Academic Writing An Overview of the advanced course UNAM

Overview Parts of a manuscript Within these sections, we will cover: Introduction, Materials & Methods/Methodology, Results, Discussion/Conclusion (headings for section may vary depending on the journal) Introduction/background/context, discussion/analysis, conclusion (headings may vary for humanities/social science manuscripts) Within these sections, we will cover: Paragraph construction, concise writing techniques /summarizing, paraphrasing, formal registers and academic word lists, internal coherence/strength of argument

Within these sections, we will cover: Paragraph construction, concise writing techniques /summarizing, paraphrasing, formal registers and academic word lists, internal coherence/strength of argument

Introduction to Academic Writing When writing a paper, what questions should you be asking yourself? Here, you might want to ask workshop participants to come up with two key questions that they should be asking themselves before starting to write. They could take 2 minutes individually, then discuss for another 2 minutes with their neighbour, then bring their questions to the group. Write them on the white board or flip chart.

Some questions to ask What is the contribution of this research to the field? What is my hypothesis/central argument?

Questions to ask… Is there more than one goal/hypothesis? Do I translate into English or try to write directly in English?

To translate or not to translate? Try to write your draft manuscript in English and have it corrected later. If it is too difficult, write it in Spanish first and then translate it.

Before getting to the next slide on sections of a paper, you should give them each examples of published papers in their fields (generally at least) and ask them to write down the major sections and what question/s they are answering. This would lead into the next, summary slide. For example, the introduction answers: Why am I doing this research? What is my contribution? Where does this fit into existing research?

Sections in journal-style paper The sections appear in a journal style paper in the following prescribed order: What did I do in a nutshell?  ABSTRACT  What is the problem? INTRODUCTION  How did I solve the problem? METHODS/METHODOLOGY  What did I find out? RESULTS (may be part of disc.)  What does it mean? DISCUSSION  Who helped me out? ACKNOWLEDGEMENT  Whose work did I refer to? LITERATURE CITED