Over the next couple of days, we will be looking at the use of italics and quotation marks in academic writing; "Culture and Mental Illness", which we read this morning, has examples of both, and there are examples of both in this blog post. (What are those examples? Why did I use them?)
In academic writing, we use both italics and quotation marks for a limited number of specific reasons, several of which are related to an extremely important skill in all areas of academic work: the use of sources. Academics constantly use other people's ideas, and sometimes words, in their work: to agree, to disagree, for support, for a starting point, as a topic, and so on. Learning when and how to use sources effectively is one of our main goals in this course, and it is a primary focus of chapter 6 of Quest, which we are working through at the moment (Hartmann, 2007).
In order to practise these essential academic skills, and also to ensure that we are reading regularly from a variety of sources and thinking critically about what we read, we will be making regular blog posts responding to articles published on the BBC News website.
Everyone gets to write up their response to an article twice a week, according to the following schedule:
And don't worry, you don't have to wait until it's your day to respond to something from the BBC News, you can also comment on your classmates' posts every day.
A couple of notes that you might find useful:
In academic writing, we use both italics and quotation marks for a limited number of specific reasons, several of which are related to an extremely important skill in all areas of academic work: the use of sources. Academics constantly use other people's ideas, and sometimes words, in their work: to agree, to disagree, for support, for a starting point, as a topic, and so on. Learning when and how to use sources effectively is one of our main goals in this course, and it is a primary focus of chapter 6 of Quest, which we are working through at the moment (Hartmann, 2007).
In order to practise these essential academic skills, and also to ensure that we are reading regularly from a variety of sources and thinking critically about what we read, we will be making regular blog posts responding to articles published on the BBC News website.
Everyone gets to write up their response to an article twice a week, according to the following schedule:
Daily bloggers | |||||
Monday | Math | Aim | Kaem | May | Job |
Tuesday | Ked | Golf (N.) | Wut | Aon | M |
Wednesday | Nan | Pong | Yun Il | Net | Golf (S.) |
Thursday | May | Job | Math | Aim | Kaem |
Friday | Aon | M | Ked | Golf (N.) | Wut |
Saturday | Net | Golf (S.) | Nan | Pong | Yun Il |
And don't worry, you don't have to wait until it's your day to respond to something from the BBC News, you can also comment on your classmates' posts every day.
A couple of notes that you might find useful:
- It is better to write your reference entries in Notepad, and then copy and paste that into your blog. It strips out the formatting, which can otherwise make your post look weird.
- For the same reason, do not write in MS Word and then paste into your blog post (although I occasionally do do that, for example, with table above.)
- Also for the same reason, when you quote, paste into Notepad first and then copy and paste from there into the blog. Alternatively, use the "Remove formatting" tool on the New Post toolbar.
- I often email articles to myself as I'm reading the BBC News and other sites. Most online news sites offer easy tools to email a link to someone, so I use it to send a reminder to myself of something that caught my interest.
- Do not delete the pre=formatted reference section. You will definitely need it if you are writing a response to an article in the BBC News or elsewhere.
- Although I initially suggest the BBC News, you are welcome to check out and respond to articles from any of my list of approved sources. (The local papers The Nation and the Bangkok Post are not on that list because they are pretty much garbage and not good examples of writing for you to be reading, with the exception of material that they copy and paste form other sources.)
- possibly to be added to if something else occurs to me later.
__________
References
BBC News at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
Hartmann, P. (2007). Quest 2 Reading and Writing, (2nd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill
I read both The Nation and the Post most days. They are fine for local news, but the writing is of a poor standard, and critical thinking is something they seem never to have heard of.
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