"Academic writing"

... sharing my knowledge on the academic writing,...

March 15, 2014, I attended a writing workshop. The speaker was a very experienced Professor. Well, when people mentioned "Professor", we can just at a glance think of how a Professor looks like... "Albert Einstein"? Not all Professors lookalike him, he is ONE in A BILLION.

Well, I managed to record his speech during the second hour of his workshop. At the beginning, he talks and stresses on the proper usage of grammar. I have his booklet too. I promise I will re-write some useful points in this blog.

My reason for writing here, nothing but to share the information I gathered yesterday, primarily to share these with all the "Doctorate Support Group". I hope it will be useful to all of US. Knowledge is a powerful weapon! 

Writing?

            GATHERING INFORMATION, LINK IDEAS, AND THEN COMPOSE THEM IN COHERENT PROSE. IN OTHER WORDS, WE MOVE FROM IDEA TO WORD, FROM WORD TO SYNTAX, FROM SYNTAX TO SEMANTICS. (jangan gabrah, kita belajar sikit terminologi ni).

Let's learn a little bit about what we are supposed to learn during our Primary and Secondary era,..(a minute,...)

Syntax? Ape bende ni? well, read on...

              FROM A VERY EARLY AGE, WE ACQUIRE THE CAPACITY TO SAY WORDS, REPLACING OTHER MEANS OF REPRESENTATION (eg. "brmmmm brmmmm for car or hand gesture for twinkle twinkle little star).  THAT IS, WE DEVELOP A VOCABULARY (or lexicon). THEN WE DEVELOP TO ORGANISE A GROUP OF WORDS INTO A STATEMENT. THIS IS CALLED SYNTAX, THE ABILITY TO "COMBINE WORDS IN GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT WAYS AND TO UNDERSTAND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE AND WORD ORDER" (Ruffman et al, 2003, p. 140).

Semantics? pulak?

                   NEXT STAGE OF LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT IS SEMANTICS, THE CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND HOW VARIATIONS IN WORD ORDER PRODUCE DIFFERENT MEANINGS: Mummy kisses Lucy" vs "Lucy kisses Mummy". Language psychologist can assess these attributes in very young children with test such as the Test Early Language Development (TELD). A better definition of Semantics is "THE CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND THE INTENTION FROM THE WORDS" (Ruffman et al, 2003, p. 140). This means that people can metarepresent, or from an impression in their head when you make an utterance. Imagine how complex the following statement would be for a young child: The napkins are located in the bottom left hand drawer of the sideboard in the dining room. What does this tell us? THAT IS WHY, I EARLIER SAID, jangan gabrah, kita belajar sikit terminologi ni....

MATURE LANGUAGE REQUIRES

• VOCABULARY

• SYNTAX

• SEMANTICS

• Planning, translating, revising or Pre-writing

• Drafting

• Reviewing 

• Pre-linguistic (memory and schema at work)

• Data retrieval and selection >> organising >> goal setting

• Turns thought into language

• Two cognitives level: formulating and sequential ordering of ideas; mechanical aspects (spelling, grammar, punctuation). Prioritise the ideas.

• Examining the text you produced

• Correcting the text can be shallow or complex

• CDO: Compare, Diagnose, Act: Compare mental representation & actual text. Need for distance from this diagnosis >>action. 

  Read on mates ...

Okay, let's move on to our objectives here. I am not letting everyone to read about basic English. Once we get ourselves to write our theses in English, we MUST know all these TERMS comprehensively! Let me know if anyone still requires them in detail, I will share with you! Jangan malu dan segan, Knowledge is a powerful weapon!  :) 

I leave the basic english topic 1000km now, and move on to the "WRITING AS A PROCESS", (1000 km, that mean, banyak tau information tentang 'to strengthen our writing in english tips'... again, let me know if anyone still require, I don't mind to go back to the basic to share the knowledge...

WRITING AS A PROCESS

Pre-writing

Drafting

Reviewing (revise, Edit, Proofread)

Did anyone know whether you are in the circle of "Additive Writing" (AW)? or otherwise? Let us check along 'what does AW mean...

  Knowing the symptoms of AW

    Knowing, characteristics of the INEXPERIENCED WRITER, are you? 

    You MUST know, what is GENRES

  Read on mates ...

  The important of COHERENCE & COHESION in your PARAGRAPHS 

 

The write narrows the FOCUS from the GENERAL to the PARTICULAR throughout the paragraph. The first sentence sets up a GENERAL STATEMENT. Introduced by 'These attempts', the second sentence then states a strong proposition. The third sentence telegraphs a less assertive proposition ('Perhaps') that provides a possible explanation for the claim in the second sentence. The fourth sentence builds a conversational tone to develop the silliness of the idea that a social science is more 'natural' than a biophysical science.,.. make judgment on this absurd proposition in the previous sentence. The final sentence draws a conclusion (modalised by 'may be')...

Next... What is COHERENCE and COHESION? Are all these important in our writing?... the answer is YES, mates!

  ... I'm leaving away a few hundred kilometers again, to begin on STYLE ..(I left some point notes behind. :( )

   Read on mates....

  

   Read on mates ... 

    Read on more mates,.. 

    more mates,..

   ,..go and browse your facebook, if you started to yawn,. or go and gosok gigi ye,... 

    I'm leaving away some guidelines,... penat gak bila ambil gambar dan upload,  
    ehmmm, but for you mates (DSG)...read on... 

    Read on...

    more...

    more... 

    .. read on... 

  We move on to PUNCTUATION...

   read on...read on... 

   ... slip of the mind,.. read on,... 

   ... last but not least,.. read on...mates...

     happy studying,... 

                            a little bit about myself,

May ALLAH bless everyone here and good luck in your Ph.D. journey. Insya'allah. ... here I am...