Content
What is source synthesis?
Source synthesis is the process of combining information from different sources (e.g., by looking for connections between them) to form an academic opinion.
Academic writers use sources for different purposes. We can classify these as follows: B-E-A-M (Bizup, 2008). What does BEAM stand for?
Background, Exhibit, Argument, Method
When writing for a non-specialist audience, you should avoid ...
(unnecessary) jargon
In general, what section goes at the very end of any piece of academic writing?
References
What are the four stages in the process of academic writing?
Topic --> Sources --> Opinion --> Writing
Explain what the columns and rows in a Research Matrix are for.
columns = sources
rows = connections
Write a parenthetical citation for this article.
Title: Generative AI, generating precariousness for workers? Volume: 39. Pages: 2601-2602. Year: 2024. Author: Aida Ponce Del Castillo
Ponce Del Castillo (2024)
(Ponce Del Castillo, 2024)
Name one thing GenAI can do that improves both the quality of your work (in the short term) and your skills as an academic writer (in the long term).
Translate to check what you've read or written in English.
Suggest synonyms for specific words.
Check or write your citations and references.
Generate practice exercises for conventions of academic writing.
Does this sentence use reference, substitution or ellipsis?
"If you haven't already written your conclusion, please do so now."
substitution: "write your conclusion" --> "do so"
What is academic voice?
Academic voice is the unique way that you (personally) choose to apply and subvert the conventions of academic writing.
Why can't you rely on GenAI to think of real-life examples for your topic?
GenAI tends to "hallucinate" (make up things that never happened). Without a credible source, how do you know your example is real?
The CRAAP test is used to check source credibility. Explain what each letter in "CRAAP" stands for.
Current: recent enough for topic and discipline
Relevant: to topic and discipline
Authority: written by expert on topic or discipline
Accurate: peer-reviewed, cited and referenced
Purpose: why was it written - marketing, journalism, research, etc.
Name the six conventions of academic writing we studied in class. (To double your money, name them in order from most to least frequent!)
cautious, formal, concise, clear, objective, precise
What is topic-comment structure?
Topic-comment structure means starting each sentence with information you've already mentioned, and only then adding new information.
Write a parenthetical citation for the set reading for ARC 1.1.
Stephan et al. (2021)
(Stephan et al., 2021)
What are the four components of an academic definition?
key term + general category or type + special feature(s) + source(s)
What is citation mining?
Citation mining is a technique for finding more recent sources, by looking up the sources that cite those you've already read.
Make this more concise: "It still looks a little confusing. For better understanding, here's an example: suppose there are five points on an axis ..."
"For example, suppose there are five points on an axis ..."
Name three similarities found in both academic introductions and academic conclusions.
State topic (immediately).
State purpose and thesis.
Summarise main ideas.
Use 5-10% of word count.
Give two strategies for taking more efficient notes during a lecture.
Write only the first few letters of each word.
Use initials for repeated phrases.
Remove vowels.
Use a shorter synonym.
Use symbols.
Use common abbreviations.
What are the four steps towards choosing a topic for an academic assignment?
1. Choose a topic you think is interesting and that fits the task.
2. Narrow your topic idea down by searching for sources.
3. Check: Do you still think the topic is interesting? Are there enough sources?
4. Ask your tutor for feedback on your topic choice.
Name any two numerical referencing styles.
American Mathematical Society, Association of Computing Machinery, IEEE, London Mathematical Society, Vancouver
What are the three components of critical writing?
evidence from sources + stance (attitude) towards this evidence + vocabulary to show your stance
Write a topic sentence for the paragraph below:
"... For instance, face recognition works better on white male faces because it was trained on just this sample (Stinson, 2022). Similarly, an algorithm to predict kidney injury performs poorly on women due to its training data of only 6% women (Vorisek et al., 2023)."
"One of the top reasons for bias in AI is a lack of diversity. For instance ..."
According to Teledahl et al. (2024), maths students write for four purposes. Name any two.
Describe the solution to a problem.
Prove a statement.
Reflect on learning.
Explain a concept.