Presentations

The topic presentations made by our classmates were really interesting. But I didn't get almost all of presentations, what they were about. It is because of my bad listening skills; and because of my classmates accents that are totally weird for me.
Nevertheless, at least I had understood my own topic, which was comparing three different research work sections. The topic name was "Abstracts, introductions and discussions: How far do they differ in style?".
To be honest, till this topic presentation I didn't know the real differences of these three sections.
Abstract is the section of the text, where author should be as precise as possible. It has tough word limitation, and that's the main difficulty of writing the abstract section. Hartley says that still many authors find it difficult to write abstract for the research. Some authors even write it incorrectly. Reader of abstract section faces not the less difficulty, while reading it. Hartley's short research defines abstract section as the most compounded and least perceptible section among these three.
Regarding introduction part of research, Hartley finds it easier to write it and read. As introduction part can contain much more words than abstract, it can be slightly more detailed.
The discussion part can be much more extended than the previous two sections. Consequently, it is most understandable part for reader. Also it is least difficult part for author to write. As in this part you are free to write in your own and convenient style, authors dig quite deeper into research topic in these section. Hartley's work define this section as the easiest part to write and read.
If I had more time, I would investigate in related to these topic. To be more exact, I would like to know all the methods and software algorithms that define difficulty and vocabulary level of the text. Because in Hartley's research work, authors use software that is fairly simple. That's why, Hartley says that his research results are not absolute and not applicable every where. There definitely must be some more complicated methods and algorithms that define difficulty and perceptibility of text, and also the difficulty level of vocabulary.

Hedging in Data Commentaries

Dear Professor

As you know the average scores in regular and make up exams are 86 and 72 respectively. I would like to provide the explanation of why there is a big discrepancy between regular and make-up scores.
First of all, the time when the exams were taken have impact on average score. The regular exam was taken on Wednesday, whereas make up exam was taken on Friday, which is the end of the week, and possibly students were tired at this time.
Even though the levels of exam difficulty were the same, the number of students taking exams were different: regular exam had more participants than in make-up exam. As we know, more the number of students in exam, more chances that they can cheat.

Also, I think that proctors had considerable impact on results: regular exam was proctored by professor, and make-up exam was proctored by TA. Students at regular exams had advantage of asking questions from professors, in case if they were not sure about something. Whereas students at make-up exam couldn't be provided that advantage.
Finally, the room temperature had definitely had its influence on students. As I found out, the room temperature at regular exam was 20C, what lets students stay cool and sharp minded. Regarding make up students, they had 28C room temperature, what made them feel sleepy, more tired, and scattered.

To be concise, I would like to note that conditions while exams taken were really different, which, I think, made such a big difference in their average score.

Kindest regards,

Zhakypov Daniyar

Move 1 B

 Citations are widely recognized as being an important and distinctive property of academic texts. As a consequence, the presence or absence of citations allows the casual reader to get an immediate sense of whether a text is an “academic” or “popular” one. Because citation is such an obvious surface phenomenon, it has been much discussed in the academic world. Indeed, there are several theories about the role and purpose of citations in academic texts.

For example scientific people support the idea of that citations are used to show respect to previous researchers. Authors use citations to tell that they recognize the history of the realm, and they show define previous achievements of other authors.

Also there is opinion which is widely proposed by standard practice guides. They think that citations are the matter of ethics that are used to define the intellectual property rights of author; and it's defense against plagiarism.

However, there are some individuals that have interesting and considerable opinions. For example Bavelas (1978) says that citations are just the evidence that show the author belongs to a scholarly community. Similarly Gilbert (1977) tells that writers use citations in order to give greater authority to his work. Whereas Swales (1990) proposes that citations are used to indicate what has been done in this research area, and what is going to be done by the writer. There are even individuals like Ravetz (1971) think that the citations are type of mutual reward system. Ravetz thinks that writers decide to use citation rather than paying money to other authors for their contribution.