A Data-Driven Study of the English Lexical Verbs Some Quantitative and Qualitative Evidence in Learners’ Academic Writing

2014 ◽  
pp. 41-50
Author(s):  
Noorzan Mohd Noor ◽  
Shazila Abdullah
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Qualitative Evidence

scholarly journals Analysing the behaviour of academic collocations in a corpus of research-papers: a data-driven study / Analisando o comportamento de colocações acadêmicas em um corpus de artigos científicos: um estudo dirigido por dados

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 1229
Author(s):  
Paula Tavares Pinto ◽  
Diva Cardoso de Camargo ◽  
Talita Serpa ◽  
Luciano Franco da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Research Paper ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Scientific Journals ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Electronic Library ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Respective Field ◽  
English Speaking

Abstract: Authors from different countries have published their papers in English, aiming to promote their research results widely and to become internationally known by their peers. It is also true that, although they are aware of the English terminology used in their respective field, some authors still struggle with some features of academic writing such as collocations. Thus, this paper presents a discussion on the underuse and overuse traces of academic collocations by Brazilian authors who had their articles published in English on an open electronic library of scientific journals. In order to analyse the collocations used by these researchers, we compiled a 906,035-word corpus from eight different academic areas. The collocations observed were statistically compared to those from an academic corpus of English writings which contains texts produced by English-speaking authors. Results showed that there are more collocations underused than overused by the authors. The analysis proved that the collocation repertoire of researchers could be broadened by being pointed out during academic writing workshops.Keywords: academic collocations; research paper writing; corpus linguistics.Resumo: Autores de vários países têm publicado seus artigos científicos em inglês com o intuito de promover amplamente os resultados de suas pesquisas dentre a comunidade científica internacional. É verdade que, embora estejam cientes da terminologia utilizada no respectivo campo de pesquisa, alguns autores ainda apresentam dificuldade em lidar com certas características da escrita acadêmica, como o uso das colocações. Este artigo apresenta uma discussão sobre traços de sobreuso e subuso de colocações acadêmicas utilizadas por autores brasileiros que têm seus artigos publicados em inglês numa plataforma eletrônica aberta de artigos científicos. Para analisar as colocações utilizadas por estes pesquisadores, compilamos um corpus de 906.000 palavras a partir de oito áreas científicas. As colocações analisadas foram comparadas estatisticamente com as colocações de um corpus acadêmico de inglês que contém textos escritos por autores anglófonos. Os resultados mostraram que há mais traços de subuso que sobreuso de colocações acadêmicas utilizadas pelos pesquisadores e este repertório poderia ser ampliado se fossem destacadas durante cursos de escrita acadêmica em língua inglesa.Palavras-chave: colocações acadêmicas; escrita de artigos científicos; linguística de corpus.

A critical review of research and practice in data-driven learning (DDL) in the academic writing classroom

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-369 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meilin Chen ◽  
John Flowerdew
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Language Education ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Research Progress ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Year 2000

Abstract Since the late 1980s, there has been a growing interest in the direct application of corpora, or data-driven learning (DDL), in language education. This relatively novel teaching approach has been particularly applied in the teaching and learning of English for Academic Purposes (EAP)/academic writing, especially since the turn of the century. This paper synthesizes and evaluates the research progress in the field of EAP/academic writing since the year 2000 by critically reviewing 37 empirical studies focussing on applications of DDL in this context. Based on the critical review and a discussion of some contentious issues, a set of five recommendations for the way forward in DDL research and practice for EAP/academic writing is presented.

scholarly journals An assignment based on data driven journalism: a case study

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa Simonite
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Writing Assignment

In a module designed to develop skills in presenting and evaluating statistics, students of mathematics and statistics were given an assignment asking them to research and write a piece of data driven journalism. Data driven journalism is a new phenomenon which has expanded rapidly due to the growth in open data, new visualisation tools and online reporting in newspapers, periodicals and blogs. The assignment provided students with a writing assignment that was individual, small-scale, research-based and embedded within their discipline. The students were asked to formulate a research question that could be investigated using survey data available from an electronic data archive. The result of the investigation was to be written up as a piece of data driven journalism for online publication, including a data visualisation. In addition to using discipline-based skills and written communication, the assignment required students to use research skills and digital literacy. An assignment set in the context of writing for the public extends students’ writing experience beyond the domains of discipline-based professional reports and academic writing. Data driven journalism provides opportunities to develop students’ writing alongside other skills for employment and can be used to design assessments for a wide range of disciplines.

scholarly journals Data-driven learning in ESP university settings in Romania: multiple corpus consultation approaches for academic writing support

2019 ◽  
pp. 75-81
Author(s):  
Mădălina Chitez ◽  
Loredana Bercuci
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Learner Satisfaction ◽  
First Year ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
University Settings

Corpora are valuable technology-supported learning resources to be used by autonomous language learners or during teacher-guided lessons. This study explores the potential of corpus consultation approaches for the improvement of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students’ academic writing skills. We investigated the effects of three types of Data-Driven Learning (DDL) activities in a sample group of 29 first-year and second-year students majoring in Geography for Tourism at a Romanian university, consisting of writing tasks supported by: a Learner Corpus (LC), a Native-Speaker Corpus (NSC), and a Web-based Corpus (WBC). The research methodology involves the combination of quantitative and qualitative data, extracted from pre- and post-intervention corpus analyses, with the results of a learner-satisfaction questionnaire. The findings indicate a significant differentiation in the complexity of the lexico-grammatical features used by learners in consequent intervention stages and a better integration of L2-related academic writing strategies into their written productions. The study yields first conclusions on the integration of computer-processed language databases in DDL strategies for ESP learners in the Romanian university context.

Taking DDL online

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Crosthwaite
Keyword(s):  
Error Correction ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Error Detection ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Online Course ◽  
Design And Implementation ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
Error Detection And Correction

Abstract This paper describes the rationale, design and implementation of a short private online course (SPOC) on data-driven learning (DDL) (Johns, 1991), focusing on L2 error correction in postgraduate academic writing and involving over 300 registered users. I discuss the affordances of using a SPOC platform (namely EdX) for online DDL training, describing activities that cover a range of useful strategies for DDL-led error detection and correction. Learners’ usage of the SPOC platform and their quantitative and qualitative perceptions of the course are described for the reader. The paper also outlines certain conceptual and methodological challenges involved in taking DDL instruction online.

Write on the edge: using a chemistry corpus to develop academic writing skills resources for undergraduate chemists

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 580-589 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. L. Bruce ◽  
P. K. Coffer ◽  
S. Rees ◽  
J. M. Robson
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Scientific Literacy ◽  
Writing Skills ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Language Pedagogy ◽  
Use Of Data ◽  
Chemistry Research ◽  
Second Language Pedagogy

Many undergraduate students find the production of an extended piece of academic writing challenging. This challenge is more acute in the sciences where production of extended texts is infrequent throughout undergraduate studies. This paper reports the development of a new English for Academic Purposes (EAP) workshop and associated resources for third year undergraduate chemists to support their dissertation module. The workshop is designed to utilise a searchable database of student texts (a corpus) developed as part of the FOCUS project at Durham University. This novel use of data-driven learning (DDL), common in second language pedagogy, transfers well to the chemistry classroom as the processes of research and discovery (of words rather than chemicals) involved in DDL parallel similar processes in chemistry research. Our workshop and online consolidation activities have been positively evaluated by both staff and our current cohort of students. The project is being rolled out across other departments at Durham as well as the corpus tool being utilised at other UK HEIs. This corpus-based approach to academic writing in chemistry offers a unique perspective on the interplay between language and scientific literacy.

The Corpus of Academic Learner English (CALE)

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Callies ◽  
Ekaterina Zaytseva
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Writing Proficiency ◽  
Learner Corpus ◽  
Language For Specific Purposes ◽  
Learner Corpora ◽  
The Way

Learner corpora present an option to inform, supplement and advance the way language proficiency is operationalized and assessed, and may also be used in data-driven approaches to the assessment of writing proficiency that are largely independent of human rating. The aim of this contribution is twofold: first, to introduce a new Language-for-Specific-Purposes learner corpus, the Corpus of Academic Learner English (CALE), currently being compiled for the study of academic learner writing; and second, to illustrate how the CALE is useful in a text-centered, corpus-driven approach to the assessment of academic writing to achieve a higher degree of reliability in assessing language proficiency.

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