Appropriating Arguments Academic Reading and Writing.pdf

Appropriating Arguments:
Academic Reading and Writing
John Corbett
Tertiary education courses, especial-
ly those in the arts and social sciences,
generally require students to write
compositions based on prescribed
readings. Although students with poor
skills in "appropriating" arguments con-
tained in such readings are at a dis-
advantage, and may even be accused of
plagiarism, this aspect of writing has
been relatively neglected in published
teaching materials for English for
Academic Purposes. This article
describes various techniques for pro-
moting academic competence by
helping students to summarize, synthe-
size and evaluate prescribed readings
legitimately.
Despite the continuing growth in the number of coursebooks on
English for Academic Purposes (EAP), it is often difficult for
teachers to match published materials with the highly specific needs
of their own students. One partial solution is a set of strategies and
procedures which can be used with texts relevant to the students'
own disciplines. This article suggests several strategies which I have
found useful. These strategies were developed in an EAP reading
and writing course that is part of a B.A. Program in English as a
Foreign Language (EFL) for overseas undergraduate students at
Stirling University. Since the EAP course should be seen.
particularly in the context of the first semester's overall structure, I
shall sketch the other two components of the first semester
program.
On entering the B.A. in EFL, the students, who come from a
variety of backgrounds (Greek, Cypriot, French, Chinese, and
Japanese), take three courses: one in General English, which aims
to improve overall control of the language; one in Contextual
Studies, which aims to provide some of the social, historical and
cultural background necessary to understand the content of further
university courses; and finally EAP. The first semester of the EAP
course has concentrated on reading and particularly writing, because
these are the skills most urgently required in the university system.
Stirling University has quite rigorous continuous assessment plus
examinations in most university departments, and by far the majority
of the departments assesses written work only. The students
therefore need to write efficiently and well, drawing on a range of
prescribed texts, if they are to succeed.
TESL CANADA JOURNAL/REVUE TESL DU CANADA
VOL. 10, NO.2, SPRING 1993 91

This brings me to the problem. In the late 1980's, when we
began developing the BA in EFL, available published EAP
materials did not seem to satisfy the needs of our student intake.
There were various reasons for this. Among them were the
tendency of EAP materials to be slanted towards science or business
rather than the humanities and social sciences that our students
preferred. Those materials that were relevant to our students had a
different kind of weakness: they tended to present information from
a single point of view. Students were typically asked to summarize
or present a single, fairly uncontentious, argument (e.g. on the
dangers of environmental pollution). Again, this intellectual
shallowness may be well-intentioned. As campbell (1990) rightly
states: "...writing is such a complex process that attention cannot
easily be given to everything at the same time" (p. 221). If students
have to read, organize, plan, compose and redraft, then perhaps we
do not want to confuse them further with a variety of conflicting
viewpoints.
On the other hand, perhaps we do. The typical undergraduate
does not simply have to read, understand and summarize texts:
students also have to use these texts in their own written work.
Students often use their background reading badly, and of course
the extreme example of this is (in our terms) plagiarism, often
unintentional. Campbell's (1990) study of non-native and native
speakers' referencing strategies when faced with an anthropology
text suggests that plagiarism is more of a problem for non-native
speakers than for native speakers:
The results of this study show that when these [overseas]
university students integrated information from the anthro-
pology text into their in-class compositions, they relied on
copying as their primary method of text integration, and they
referenced the anthropology author too little. These students
have the ability to paraphrase, summarize, quote and integrate
information from a source text into their original examples and
explanations; however, they need to be given ample oppor-
tunity to practice this type of writing in order to edit out
instances of copying.
(Campbell 1990, p. 225)
My own experience accords with Campbell's findings, which suggest
that non-native speakers are dominated by the texts they must read
and recycle. The question, then, is how to design activities which
practise the skills of "appropriating" the arguments of others-Iegiti-
92 JOHN CORBE1T

mately. The Stirling EAP reading and writing course favoured a
three-pronged approach:
1. Summary techniques: analysis of the language and especially the
discourse structure of authentic academic texts (not only
popularizations). Academic and professional journals are a good
source of texts for this: familiar ESL journals such as the TESL
Canada Journal or the TESOL Quarterly go down well!
2. Evaluation techniques: reading not only to understand but also
to criticise, positively or negatively. This is the stage where per-
haps the function of quotation is trickiest for students.
3. Mini-assignments: semi-controlled compositions based primarily
on given background reading, which must be quoted from. These
are home-based assignments (plus a similar end-of-semester
exam), and they go through at least two drafts. These are the
basis of the semester grade.
Let us now turn to representative activities for each approach.
SUMMARY TECHNIQUES
Campbell (1990, p. 213) cites a range of research which
demonstrates that increased reading ability leads to improved
summaries and syntheses. General reading skills are tackled as part
of the General English course in the BA in EFL, which left me free
to concentrate on more specific skills. Over the last three years I
concentrated on raising the students' awareness of a general "logical
sequence" which serves as a template for much academic (as well as
everyday) English discourse: the problem-solution pattern. This
pattern is not, of course, the only text structure available in
academic English. Other useful structures include simple lists,
question-answer sequences, and varieties of chronological ordering.
But insofar as problem-solving is a valued technique in academic
procedure (whereas listing may be stigmatised, except where
specifically requested), the problem-solution pattern is a useful
weapon in the students' arsenal.
The problem-solution pattern derives from the work of Winter
(1982) on the semantic relationships between clauses, and how they
are lexically signalled. His work has been developed by Hoey (1983)
and Jordan (1984): they use the principles of clause relations to
VOL. 10, NO.2, SPRING 1993 93

analyse longer stretches of discourse, though not usually longer than
a few paragraphs. Of the three books, Jordan's is closest to a
practical text-book or guide, and he concentrates on the problem-
solution pattern in particular. His argument is that texts can
frequently be broken down into stages corresponding to the labels:
SITUATION, inclUding a
PROBLEM, that is, the aspect of a situation eliciting a
RESPONSE, which when put into effect gives a
RESULT, which in turn elicits from the writer an
EVALUATION, which may be positive or negative.
A negative evaluation is equivalent to a new problem, which
will require a new response, and so the sequence continues.
A positive evaluation would normally mean the end of the
sequence.
I am aware that some influential EAP theorists and practitioners
have reservations about the Problem-Solution pattern. Swales
(1990), for example, reiterates his feeling that the pattern is too
general to account satisfactorily for some detailed textual patterns,
such as those found in academic article introductions. However, it
is the very generality of the pattern that makes it appealing to the
EAP teacher who is trying to give substantial but not too specific
advice to students writing a range of text-types (albeit a narrow
range: essays, reports, exams, etc). Activities utilising the Problem-
Solution pattern provide students with at least one useful and
generalisable "attack skill" for reading many academic texts, as well
as a useful model for summaries and essay plans.
But how is this theory transformed into classroom practice?
There are a variety of ways, but one of the most useful is a simple
adaptation of the familiar activity of jigsaw reading. Once students
have been introduced to the logical sequence-via a brief model and
some work on lexical signals (e.g. problem signals such as
"issue/gap/controversy/deficiency") - the teacher can further
familiarize students with the pattern and encourage summary skills
by adapting a number of widely-used procedures:
1. Find a text which conforms to the Problem-Solution pattern.
These may vary in length according to the familiarity of the class
with the procedure. For example, I have used passages from
advanced ESL textbooks, as well as authentic, short articles (up
to three pages long) from academic and professional journals.
94 JOHN CORBET!'

2. Divide the text into stages corresponding as closely as possible to
the main Problem-Solution pattern. Photocopy the initial stage,
and one of the later stages, onto one sheet of paper one copy of
which will be distributed to each student group). Photocopy and
enlarge the remaining stages onto separate sheets of paper and
post them on different parts of the classroom wall.
3. Divide the learners into groups of between two and five. One
member of the group is the nominated Writer, and should remain
seated. The others are Reporters, and may move around.
4. The Writer initially summarises the opening and later stages of
the text, and predicts the intervening content. The Reporters go
back and forth from the Writer to the wall posters, orally
reporting the main points contained there. Together, the group
reconstructs a summary of the text.
5. If possible, this summary should be transferred to an OHP
transparency and different groups' versions compared in a con-
cluding class session (perhaps alongside a suggested model,
written by the teacher). Differences and similarities can be
discussed.
Such an activity, or a variation on it, encourages (a) the abstraction
of the main points of a reading text; (b) the recognition of any
signals of discourse stage present in a text; and (c) awareness of
overall text structure. The information gap format incidentally
encourages collaborative learning, and also oral skills.
EVALUATION TECHNIQUES
Efficient summarising and paraphrasing of the content of reading
texts is therefore one "appropriation" skill. The second is critical
reading, or evaluation. There is a slight danger of ambiguity here,
since, as we have seen, texts conforming to the Problem-Solution
pattern generally contain an evaluation, which the students may
report. But they also have to evaluate this evaluation, by endorsing
it, qualifying it or rejecting it and offering an alternative. I find that
the overwhelming majority of students unquestioningly endorse the
findings of the background reading, even when there is available
extra-textual evidence to the contrary. I have sometimes used an
old EFL training guide, written and published in Russia, which
confidently claims that all British university staff speak with
standard "BBC" accents. I am constantly amazed at how many
students studying in Stirling and daily encountering Scottish lec-
turers with strong Scottish accents continue to endorse this guide's
VOL. 10, NO.2, SPRING 1993 95

rather naive claim. The exercise below is designed to elicit a
negative evaluation. It usually does, for a variety of reasons which
form the BASIS for the ASSESSMENT of the (here hypothetical)
response and results to a vexed problem:
Read the following summary of an argument put forward by an
ex-Principal of a Scottish University. Give a POSITIVE or a
NEGATIVE evaluation, giving an ASSESSMENT and a
BASIS.
SITUATION + The population of the world is growing fast.
PROBLEM Overpopulation will soon result in shortages
of resources, famine and probably war.
RESPONSE
RESULTS
ASSESSMENT
BASIS
A chemical contraceptive should be put into
the food of every adult, so that only people
who fast for a period of time (eg a week)
will be able to have children.
As a result, the population expansion should
quickly be halted, and global catastrophe
should be avoided.
Because students do tend to agree with other people's arguments,
quotation skills come into play. Campbell (1990) does not
investigate the functions of the quotations she analyses-her main
concern is how close in wording they are to the originals-but she
does observe that there is a high proportion of quotations in the
final paragraphs compared to the opening paragraphs and body of
the compOSitions (p. 219). This observation again accords with a
tendency which I find in several students' essays: arguments are
developed out of personal knowledge and experience, and
quotations from background reading are brought in (if at all) at the
conclusion as clinching authoritative support, or as pithy topic
closers.
96 JOHN CORBETI

What is wrong with this? Without wishing at all to devalue
personal experience and observation, I would argue that there are
certain requirements of undergraduate essays: (a) familiarity with at
least some of the background reading that deals with the consensus
of received opinion about a subject, and (b) a demonstrable ability
to judge the foundations of the evidence, on which rest the
knowledge claims expressed by the background reading. The first
requirement-familiarity-may be met using the quotation as an
authority. The second requirement-the demonstrable ability to
evaluate knowledge claims-is not.
It is revealing to ask students why they have used a particular
quotation. It is surprising how many answer that it is to prove that
they have read the background text, or even just to fill up space. In
class I draw attention to three main functions of quotation:
1. As an authority. Students are advised to use authoritative quota-
tions to establish assumptions which will be used as part of an
argument (Le. mainly at the RESPONSE stage). They should be
wary of using authoritative quotations to clinch an argument (Le.
by simply reporting another's EYALUATION in the final stage.)
2. As a "straw man". Perhaps a more useful technique in the class-
room, as I have suggested above, is to encourage students to seek
out arguments with which they disagree. This is of course not
without dangers, as some students become hypercritical, but it is
often easier for students to produce evidence for negative rather
than positive evaluations.
3. For comparison. Parallel or related studies may be cited to give
a measure of indirect support for an argument or procedure. For
example, the results of disciplinary reforms in UK schools may be
used in support of or against an argument for similar reforms in
the student's native country. Here differences as well as
similarities between the two contexts should not be forgotten in
the student's own evaluation.
The common factor in these three functions of quotation, and a
useful rule of thumb for learners, is that quotations should always
be acknowledged and always commented upon. Advice that a direct
quotation of three-quarters of a page should receive a comment
which is at least the same length does make students think twice
about packing secondary information into thin essays.
VOL. 10. NO.2, SPRING 1993 97

HOME-BASED ASSIGNMENTS
The final "prong" of the course is the home-based assignment,
which acts as a culmination of the class-based activities, and is
meant to encourage transfer of summarising and synthesising skills
into full-blown assignments. The students are given an essay topic
and two or three extracts from related articles as background
reading. Such extracts may be up to two pages each in length.
Students may add to this reading if they wish (library skills are
taught elsewhere in the course), but they are required to make use
of the given extracts, for obvious reasons: the teacher can maintain
a measure of control over the material summarised and quoted, and
therefore gauge the students' developing ability to appropriate the
arguments of others. If this method sounds teacher-dominated, I
would stress that the teacher is not seeking to influence the
students' evaluation of the given material, but to monitor how this
evaluation is achieved. With the general undergraduate group,
choosing assignments with substantial academic content, and about
which the learners may already have strong views, is the most
successful teaching strategy. In a trawl of the university library, the
teacher can usually come up with concise extracts giving differing
views on favourite controversies, such as punishment (corporal and
capital), the media (censorship of violence or sex), and women
(stereotyping of, etc). Such extracts need not necessarily give
incompatible information: some extracts demand the qualification
of a strong claim to a weaker claim, or the synthesising of
complementary positions to achieve a more rounded view of a
subject. A regular diet of such activities should train students to
handle background reading with a greater degree of awareness,
confidence and sophistication.
I argued earlier that it is not generally advisable to end a piece of
work with a quotation, but I shall anyway (quotation as pithy topic-
closer). Bazerman (1988, p. 328) argues that good writing is good
science. To paraphrase, developing student writing is the first step
towards developing not justa greater control of language but a
greater control of academic procedure. The learner develops
strategies which help validate knowledge claims to the satisfaction of
the academic community. It is this which makes the subject so
fascinating and rewarding to teach.
98 JOHN CORBETf

NOTE
This article is based on a paper of the same title, presented at the
TESOL Convention in Vancouver, March 1992.
TIffiAUlHOR
Until recently, John Corbett was a Staff Tutor at the Centre for
English Language Teaching, Stirling University, Scotland. He is
now a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Programme for
Literary Linguistics, Strathclyde University, Scotland. His interests
are academic reading and writing, functional grammar and genre
analysis, and literature in ELT.
REFERENCES
Bazerman, C. (1988). Shaping written knowledge. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
Campbell, C. (1990). Writing with others' words. In B. Kroll
(Ed.), Second language writing. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Hoey, M. (1983). On the surface of discourse. London: George
Allen and Unwin.
Jordan, M. (1984). The rhetoric of eve'yday English texts. London:
George Allen and Unwin.
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Winter, E. (1982). Towards a contextual grammar of English.
London: George Allen and Unwin.
TESL CANADA JOURNAL/REVVE TESL DU CANADA
VOL. 10, NO.2. SPRING 1993 99

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