Thinking Activity

Thinking Activity: Unit 3, The Mechanics of Writing:

Hello everyone, i am Nidhi Dave a student of the department of English, MKBU. This blog is response of my Thinking Activity given by professor Megha ma'am. In this blog I'm going to discuss about the  The Mechanics of Writing.

What is Michanics of Writing ?

In composition, writing mechanics are the conventions governing the technical aspects of writing, including spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and abbreviations. Getting your main points together can be a challenge, and one solution is to put together a draft of main ideas before writing.

Video 1

The video is about Academic Writing by Kalyan Chattopadhyay. The writing is of two types 1) Academic Writing, 2) Non - Academic Writing. 

What is academic writing ?

 Academic writing is a formal writing style primarily used for educational purposes in universities and scholarly publications. It involves analyzing journals, articles, and books and writing research papers, dissertations, and assignments in a well-structured manner with divided paragraphs that cover topics and subtopics, ending with a concluding paragraph. Academic writing employs various linguistic markers, is free from errors, and uses proper mechanics of writing such as punctuation, spelling, italics, numbers, quotations, and names. It also involves critical arguments, comparisons, and analysis. Language choice is crucial in academic writing, as it requires appropriate formal language and the avoidance of informal language, contractions, slang, conversational phrases, and clichés. The video explains the difference between formal and informal vocabulary and discusses the importance of giving a new argument from one's own perspective in research work.

What is non - academic writing ?

Non-Academic articles are written for the mass public. They are published quickly and can be written by anyone. Their language is informal, casual and may contain slang. The author may not be provided and will not have any credentials listed. There will be no reference list.

And also known as formal vocab and informal vocab.

Video 2

In this video Prof. Atanu Bhattacharya explained Academic writing very well.

1, What not to do.

2, What can be done.

3,  Web tools.

4, Case study.

Another Prof. Atanu Bhattacharya discussed that there are several kinds of scales that will also be helpful to understand academic writing.

A fake take away :

This academic writing has material effects. Some kinds of data, charts and rates material for academic writing.

Avoid a Jargon :

Also in this video we discussed Research and publication ethics, and carefully chose the topic.

Some tips for academic writing are given in the video. Tips like,

1. Introduction last : because at the end you are aware of what your research is and how it ends, so you can write a better introduction at last.

2. Create an Index literature review : Indexes are not needed to do in MLA or Chicago style but it is simply the names of books which helps to understand what there is in the books exactly.

3. Be sure of the triangulated methods : it means while doing research work one has to analyse work with various perspectives and various points of views for example historical views, from the point of view of biography or fiction etc.

So the three more suggestion given that are,

1) Do not repeat the same arguments.

2) Use available digital tools

3) Follow the literature

Also helpful digital tools are also suggested in the video. Like websites to publish our journals. like,

1) Zotero

2) Grammarly - it helps to improve writing and to refine writing.

3) Mendeley

4) Microsoft Word

5)OWL (Online Writing Lab)

6) Reverso

7) Excelsior Online writing lab

Avoid plagiarism :

 There are several types given in video of plagiarism are,

•  Verbatim of rephrasing without acknowledgement.

•  Inappropriate collaboration.

•  Other assistance without acknowledgement.

•  Cheating (copying others’ work).

• Duplication (submitting the same work for different courses/ programs/ degrees).

• Research fabrication and falsification.

•  Using computer networks for false attribution

Video - 3

The third video is also by Prof. Atanu Bhattacharya. In this video he discussed about 'The Mechanics of Writing'.

• 1, The first point in it discussed is formulating propositions. Formulation of propositions follows this particular linguistic form 

• Key term + verb (be)/ is defined as/ Can be defined/ may be defined as/ is often defined as + [in] which/ that/ where/ when + Defining features.

• 2, Genre - Classification - CARS - Creating A Reservation State.

• 3, Organising Idea

• 4, Paraphrasing

• Avoid repeating yourself.

•  Avoid quoting someone eles exactly.

• Change your vocabulary and do not repeat.

•  Develop your own voice in your writing.

5, How to write Research Paper Or Thesis

Introduction

1) The Rational 

This includes several points like why we are doing such research? What is the point of doing this? How interested we are in research? What is your position in that research?

2) The thesis statement/ the topic sentence 

It is all about research topic that research is about what.and how it is supported by other evidence. It structures the entire thesis.

3) Contextualizing Material 

It is linked with 'The thesis statement'. It is all about other works happened in this area of your research paper.

4)A statement to gain the reader's interest 

One need his/her own sentence to write so that they can provide audience something that is of his own and not taken from anywhere. Researcher has to mentioned the work that has been done by others and then his/her own arguments in favor or opposed.

5) A basic Definition 

Researcher need to define his/her topic. And has to give basic introduction about the topic so it will be easy to guess what the content about.

6.Noun Phrase and Nominalisations.

Thank you......