Write a paraphrase of each of the following passages. Try not to look back at the original passage.

1. "The Antarctic is the vast source of cold on our planet, just as the sun is the source of our heat, and it exerts tremendous control on our climate," [Jacques] Cousteau told the camera. "The cold ocean water around Antarctica flows north to mix with warmer water from the tropics, and its upwellings help to cool both the surface water and our atmosphere. Yet the fragility of this regulating system is now threatened by human activity." From "Captain Cousteau," Audubon (May 1990):17.

2. "The twenties were the years when drinking was against the law, and the law was a bad joke because everyone knew of a local bar where liquor could be had. They were the years when organized crime ruled the cities, and the police seemed powerless to do anything against it. Classical music was forgotten while jazz spread throughout the land, and men like Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie became the heroes of the young. The flapper was born in the twenties, and with her bobbed hair and short skirts, she symbolized, perhaps more than anyone or anything else, America's break with the past." From Kathleen Yancey, English 102 Supplemental Guide (1989): 25.

3. "Of the more than 1000 bicycling deaths each year, three-fourths are caused by head injuries. Half of those killed are school-age children. One study concluded that wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent. In an accident, a bike helmet absorbs the shock and cushions the head." From "Bike Helmets: Unused Lifesavers," Consumer Reports (May 1990): 348.

4. "Matisse is the best painter ever at putting the viewer at the scene. He's the most realistic of all modern artists, if you admit the feel of the breeze as necessary to a landscape and the smell of oranges as essential to a still life. "The Casbah Gate" depicts the well-known gateway Bab el Aassa, which pierces the southern wall of the city near the sultan's palace. With scrubby coats of ivory, aqua, blue, and rose delicately fenced by the liveliest gray outline in art history, Matisse gets the essence of a Tangier afternoon, including the subtle presence of the bowaab, the sentry who sits and surveys those who pass through the gate." From Peter Plagens, "Bright Lights." Newsweek (26 March 1990): 50.

5. "While the Sears Tower is arguably the greatest achievement in skyscraper engineering so far, it's unlikely that architects and engineers have abandoned the quest for the world's tallest building. The question is: Just how high can a building go? Structural engineer William LeMessurier has designed a skyscraper nearly one-half mile high, twice as tall as the Sears Tower. And architect Robert Sobel claims that existing technology could produce a 500-story building." From Ron Bachman, "Reaching for the Sky." Dial (May 1990): 15.

Exercise 7 Follow the links below to practice:

1) https://ilrb.cf.ac.uk/plagiarism/exercise/index.html

2) http://www4.caes.hku.hk/plagiarism/self_test.asp

3) https://plagiarism.arts.cornell.edu/tutorial/exercises.cfm 

4)4) http://web.uts.edu.au/teachlearn/avoidingplagiarism/tutorial/index.html

 

 

MODULE 4 WRITING STAGES

ABSTRACTS

Writing an abstract

The abstract is the first section of an academic paper. It usually comes after the title and before the introduction. The abstract provides an overview of the study based on information from the other sections of the report. The reader can read the abstract to obtain enough information about the study to decide if they want to read the complete paper. Because it contains elements from the whole article, it is usually written last.

 Ordering Your Information

Abstracts from almost all fields of study are written in a very similar way. The types of information included and their order are very conventional. The box that follows shows the typical information format of an abstract (Weissberg & Buker, 1990, p. 186):

Introduction Introduce the study by describing the context Explain why the subject is important

↓

Purpose Describe the purpose of the study

↓

Methods Report how the study was undertaken

↓

Results Report the results that were found.

↓

Evaluation Briefly evaluate the results

↓

Conclusion Conclude briefly Explain what is important and why

Exercise 1:

Read the following abstract carefully. It is taken from the field of computer assisted learning. Identify the sentences in the abstract that correspond to the elements in the preceding box:

Use Of A Writing Web-Site By Pre-Masters Students on An English for Academic Purposes Course. A. J. Gillett, University of Hertfordshire Abstract ^1During the last 10 years, use of the World-Wide-Web for educational purposes has increased dramatically. ^2However, very little empirical research has been carried out to determine the effectiveness of this use. ^3The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the effectiveness of using the World-Wide-Web on an EAP writing course. ^4Two groups of students were taught writing by two different methods: one group was taught by a teacher in a traditional classroom, while a second group included use of an on-line web-site in their course. ^5The two groups were assessed in the same way after a twelve-week period of instruction. ^6Results of the assessment showed significant differences between the two groups, the group that used the on-line web-site performing much better on all aspects of the test. ^7This suggests that the use of computer assisted learning programmes for at least some of the teaching time available can be recommended for EAP writing courses.

 

Sentence 1

Sentence 2

Sentence 3

Sentence 4

Sentence 5

Sentence 6

Sentence 7

Exercise 2: