Suggestions for Writing for Applied Linguistics

John Hedgcock The recommendations below are based on observations of common pitfalls in academic writing. I offer these recommendations with a view toward enhancing your awareness of some fundamental conventions of academic writing, particularly in our field. As you compose, edit, and proofread your own work and that of your peers, take a look at these suggestions. The better you become at self-editing, the easier your writing tasks will become as you prepare course assignments and your Portfolio documents. At this point, it would be extremely beneficial for you to familiarize yourselves with the Publication Manual of the APA (6th ed.) (2010) and to use it as a companion in your academic writing.

Always ensure that you understand the writing task, the content to be included in a text, and the readers expectations for rhetorical structure and document style. As you select your content, plan your writing, and draw from published sources, try to envision your reader and her expectations. Explicitly address those expectations and, if you dont understand them, query the professor or reader about how to shape your writing appropriately. Take care to adhere to all components of the writing task and to follow directions. Skilled academic writers understand the genres in which they write and work within the boundaries associated with those genres. For example, a writer undertaking the preparation of an annotated bibliography familiarizes herself with annotated bibliographies, studies exemplary models, and takes note of the conventions for crafting such a document for an expert reader. A writer assigned a research paper similarly examines successful, published research papers in her field of study and crafts a text that exhibits similar rhetorical structure, content, and proportions. A writer preparing a brief essay knows that the reader expects an expository or argumentative text that exhibits conventional rhetorical features typically found in essayist prose. These features include an introductory passage that previews the texts content and organizational structure, a series of informative and/or argumentative paragraphs that supply evidence for claims linked to the essays purpose, local markers of coherence and cohesion, as well as some type of summary or synthesis that highlights the texts chief message and novel content. Whereas writers can exercise freedom with respect to the method of reasoning used to present information or persuade the reader (e.g., by adopting a deductive or inductive method of exposition), they should not slight the writing task or overlook obligatory components.

Please use APA citation style in your main text as well as APA format in your list of References. Punctuation and capitalization conventions are important, too. Choose relative pronouns and conjunctions with care. Please see the Publication Manual of the APA (2010), Sections 3.20 and 3.22 for a concise treatment of these conventions. Restrictive (essential) relative clauses (RCs) are essential to the meaning of the head NP, as in: The materials that work most effectively in the EFL classroom are those that engage the learners. Non-restrictive (non-essential) RCs add non-essential information to the head of the NP, as in:

The experiment, which was conducted under less than optimal conditions, produced inconclusive results. Do not use that as the subordinator when the head of the NP is human. The participants who performed well on the oral and aural measures tended to those who had had extensive classroom training.

Avoid non-referential and ambiguous pronouns, especially this, to refer anaphorically to an entire predication or proposition (see APA, 2010, Sec. 3.09). Whenever youre tempted to start out a sentence with a pronoun such as this, ask yourself what the referent is. If you want to refer back to the whole idea encoded in the previous sentence or string of sentences, then you should probably rephrase. Although it is a constant challenge to incorporate authentic materials effectively into the language curriculum, teachers committed to the communicative approach should develop strategies for collecting and selecting appropriate texts. *This does not mean that the traditional language textbook does not have a role in the curriculum. The referent of this in the preceding example is ambiguous. Is the writer referring anaphorically to the main clause of the preceding sentence, to the subordinate clause, or to the whole complex sentence? Such vagueness can be disruptive to an academic reader.

Comma splices and fused sentences should be assiduously avoided. *Ben Franklin did not want the eagle to be the U.S. emblem, he preferred the turkey. *Learners need to memorize important vocabulary, however, they should also understand the social and affective meanings of the words they learn. In each instance, the writer has infelicitously conjoined two independent clauses. Not allowed. In each ill-formed string, the (first) comma should be replaced by a semi-colon or a full stop.

Avoid dangling modifiers, noting that participial phrases and sentence-initial adverbials need to modify the grammatical subject (right next door to it). *As language teachers, it is crucial to cultivate an awareness of language structure, meaning, and use. In this sample, it is a non-referential (existential) subject; it is not a language teacher. It does not even agree in person or number with language teachers. Here are two potential repairs, the first of which preserves the modifier construction and the second of which circumvents it altogether: As language teachers, we should cultivate an awareness of language structure, meaning, and use. Language teachers should cultivate an awareness of language structure, meaning, and use.

When you quote, place punctuation after the parenthetical reference, as in: Barlow (1975) asserted that cognitive factors are by far the most influential in bridging the gap between an incomplete L2 grammar and a target-like grammatical system (p. 324).

If you quote a passage from a source, you are obligated to include the page number in the parenthetical reference. If you paraphrase or summarize but do not quote, page numbers are optional (APA, 2010, p. 171). Do not use single quotation marks () except to surround a quotation appearing within a quoted passage (APA, 2010, p. 92), as in: Sing (2005) synthesized the functions of discourse markers, noting that the expressive component includes elements that express personal attitudes to the topic or to other participants (McMahon, 1994, p. 169). Singh further observed that the propositional component comprises a languages basic resources (such as prepositions) (p. 35).

In coordinate sentences with and, use a comma to separate clauses if each clause has a distinct grammatical subject. Otherwise, avoid repeating the grammatical subject and do not use a comma. Moreover, pay attention to stylistic parallelism. Most participants failed the listening test, and none of them completed the writing task. The researchers maintain that adult learners cannot achieve complete L2 proficiency and argue that genuine bilingualism is not possible.

Quote is a verb; quotation is a noun. In written academic discourse, this formal distinction should be preserved. Rational is an adjective; rationale is a noun. Commas should be used to set off sentence modifiers such as adverbial and participial phrases. As a result of the instructional treatment, learners performance improved measurably. When justifying an observation or claim with the reason is, the appropriate conjunction is that, not because. The learners performed far below standard on the test. The reason for this unfortunate result is that the instrument was neither well developed nor properly administered. Because is a subordinating conjunction that introduces an adverbial clause, whereas that is a complementizer that introduces a noun clause.

Its is made up of a subject and a verb: It + contracted copula BE. Its is a genitive (possessive) determiner. Its raining again. A curriculum should always be developed with its learner population in mind.

Use a colon to separate two independent clauses, capitalizing the first word of each, as in: Despite divergent methods, both authors drew the same conclusion: Grammatical expertise strongly predicts L2 reading efficiency. Writers also use colons to introduce a phrase or a series of items in a list, as in: Canale (1983) proposed a four-components communicative competence model consisting of: grammatical, sociolinguistic, discourse, and strategic competence.

s are to be indented to the first full TAB stop (1/2 if you set your ruler using the English system). Use the TAB key to indent; do not use the space bar.

Do not add extralinear spaces between s. Your MS should be consistently double-spaced from beginning to end, including the References. Paginate all documents. Position page numbers in the upper right corner of each page.

Recommendations for Preparing Pedagogical and Professional Materials

In compiling classroom materials, particularly lesson plans, worksheets, and exercises, please be mindful of the need to create a simple, transparent apparatus that includes: Appropriate and informative heading information (i.e., a title and/or a theme, identifying information such as the course, the instructor, and so on); Straightforward instructions; Sample output in the form of model sentences, filled-in blanks, and so on, illustrating the performance(s) that you expect from the students.

APA Resources on the Web

Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL): http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ Follow the APA Formatting and Style Guide link on the main page. APA Style: http://www.apastyle.org/ Follow the Corrections, Frequently Asked Questions, and More about APA Style links. Also recommended are the Basics of APA Style and APA Style Help links, likewise located on the main page.