SH1672

Writing Academic Texts and Reading Texts Critically

Academic Text – It is basically anything that can be used in a school or classroom. It can include
school books, newspapers, articles, textbooks, and anything that has been written by someone with
experience in the field (The Wikianswers Community, 2017).

I. Critical Reading
 Involves scrutinizing any information that you read or hear. It also means not easily believing
information offered to you by a text.
A. Different ways to help you become a critical reader:
• Annotate what you need – One of the ways to interact with the writer is to write on the text.
You can underline, circle, or highlight words, phrases, or sentences that contain important
details or you can write marginal notes asking questions or commenting on the ideas of the
writer.
• Outline the text – In order to fully engage in a dialogue with
the text or with the writer of the text, you need to identify
the main points of the writer and list them down so you can
also identify the ideas that the writer has raised to support
his/her stand.
• Summarize the text – Aside from outlining, you can also get
the main points of the text you are reading and write its gist
in your own words. This will test how much you have
understood the text and will help you evaluate it critically.
A summary is usually one (1) paragraph long. Source: clipartfest.com
• Evaluate the text – The most challenging part of critical reading is the
process of evaluating what you are reading. This is the point where the other three (3)
techniques above will be helpful as well. When you evaluate a text, you question the author’s
purpose and intention, as well as his/her assumption in the claims. You also check if the
arguments are supported by evidence and if the evidence is valid and are from credible
sources.

II. Writing Academic Text

 Academic writing is a process that starts with posing a question, problematizing a concept,
evaluating an opinion, and ends in answering the question or questions posed, clarifying the
problem, and/or arguing for a stand.
A. Steps in Writing Academic Text:
1. The pre-writing process:
• Brainstorming – This is writing any idea that comes to your mind.
• Freewriting – It is similar to brainstorming. The idea is to put down into writing the ideas
that you think of so that later on, you will be able to generate ideas and narrow them down
into a single topic for your paper.
• Clustering – This technique provides a graphic representation of your ideas, allowing you
to visualize the connections and/or relationships of your ideas. Write your main topic at
the center of your paper, and then circle or box it. Think of subtopics and place them
around the center circle until you feel that you have developed all the subtopics fully.

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• Focus on one (1) idea – For example, the topic, gender stereotypes, and bias are broad
topics since there are a lot of issues that can be subsumed in that topic. You can narrow it
down by focusing on an aspect of gender stereotypes and bias that you are interested in
developing your paper.
• Knowing your purpose and identifying your reader/audience – determining your purpose
will help you communicate clearly your ideas to your readers, which is the goal of all
writing. Once you have determined your purpose, knowing your audience comes next. The
knowledge, interests, attitudes, and needs of your reader will give you an idea as to how
you will organize your points and claims in such a way that you can establish a common
ground with your readers.
2. Drafting - Students create their initial composition by
writing down all their ideas in an organized way to convey
a particular idea or present an argument. Audience and
purpose need to be finalized.
3. Revising - Students review, modify, and reorganize their
work by rearranging, adding, or deleting content and by
making the tone, style, and content appropriate for the
intended audience. The goal of this phase of the writing
process is to improve the draft.
4. Editing - At this point in the writing process, writers
proofread and correct errors in grammar and mechanics, Source:.pinterest.com/pin/456833955933332758
and edit to improve style and clarity. Having another
writer’s feedback in this stage is helpful.
5. Publishing - In this last step of the writing process, the final writing is shared with the group.
Sharing can be accomplished in a variety of ways, and with the help of computers, it can even
be printed or published online.

III. Plagiarism
 This is using somebody else’s work or ideas without proper acknowledgment or citation and
copying the text without paraphrasing it.

A. Ways to avoid plagiarism

• Paraphrase – It is rendering the ideas in a text using your own words. Paraphrased
materials are usually shorter than the original text. It is more detailed than a summary.
• Quotation – It must be identical to the original text. A direct quotation is preferred to a
paraphrase when the author’s ideas are so important that paraphrasing them will change
the essence of those ideas.

References:
Saqueton, G.M., & Uychoso, M.A. (2016). English for academic and professional purposes. Manila
City: Rex Bookstore, Inc.
The WikiAnswers Community. (2017) What is the meaning of academic text? [Online forum
comment]. Retrieved from http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_meaning_of_ academic_
text?#slide=4

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