Introduction to Academic Writing in Wikipedia:

 A Summary of Tardy

     The article written by Tardy (2010) presents the challenges students of English as a second language may experience in using their literary skills to write an article in  Wikipedia. She also explores the different steps students should follow in order to write pieces that could be published.

     The author suggests that students should first be acquainted with Wikipedia itself and learn about its aim and style by analysing some published articles. The next steps are to gather the relevant information to support the chosen topic and to create an outline as well as to include the sources. Subsequently, writing the first draft in a coherent and cohesive way is encouraged.

      Tardy (2010) suggests that the next step to follow is peer review of the work done so far. In order to avoid plagiarism, the author proposes to pay attention to how sources are cited, respecting Wikipedia´s documentation style, MLA (Modern Language Association) or Chicago. Then, proofreading and polishing the text are recommended to avoid spelling, vocabulary, grammar and punctuation mistakes. Wikilinks should be identified so that readers can check other existing articles. Finally, students submit their final versions to be published.

     Tardy (2010) concludes that producing pieces for Wikipedia helped her students to improve their academic literary skills and that they “gained a sense of real audience and enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing their work published” (p.18).

References

Tardy C., (2010). Writing for the world: Wikipedia as an introduction to academic

writing. English Teaching Forum, 1, pp.12-19, 27.

 

American Psychological Association (APA) Rules in Academic Writing

     The purpose of this paper is to analyze in depth the use of the American Psychological Association (APA,2010) rules for academic writing in a particular piece by Dalvit et al (2005) and to state if the APA conventions were applied to this text.

     Most of the citations the authors included in the mentioned piece follow the same in-text citation structure, that is, author´ s surname and year of publication between parentheses. Signal phrases could have been used more often to balance the reading and to provide a smoother, less rigid format.

     The reference list should be separated from the body of the text, in a new page. A number of mistakes regarding capitalization, use of italics, punctuation, etc. can be found. Let us begin from the top: the word Reference is not centrally aligned but to the left. It should not be followed by a colon, either. The authors wrote the sources in alphabetical order but they numbered them. Double spacing was not used or in any part of the text. No hanging indentation was used, what makes it more difficult to consult sources if a reader wishes to. According to Purdue OWL, (2013), all lines after the first line of each entry in the reference list should be indented one-half inch from the left margin.

     The names of the titles are title-cased and italicized. “Italicize titles of longer works such as books and journals [is advised].” (Purdue OWL, 2013). The same source states, “The title of the article is in sentence-case, meaning that only the first word and proper nouns in the title are capitalized.”  The names of the books or journals where the articles were taken from are not italicized, which are obvious mistakes when using APA rules.                     

       The electronic sources lack the authors´ name. Furthermore, they should have included the words retrieved from or available at before the link.  The year and the date are separated, and therefore, it is not clear when it was accessed. The two online dictionaries cited in the reference section, should have the entry word in the first position since the authors´ names are not usually included when citing dictionaries.

     When two authors are cited in the reference list, the use of the ampersand is required. The authors used the word and both in the in-text citation, where it is correct, and in the reference list.

     To sum up, after a thorough analysis and contrast with the APA guidelines, it is  concluded that the authors of this piece used some APA style conventions successfully but made a number of mistakes and omissions as well, particularly in the reference section.

References

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American                 Psychological Association (6^th edition). Washington, DC.

Dalvit, L., Murray, S., Terzoli, A., Zhao, X., Rhodes University, South Africa, Mini, B., &     University Fort Hare, South Africa. (2005). Providing increased access to English L2 students of computer science at a South African University. US- China Education Review, Sep. 2005, Vol 2(9).

Purdue OWL (2013). Reference List: Basic Rules. Retrieved October 2013, from https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/05/.

Welcome

Dear reader,

The purpose of this space is to share my thoughs about education and, particularly, the pieces of  academic writing which are part of my English for Academic Purposes class at Universidad CAECE.

I have been a teacher of English for 20 years. I graduated as a translator in 1994 at Universidad del Salvador. Back then, it was clear that I needed to expand and improve my teaching skills, consequently I have taken several courses to brighten up my practice along the years.

My goal is to be a better teacher for my students and a better learner for myself. I started the Licenciatura en Enseñanza del Inglés  with high expectations and willing to do my best to make the most of the whole experience.

I look forward to exchanging and sharing experience through the path of academic writing.

Juliana