writing that fulfills a purpose of education in a university, writing in response to an academic assignment, or professional writing that trained "academics" – teachers and researchers – do for publications read and conferences attended by other academics". In addition, the following features are characteristic of academic writing:
• it represents structured research written by scholars for other scholars (with all university writers being scholars in this context);
• it addresses topic-based research questions of interest to anyone who is seeking factually-based, objectively-presented information on a particular topic;
• its objective is the creation of new knowledge via (a) a review of what is currently known about a given topic as (b) the foundation for the author's new views or perspectives on the topic.
Written academic papers may differ along various parameters, e. g. intended audience, communicative purpose, and academic discipline and can be referred to a certain text type or genre.
| Exercise 2. Match the word and its definition. |
| 1. thesis | a) is the culmination and final product of an involved process of research, critical thinking, source evaluation, organization, and composition |
| 2. research paper | b) is shortening a passage or a write-up without changing its meaning but by using different words and sentences |
| 3. summary | c) is an account of what has been published on a topic by accredited scholars and researchers |
| 4. abstract | d) is intended to convince others that you have a worthwhile research project and that you have the competence and the work-plan to complete it |
| 5. review | e) is a long essay or dissertation involving personal research, written by a candidate for a university degree |
| 6. proposal | f) is a brief synopsis or summary of the most important points that the author makes in the paper |
| Exercise 3. Study the information about the major features of different types of academic texts. |