Academic Writing
Lecture 2
Rita Kovordanyi (Nahid Shahmeri, Magnus Merkel)
Department of Computer and Information Science
Outline
•  Summaries, critiques
•  Writing student reports
•  Language
•  Proofing and revision
•  Citations and references
•  Plagiarism and how to avoid it
•  Coming week: Write a summary in class
Recapitulation
1.  Write a summary of a research article
2.  Write a critical review of a different article
•
Start with brief summary, as a way of saying: ”This is my
understanding of the paper”
•
Discuss pros and cons of the technique/solution described in the
paper
•
The discussion-part should be at least 60% of the total text
Summaries
•  Should focus on the most important and most relevant aspects
of the original text
•  Condense into 400 words in your summary
•  Should present the points of the original article accurately
•  Present in your own words!
When you write a summary
•  Helps if you can see the previously described structures in the
article you are summarizing
•  Identify important milestones/important points in the paper
•
What was the main point or objective of the paper?
•
What was the intended audience?
•
What is the problem described?
•
What is the solution?
•
How was the solution evaluated?
•  Describe these briefly in your summary, in your own words
•  Make sure you are not biased (= neutral tone)
Summary vs. critique
•  Summaries should provide an accurate, unbiased account of
the content of the source material
•  Critiques should also contain an evaluation
Critical review
•  Common structure of a critical review
1.  Short summary
•
Max 30-40% of the text
2.  Evaluation
•
At least 60-70% of the text
•  Critique means critical evaluation
•  Both positive and negative
•  Well-grounded in facts / logical argumentation
Critical review
•  Part 1: Description / summary
•  Topic or question addressed
•  Aim and research questions of the article
•  The method used to answer the research question or solve a
technical problem
•  The evidence used to support answers
•  The conclusions reached in the text
Critical review
•  Part 2: Critical evaluation
•  Scientific achievements
•
Is the question clearly formulated?
•
Is the question relevant?
•
Is the scientific methodology appropriate?
•
Can the conclusions be justified?
•
Does the text give new knowledge?
•  Presentation
•
Is the text well structured?
•
Are graphs and tables informative?
Critical evaluation part
•  The evaluation should be fair
•  Not your personal views, but reasonable, logical evaluation
•  Follow the rules of the particular scientific field
•  Empirical research
•
Are the conclusions supported by the results?
•
Other ways to interpret the results?
•
Results may be relevant for theories that have not been mentioned
•  Engineering
•
Performance of the technique / solution presented
•
Costs or effort vs. benefits
•
Relationship to other techniques / solutions
Submit through Urkund
•  Urkund – tool for discovering plagiarism
•  Comparisons with database and the web
•  Teacher is informed of similar pieces of texts
•
Percentage match of each piece
•
Link to the original text
•  You will get email from Urkund, asking if you want to add your
draft to the database
•  Answer No, otherwise you risk 90% match when you submit final
version
WRITING STUDENT REPORTS
Language
•  Be consistent!
•  American or British English?
•  Passive or active voice?
•  Past tense or present?
•  Learn “connectives” that can make your text cohesive
•  Use proofing tools and other people for proofreading your text
•  If you feel you need help with the English:
•  Academic English support at LiU (http://www.liu.se/ikk/aes?l=en)
Reports as examination
•  Convince your teacher that you understand the ideas and the
topic you write about
•  Do not repeat the original text or the teachers words
•  Express your own understanding of the topic
•  Use your own words!
•
Repeating the exact wording ≠ understanding
Reports as examination
•  Potential problems
•  Collaboration when not permitted
•
If report must be written individually
•  Plagiarism
•
Copying or “borrowing” text or thoughts
•
OK to build on other peoples text if referenced correctly
•  Charges of cheating are brought before the Disciplinary Board
at Linköping University and can result in suspension
REFERENCING
Correct referencing
•  Other’s text or thoughts
•  Write in your own words + insert reference
•
… these techniques require manual labelling (Liu, 2014; Wang, 2011)
•
… can be approximated as … (Carl Lowell, personal communication)
•  Cite + insert reference
•
.. was so pointedly expressed by Lars Ericsson:
“Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing
elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et
dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, …“
(Ericsson 1978, p 23)
•  Do not cite unless there is a point with showing the exact original
phrasing
Paraphrasing
•  When you rewrite a piece of text using your own words but
retaining the general message
•  Paraphrasing is plagiarism if the referencing is left out OR if the
wording is too close to the original
•  Make sure you keep the gist of the original text (but not the
wording of the text)!
Paraphrasing examples
•  Original text (from Lu, 1997):
“Descartes introduces the possibility that the world is controlled by a
malicious demon who has employed all his energies to deceive him.”
•  Paraphrase:
Descartes suggests that the world is controlled by an evil demon who
may be using his energies to deceive (Lu, 1997)
•  Plagiarism: even though the citation is provided, the sentence
still has exact wording (italicized)
Paraphrasing examples, cont'd
•  Original text (from Lu, 1997):
Descartes introduces the possibility that the world is controlled by a
malicious demon who has employed all his energies to deceive him.
•  Paraphrase:
Descartes thought that the evil power who rules the world may be
creating an illusory experience in the beholder (Lu, 1997).
•  Comment: Not plagiarism: the paraphrased portion is fully
rewritten, and a citation is provided
Correct referencing
•  Your own previous texts
•  Reference
•
… as described in our previous studies (Kovordanyi and Roy, 2011)
•  Your own ideas
•  State clearly that these ideas are your own (if not stated clearly, the
reader will expect a reference)
•
E.g. In this work I suggest a new technique for …
•
E.g. We argue that …
Referencing
•  Many different styles
•  APA
•
… as demonstrated by Carlson and coworkers (Carlson et al, 2010)…
•
Carlson, A., Betteridge, J., Kisiel, B., Settles, B., Hruschka Jr, E. R., &
Mitchell, T. M. (2010). Toward an Architecture for Never-Ending
Language Learning. In AAAI (Vol. 5, p. 3). Retrieved from http://
www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/aaai/aaai10/paper/download/1879/2201
•  IEEE
Note that the title (of the
journal) is italicized
•
… as demonstrated by Carlson and coworkers [4] …
•
[4] A. Carlson, J. Betteridge, B. Kisiel, B. Settles, E. R. Hruschka Jr,
and T. M. Mitchell, “Toward an Architecture for Never-Ending
Language Learning.,” in AAAI, 2010, vol. 5, p. 3.
When not to reference
•  Your own ideas
•  Your own conclusions
•  Your own reflections
•  Your own analysis
•  Your own experience
•  Your own observations
•  etc.
•  When using ”common knowledge”
•  The earth is round…
Reference! (other’s ideas)
•  Somebody else's new concept
•  Somebody else's general idea
•  Somebody else's chain of reasoning
•  Somebody else's table
•  Somebody else's figure
•  etc.
Tables and figures
•  All tables and figures must be cross-referenced in the text
•  E.g. … as can be seen in Figure 3, the average temperature…
•  E.g. The average temperature increased with … (Figure 3).
•  Tables usually have a table heading just above the table
•  E.g. Table 1: The average temperature increase per year...
•  Figures have a figure caption below the figure
•  E.g. Figure 3. A plot of the average temperature …
Acknowledgements
•  Give credit where credit is due
•  Acknowledge people who have helped with
•
Proofreading
•
Reviewing
•
Data collection
•
Statistical analysis
•
Etc.