Research Project

ES5001A Graduate English Course

(Intermediate)
Semester 2, AY 2009-2010

Submitted By:

MD Sadek Husain

Student No: HT083226Y

Group: P24

Submitted To:
Mr.Abdel Halim Sykes

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MD Sadek Husain

ES5001A – Group P24

18/06/2010

General features of academic writing: a case study

1.0 Introduction

In the world of academic research and study, academic writing plays a significant role in order
to express and communicate new findings and informations among scholars of different fields of
knowledge. To achieve efficient academic writing , certain style and features are needed to be
included the writing by the writer. Academic writings have some common features and styles
which are widely accepted among scholars. Although there may be many works analyzing the
academic features of writing in general, the number of works exploring the role of common
features of academic writing dedicated to a particular field of study are few. In the present
paper we report on the use of the three specific groups of these features in the context of
offshore engineering and technology.

The first common feature is the using of qualifiers for various level of certainty or uncertainty.
The second feature is the methods of citing other sources to credit the source of information and
to examine the evidence. The last feature is the flow of the writing using organisational devices
establishing a clear connection of ideas.

2.0Methodology

In order to investigate the use of these three features of academic writing, the project was
divided into two phases. At the first phase, an article was selected from the field of offshore
engineering on the floating structure titled 'MINIFLOAT: A Novel Concept of minimal Floating
Platform for Marginal Field Development' by C.A. Cermelli, D.G. Roddier and C.C. Busso
presented at 14th International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference, in May 2004. The
article was dealing with the possibility of using small floating platform instead of large platforms
for offshore operation in order to reduce cost and enhance productivity further.

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At the second and final phase, the article was analyzed based on the usage of the three groups
of the features, which are qualifiers of certainty level, methods of citation, and organizational
devices, and IMRD framework. Based on the examples identified in the article, general function
of each class of features was examined. We also discussed how each features contributed to
accomplish the academic writing style for an efficient academic writing.

3.0 Findings and Discussions

In this section of this research project, main focus is being given on studying the general
functions of these three groups of features and their relative distributions in the context of the
selected article. The possible association between these three features and their distribution
throughout the selected research article being studied would be discussed. Moreover, any
deviation from the standard styling or features would be identified. At the end, critique would be
presented on the limitations of the research report with a view of possible opportunity for
improvement.

Firstly, as given, group I feature of academic writing refers to the usage of qualifiers to make for
various level of certainty or uncertainty. These qualifying adverbs, verbs and phrases are used in
all parts of the given article, including introduction, methodology, finding and discussions, and
conclusion. These qualifying features not only show the strength of claims made by the writer
but also make the statements more accurate and plausible. These qualifiers used to establish
probability, distance, or limitation generalization in the sentences. Some examples of qualifiers
usage in the selected articles are as follows

“Therefore, advancing subsea and surface processing technologies combined with

a low cost minimum offshore platform will considerably enhance profitability
and technical feasibility of deep water marginal fields.” (Page 540- application)

“A number of functionalities(chemical storage power generation,

communication,etc ) cab be performed more reliably and economically at the
surface provided a low cost , stable floater is available” (Page 538- Introduction)

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The usage of the modal verb “may” indicates probability which is another type of certainty level
can be found in the featured article. For example

“This approximation may not be suitable for the study of turret-moored floating
Production Storage Offloading vessels (FPSO), when large yaw variations are
expected.” (Page 542- Time domain formulation)

From the above example, it may be proposed that through out the article level of certainty is
established through the usage of qualifying adverbs, verbs and phrase to express probability ,
distance, and generalization.

Secondly, group II refers to citation of other sources. The method of citation is used by writers to
refer other sources. The widely accepted style of citation are the American Psychological
Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA style). These styles simply refers
to a source, by showing author and date only. Nevertheless, for engineering articles, using
numbers as reference is an established practice. In the selected article, APA citing style has been
adopted by the researchers. The examples are as follows

“....the wheeler stretching method (Wheeler,1969),........”(Page 543- Viscous

Model)

“ .......... Difference scheme (Chatjigeorgiou,1998) is....”(Page 543- Mooring

system)

“......plates by Hoerner (1965).”(Page 543- Viscous Model)

Above are examples of using APA citing style by the researchers in the article. However,
practice of using only numbers as references also can be seen in the article. As can be seen,
authors tries to use both new and established research informations to make their claims in the
article relevant with the present technological advancement.

Finally,group III refers to the usage of organizational devices which are to organize flow of
writing. These organizational devices uses phrases that refers back to the idea in the previous
sentences. Consequently, ensuring smooth transition between the old informations and the new
informations. Usage of organization devices are seen in all sections of the article. There are two

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different types of applying organisational devices. The former deal with the usage of ‘this +
summary word’, while the latter is concerned with the sentence structure in which new
informations of one sentence are used as old informations in the next sentence. The ‘this +
summary word’, pattern can be seen throughout the different section of the article. Few examples
are as follows

“This paper describes a new ........” (Page 538-Abstract)

“This solver (TIMEFLOAT) solves.....” (Page 541-Numerical Analysis)

However, in some places of the article the ‘this + summary word’ pattern is not followed. For
instance, the following example shows 'this+verb” pattern only.

“This saves the high cost......” (Page 540-Applications)

For the second part of organisational devices, some clear evidence of using old information and
new information structure can be seen in the article. However, in some cases the old
information and new information structure is not clearly followed.

“The MINIFLOAT water-entrapment plate has also been optimized to minimize

the pitch response. This is achieved by extending .........”(Page539-Review of
existing floaters)

in this above example, the second sentence is using information from the previous sentence as
old information to inform readers what the have achieved. The authors have used this type of
sentence structure throughout the article to maintain flow of sentences.

Based on this preliminary analysis, it seems that the feature groups that have been discussed can
be seen in use in the selected article. It seems that these features are widely accepted and in use
for academic writings in different fields of knowledge. However, in some cases, these general
features are not being followed in the article. Moreover, these findings suggests a need for
further research on the features of academic writing to improve our current understanding.

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4.0 Conclusion

This investigation has demonstrate that the three features of academic writing are generally
used in the single disciplinary field that we examined. Nevertheless, it being a sample
publication out of many works published in this field more publications are needed to be studies
to suggest common use of these features in the field. The examples of these features can be
found distributed throughout the different section of the article. However, there are differences
in frequency with which these features are used. On the basis of the preliminary research
performed, it can be concluded that the authors have used the linguistic features adequately in
this article. However , more research articles should be analyzed from the same discipline in
order to have a clear understanding of the usage of sentence patterns and writing features which
are commonly used in academic writing.

References

[1] John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak, Academic Writing for graduate students: essential
tasks and skills. 2nd edition

[2] C.A. Cermelli, D.G. Roddier and C.C. Busso .2004. MINIFLOAT: A Novel Concept of
minimal Floating Platform for Marginal Field Development. International Conference on
Offshore and Polar Engineering.