THE COMPLEXITY OF ACADEMIC WRITING Read the example from Halliday (1989, p.79) and notice the difference between written language and spoken language: “You can control the trains this way and if you that you can be quite sure that they'll be able to run more safely and more quickly than they would otherwise, no matter how bad the weather gets.” “The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster train running in the most adverse weather conditions.” The main difference is the grammar, not the vocabulary Other equivalents (p.81): Spoken Written Whenever I'd visited there before, I'd ended up Every previous visit had left me with a sense of feeling that it would be futile if I tried to the futility of further action on my part anything more The cities in Switzerland had once been Violence changed the face of once peaceful peaceful, but they changed when people Swiss cities became violent Because the technology has improved its less Improvements in technology have reduced the risky than it used to be when you install them at risks and high costs associated with simultaneous the same time, and it doesn't cost so much either installation EXERCISE 1: Convert these sentences into written forms Because the jobs are even more complex, programmes to train people will take longer I handed my essay in late because my kids got sick After infrastructure is improved, ethnic minorities will be given access to computers and phones THE USE OF NOMINAL GROUPS Some structure of nominal groups: determiner premodifier noun postmodifier a complicated solution to the problem the constitutional aspects market forces striking feature students who had no previous experience the question to be debated the negative impact on the economy the controlled and formalized contexts focusing on the language EXERCISE 2: Notice how the word “need” is modified The fundamental human need to belong comes from the desire to associate with others, to cooperate, to accept group norms However, the Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) shows that the need to belong can also be perverted into excessive conformity, compliance, and in-group versus out-group hostility The need for autonomy and control, the central forces toward self-direction and planning, can be perverted into an excessive exercise of power to dominate others or into learned helplessness Consider three more such needs that can cut both ways First, needs for consistency and rationality give meaningful and wise direction to our lives Yet dissonant commitments force us to honor and rationalize wrong-headed decisions, such as prisoners remaining when they should have quit and guards justifying their abuse Second, needs to know and to understand our environment and our relationship to it lead to curiosity, scientific discovery, philosophy, the humanities, and art But a capricious, arbitrary environment that does not make sense can pervert those basic needs and lead to frustration and self-isolation (as it did in our prisoners) And finally, our need for stimulation triggers explorations and adventurous risk taking, but it can also make us vulnerable to boredom when we are placed in a static setting Boredom, in turn, can become a powerful motivator of actions as we saw with the SPE night shift guards to have fun with their “playthings." THE SEQUENCE OF PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES This article analyses the constitutional aspects behind the formation of the first and second National Governments, examining in particular the role of the king in the formation of the two governments The information very properly reached the files of the survey for antimalarial compounds under the Survey Number SN-183 Many of the suggested benefits of group living have been concerned with avoiding being eaten by predators NOMINALIZATION Compare the following paragraphs, and determine which one is academic Reproduction with variation is a major characteristic of life Without reproduction, life would quickly come to an end The earliest single-celled organisms reproduced by duplicating their genetic material and then dividing in two The two resulting daughter cells were identical to each other and to the parent cell, except for mutations that occurred during the process of gene duplication Such errors, although rare, provided the raw material for biological evolution The combination of reproduction and errors in the duplication of genetic material results in biological evolution, a change in the genetic composition of a population of organisms over time All organisms reproduce and sometimes when they reproduce, the children vary This is an important characteristic of life If organisms did nor reproduce, life would quickly come to an end How did the earliest single-celled organisms reproduce? They duplicated their genetic material and then they divided in two Two daughter cells resulted from this process; they were identical to each other and to the parent cell But sometimes as the genes duplicated, they changed or mutated These errors are not very common but they provide the basic material for life to evolve So when the genetic material duplicates, they reproduce and they make errors As a result, there is a change in what the genes are composed of When these processes combine, life evolve EXERCISE 3: Practice nominalizing the words The………… (discover) of this general pattern generated the intermediate disturbance hypothesis It serves as a template for the………… (synthesize) of proteins The………… (increase) occurs because the number of individuals an area can support increases with …………………… (product), and with larger population sizes, species ……………… (extinction) rates are lower But why should species ……………… (rich) decrease when…………………… (product) is still higher? This………… (rise) in body temperature inhibits the………………… (grow) of the invading pathogen Cytokines may also attract phagocytic cells to the site of injury and initiate a specific………………… (respond) to the pathogen