[Music] good day everyone welcome to english for academic and professional purposes for our first lesson i will be giving you an introduction to english for academic and professional purposes for today's lesson we will be differentiating academic and non-academic texts we'll also be talking about the different types of academic and non-academic texts as well as the different factors that shape academic writing let's begin by defining what academic texts are academic texts are simply characterized as type of facts that are written by professionals in a particular field so take for example medical field education field and so on and so forth this type of text is also well edited and it often takes years to publish it's not easy to come up with a particular academic text and even to get someone or have a publisher publish it it is also a kind of text that uses formal language similarly since it is written by professionals in a particular field more often than not academic text contains words and terms that are very specific to that particular field so take for example if it's a doctor writing about certain things in the field of medicine then therefore he or she might be using words and terms that are specific to medicine alone and um people like us take for example who are not familiar with the field of medicine we can consider these terms as unfamiliar to us okay now these terms that are very specific these words and terms that are specific to the to a particular field are what we refer to as jargons academic texts also contain list of sources and references all right so what do we mean by that every information that is presented in a particular academic text it has to be backed up by um or it has to be supported by other references okay it has to be validated by other sources that has to be validated by other references and more often than not when you form academic texts you refer to other sources as well the main goal of academic texts is basically to advance human understanding in a particular discipline so there's a particular topic that more often than not is very unfamiliar to your readers and as someone who is professional in that particular field or you have um a broad knowledge of that particular topic then you just want your readers to basically understand what is that particular topic all about or what that concept is all about next since academic text uses formal language it could be challenging for beginning readers or for novice readers first and foremost it uses jargon so these terms might be unfamiliar to them and formal language often entails us to use words that are not commonly used during conversation or when reading non-academic texts in nature academic texts are considered to be something that are informative meaning it provides information it gives us new knowledge okay next it is also characterized as something that is argumentative in nature and when we say argument there are points of view that are being discussed or certain points that are to be discussed and then of course it has to be objective as well not subjective but rather objective meaning there has to be no bias the information that you are presenting does not need to be biased or leaning towards a particular belief or a particular point of view it has to always present all sides of the story some examples of academic texts include school books and text books the ones that you typically use in school or in the university um journal articles are also considered to be academic texts and other research proposals and papers some other newspapers and magazine articles are considered to be academic texts particularly if these are broad sheets okay um broadsheet newspapers might contain pieces or articles that are academic in nature and some magazines as well like national geographic science magazines and so on and so forth okay um thesis and dissertations are also considered to be pieces of academic text there are also different types of academic texts the first one is the descriptive academic text when we say descriptive basically it just provides the script shot so how do we do it in terms of um writing an academic text when we say descriptive academic text these are the type of academic texts that provide facts and information so it delivers facts and information to support the concept to support the idea in a way describing that particular concept describing that particular idea as well some keywords um particularly in forming objectives in writing descriptive text include identify report record summarize and define so when you see this as an objective or when you think of these things okay as your objective your purpose of writing that particular academic text then definitely the type of academic text that you have to write is a descriptive text next one analytical when we say analytical in an analytical academic text information and facts are organized now how do we organize these pieces of information you group them into categories themes different parts okay you organize them into different types and you i try to identify the relationships among them now when you try to identify them or when you have identified the relationships their connection among each other then that's the time that you can organize them into different categories groups themes parts and types again some keywords that you can use analyze compare contrast relate and examine the third type of academic text is persuasive so when we say persuasive academic texts it simply includes arguments recommendations interpretations or even an evaluation of the work of another now why do we do that because we want our readers to believe in whatever we are saying that's why it's called persuasive you are trying to present certain things that would affect or influence the way that your readers think okay or the way that your readers will consider this particular concept or particular idea now when you write this unlike the other types of academic text in persuasive academic text you also add your own point of view okay aside from the point of view of others you also try to add your own point of view but still in an academic manner in a scientific and objective manner now how do we do this even if you try to add your own point of view your own interpretation needs to be supported by pieces of evidence it doesn't have to be or it couldn't be just is or as is okay just because you believe in it that's how it's supposed to be your belief your opinion has to be also supported by evidence now you have to ask yourself why did i even think about it like this in the first place okay why did i even consider it like this in the first place why do i believe that this is the case so you have to always support your own beliefs your own opinions and a persuasive academic text some of the keywords include argue evaluate discuss and take a position lastly we have critical academic texts critical academic texts simply require you to consider at least two points of view okay as a reader and as a writer okay you have to consider at least two points of view meaning okay a point of view of another and of course your own point of view now in other words it could be argumentative in nature all right so example keywords that might be included when you are writing in a critical academic text include critic debate disagree and of course evaluate since we're done with academic text let's now move forward to describing non-academic texts non-academic texts are more often than not written for the mass public therefore it's written for the general population even if you didn't go to school even if you are not a professional or working professional okay you can understand non-academic texts unlike academic texts non-academic texts are actually published quickly and they can be written by anyone the reason for this is because it often does not involve research or even a mentioning of your sources so you don't have to refer to anything else you don't always have to refer to anything else when you are writing non-academic text okay and it doesn't it's not a tedious process the writing process is not as steep use as writing academic texts because it doesn't involve a lot of research a lot of doing background work okay doing a lot of prep work for it if academic texts use formal language non-academic texts use informal and more conversational language so it's a language that many people could understand even the normal typical person can understand that particular piece of work it also may contain slack so academic texts contain jargons okay words that are terms that are specific to that particular field on the other hand non-academic texts contain slack so these are words and phrases that are commonly used by people during conversation or these are words that are formed on the streets in some non-academic texts or the author may also be unknown so it doesn't necessarily require a name of an author or it doesn't necessarily have to contain a name of an author non-academic texts deliver simple and basic information like again like what i have mentioned earlier something that could easily be understood by anyone or by anyone who would want to read that particular text it can also be read and easily understood by any kind of reader just like what i have mentioned earlier therefore non-academic texts unlike academic texts are more personal in nature okay because they tend to be emotional it presents a lot of emotions it represents a lot of feelings okay and it could be very impressionistic so meaning it wants to leave an impression to its readers or there is a certain type of um feeling it evokes there's a certain type of emotion that it's trying to evoke okay and unlike academic texts non-academic texts are very subjective so it could just present your own viewpoint without the need to prove why you even think of it that way you can present your opinion without even justifying that particular opinion in the first place okay so it has bias it may present bias some examples of non-academic texts include blog posts that which is very common recently all right fiction books are also considered to be non-academic texts similarly some letters personal letters could be considered non-academic texts as well as personal journals and diaries here is a summary of the structure the purpose and the tone differentiating academic texts and non-academic things now let's move forward to the different factors that shape academic writing what do we mean by factors that shape academic writing simply put these are some of the things that you really have to consider whenever you are writing a piece of academic text these are some of the things that you have to think about carefully plan about carefully consider when you are producing academic texts these factors include number one audience the purpose the organization the style the flow and of course your presentation let's go first to audience audience is basically whom are you writing for okay it could be answered by the question whom are you writing for who are gonna be reading this particular text okay particularly this piece of academic text is it gonna be doctors is it gonna be other professionals and so on and so forth why is it important to consider the audience it's important because it will actually influence the way that you write if you know that these people would easily understand okay these people for example are highly knowledgeable about your about the topic that you are writing about then you don't need to provide too much information okay you don't need to provide a lot of information or background information rather because you already know in your mind that they know a lot of things about that particular concept or particular idea now for example if you are writing about a particular topic that you know they are professionals but they don't know a lot of things about that particular topic or concept because it's new then that's the time that you have to provide a lot of background in for nation so your audience is also very important because it also is a decisive factor okay it's a factor that will help you decide on how to go about your piece of work next let's go to purpose again purpose is also very important because purpose is basically your objective why are you even writing this piece of academic text in the first place what's the reason behind it is it to provide information is it to differentiate things is it to give clarification and so on and so forth so it's really important that you know your purpose because it will give direction to how you write okay when you know your objective when you know your end goal it's very easy for you to plan out how to get to that particular end goal and like when you don't know what's going to happen at the end what's expected to happen at the end then you don't know where to get how to get there rather okay so it's very important that you also know or identify the purpose of writing this particular piece of academic text in the first place next let's go to organization organization simply refers to how you will be arranging your ideas if you could still remember um the concepts that were discussed in your reading and writing class particularly lessons on text structure and text patterns then organization would be easy for you okay you just need to determine guided by your purpose guided by your objective guided by your end goal you just need to determine how are you going to be organizing it if your end goal is to provide for example a descriptive or a description of that particular concept then what type of text structure what type of text pattern are you going to be using of course it's also descriptive so you need to provide descriptions okay by providing facts and of course pieces of information so it's very important to remember that your purpose and your organization always go hand in hand next of course you also need to consider the style that you are going to be using okay now how are we going to do this you just need to answer this question what technique or techniques will you be using whenever you write this or when you are writing this particular text okay now how do we do that remember that academic texts entail a particular level of formality so what level of formality will you be using would it be enough for your audience okay would it be appropriate for your audience when they see it when they get to read it so you have to consider that one as well similarly um your style like what i have mentioned earlier is guided by who is going to be your audience okay similarly take for example you also need to consider the text pattern in the text structure is it enough to stick to just one text pattern is it enough to stick to just one text structure or you can do a combination of one or a combination of two or more okay but still of course it would really depend on who will be reading your text another factor to consider is of course the flow you just need to ask yourself the question how well will you be expressing these ideas um similarly just like an organization once you have figured out the way that to organize your thoughts your information your facts okay the way that you have already um plotted out those things or outline those things then definitely flow will come after always remember that when writing academic text your main goal is always to inform so aside from your other goals your main goal should be to provide information to your readers now in order for you to do that of course you need to make sure that your ideas so the concepts the information that you will be presenting will flow smoothly meaning there is a good transition from one idea or one concept going to another going to another until you reach the end last but not the least of course is your presentation is your output is your academic text ready for publishing is it ready to be consumed by your readers your intended readers is it ready to be read by other people okay so after accomplishing after accomplishing your text of course first and foremost you have to write a draft of it okay and then it will go through sets of revision it's not just one revision sometimes it will go through a lot that's why you have to remember that academic texts are not very easy to complete or to accomplish it will really take time okay because it might go through different levels of revision and different kinds of revision once the revisions are already done as well okay once the layout is finalized then you may consider your output to be ready for publishing or ready to be consumed to be read by your intended audience here are my sources and references thank you for joining me today