TEAP-010039 Annotated Bibliography Assessment 1

Prepare a 2500 – 3000 word paper that presents an annotated bibliography of six (6) readings relevant to the issue of English for general or specific academic purposes.  This has been a major focus in the first part of the course.

INTRODUCTION

There is a huge difference in the usage of English for general purposes when compared with English for use in academics. 'English for academic writing', a very specific use of the English language deploys a very formal register. In comparison with English for general purposes, it needs to contain enough clarity for readers to understand academic facts and the level of coherence further determines the understanding among readers. It is also a fact that academic writings need to be referenced and the curriculum in English for academic writing takes care of referencing duties. Generally, English usage in everyday life does not require us to use flowery English, rhetoric and a formal register. We have the ability to address anyone and everyone through general English but in specialized English usage, a specific section of the society is addressed with the utmost clarity in writing and thoughts. It is also important to understand, in the context that plagiarising content is an offense and academic writings need to be non-plagiarised. It is that such kind of specialized English requires training from pedagogical experts who have some experience and knowledge in the field and it is much different from teaching English grammar to kinder garden kids. The following six annotated bibliographies discuss various topics pertaining to English for academic purposes, its pedagogical approaches and the systematic technical understanding of such styles.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reka Futasz, E. T., 2006. Academic writing: Teaching online and face to face—EATAW Conference 2005. Journal of Second Language Writing, 2 June, 15(2), pp. 147-149.

The abovementioned article in the Journal of Second language writing primarily summarizes the 3rd Biennial Conference of the European Association for the Teaching of Academic Writing (EATAW) which was held in Athens, Greece between 22nd and the 24th of June, 2005 and then discusses the face to face method of teaching in comparison with online means of teaching. The conference catered to the needs of many including professionals from writing program administrators, researchers, instructors' and so on. 

The article gives a brief description of technological tools as suggested by Lotte Rienecker in his opening plenary session. He reviews 'Scribo', a software that helps students in writing research papers. He also mentions that 'Scribo' is presently only available in Danish but support for other languages will be added very soon. Michael Carter from North Carolina, introduced 'LabWrite', a software which helps lab students maintain their lab copies and observations better and more efficiently. Ann Liggett, Jane McNeil and Ed Foster introduced Menagerie, a software that helps with grammatical errors, correcting inappropriate words and with plagiarism. With this new generation software being mentioned already, it was soon hinted at that e-learning is spreading all over the curriculum, at various places and it is replacing traditional face-to-face learning. Peer reviews, online instructions, and community building; all of these are increasing fast showing us the importance of e learning. The authors mention how Constantine Stephanides in his keynote presentation harps on the point that online education methods can be carefully handpicked for the individual needs and that it can be personalized to a very high degree. It also explains that the content of academic matter used in online academic centers is different from those which are offline and traditional. New changes can be incorporated easily unlike traditional methods where change is generally slow. Lisa Ganobcsik explains that the problem of writing centers with low prestige and budget can be solved when all writing centers in the vicinity form an alliance so that they can solve all problems together. It has also been explained that the writing centers can share their knowledge of common problems and create a common database with all problems.

Olga Dysthe explained through a presentation that the Bologna declaration, which demands students to do more written work, than it was previously, has changed the manner and quality of writing in Norwegian higher education. The articles further go on to describe how online instructions are being looked for every day and point out various presentations addressing the topic at hand with suitable examples and answers. It has been noticed throughout the article that the flexibility of e-learning is a huge advantage, which has reinforced multiple times and that students learning through such means have the extreme flexibility to understand the subjects in the way they want and complete only those portions they want to in a given time limit.