PLAN FOR TODAY
1. Two stories about reading with activities (paper handouts).
2. Presentation skills: sample presentation: "The Ecology is the New Opium for Masses" (video).
3. Academic reading skills: summarizing and evaluating texts. Group summary. (Handouts and blackboard reports)
4. Words, words and words. (activities)
1. Presenting arguments and commenting on others' work
If you advocate something, you argue in favor of it: He advocated capital punishment.
If you deduce something, you reach a conclusion by thinking carefully about the known facts:
Look at these sentences and see if you can deduce how the imperfect tense is used.
If you infer something, you reach a conclusion indirectly: From contemporary accounts of his research, we can infer that results were slower to come than he had anticipated.
If someone's work complements someone else's, it combines well with it , so that each part of work becomes more effective.
If someone's work overlaps with someone else's work, it partially covers the same material.
You might call someone's work: empirical [based on what is observed] ambiguous [open to different interpretations]; coherent [logically structured] comprehensive [covering all that is relevant] authoritative [thorough and expert]
2.
Talking about figures
and processes
If figures or decisions are referred to as arbitrary, they are based on chance rather than plan or any particular reason.
Figures that deviate from the norm are different from what is typical.
If statistics distort the picture, they give a false impression.
If you refer to the incidence of something (e.g. left-handedness), you are talking about how often it occurs in the population.
If something (e.g. the incidence of brown eyes) is predominant, it is the largest in number.
If things (e.g. stages in a process) happen in sequence, they happen in a particular order.
If you want to say that something happens in many places or with many people, you say that it is widespread: widespread outbreaks of an illness, widespread alarm.
Which of the five verbs best fits in each sentence?
1. Although my brother and I are researching in similar areas, our work, fortunately, does not ……. . It has,
however, often been said that what I do ……. his work very well.
2. Look at the complete set of graphs and see if you can …….. the rules governing the data from them.
3. This article …….. a somewhat different approach to the problem than that which has been put
forward by others in the field.
4. A great deal can be …… about the artist's state of mind from the content and style of his later works.
advocate, deduce, infer, complement, overlap
empirical ambiguous coherent comprehensive authoritative
1. a textbook written by the most highly regarded expert in the field
2. research based on a survey of the population
3. a poem which can be understood in two quite different ways
4. an argument which is well-expressed and easy to follow
5. a textbook which gives a broad overview of an entire discipline
1. If the incidence of asthma in children is increasing, what is actually going up:
a) the seriousness of asthma attacks b) the number of asthmatic children
2. What are the next two numbers in the sequence 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36?
3. If the average mark of schoolchildren in a maths test was 68% and James's mark
deviated most markedly from that average, what do we know about James's mark?
4. If a historian distorts the facts, does he present them a) accurately b) clearly
c) in a misleading fashion?
5. If a sociologist chooses the subjects of her research in an arbitrary fashion, is she being
careful to get people from an appropriate balance of backgrounds?
Guess the meaning from context: Guess the meaning of the highlighted words:
1) I took the tome off the shelf and opened it to page 94. Then I began to read.
2) Hurricanes and tornadoes are treacherous. Only a very foolish person would go out during that kind of weather.
3) Many ships have vanished during hurricanes. No survivors from the lost ships have ever been found.
4) By anticipating the robber's next move, the police were able to arrive at the bank before the next robbery happened.
5) I'm really hungry! That apple didn't appease my hunger. I want a sandwich now.
6) This virus has really sapped my energy. I get tired just walking across the room.
7) Our well-designed and pricy products are only for discriminating consumers.
8) Albeit often unnoticed and undervalued by scholars, this method has been successfully used by practicing educators.
