ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL

PURPOSES
CONTRAST AND COMPARE VARIOUS CONCEPT PAPERS
Two types of concept papers:
Explicit means something and stated plainly there is no uncertain detail
Example: She is a good mother

What is the importance of Explicit?

The thesis statement is the most important part for you to be explicit. When stating your
reasons in your concepts you should make sure that you include the main points you will prove.
Topic sentences are usually discussed but rarely explained. Each sentence should tell your reader
what that paragraph is all about.

Implicit means something is implied but not stated plainly.

Example: She provides everything.
Therefore, It is explicit when you are going to tell what is in the picture by using the term
A DOG. It is stated clearly and fully without uncertain detail. But it is implicit when you tell the
picture is a four legged animal, furry and has a tail that barks. It is implying and not expressing
directly but still understood.

The same when choosing a title for your concept paper, you might want to be explicit to
hook the reader’s attention and not to be confused about what the study is all about.
Concept paper for a project
Cover page
• state the name of the proponents.
• Introduction
• State the information about the funding purposes.
• State the mission of the proponents and align it to the funding’s mission.
• Present and describe the qualification to other partners
Rationale or background-state the problem to be solved.
• Project description- set the goals of the objectives
• Timeline
• Benefits and anticipated outcomes
• Outcomes to be evaluated.
Concept Paper for Academic Research
Title page-
• State your research title.
• State your name and school
• State the date of submission
Background study
• Provide the current state of the field you are researching
• State the reasons why you want to study the chosen topic
• State theoretical and practical implications of your research
Preliminary Review/ Related Literature
• Literature that supports your study
• Related study that will help with your research
Statement of the problem
• State the general problem in one sentence
• State specific question or objectives
Timeline
• Provide charts set in months and years.
References
List of books, journals, and other resources

If we may take a closer look, a project concept has a difference in academic research. A
project concept is used or serves as a foundation of a full proposal, it tends to tell if the project
you are going to conduct is feasible. While doing academi research the writer tends to seek facts
and knowledge which enhances social development. But there are some similarities between the
two are they both set the goals of the objectives, set timelines, and outcomes evaluated.
And these parts may vary in different specializations like for example a project concept
may be used in businesses and academic research may be used in different subject areas for a
teacher or a student.

TYPES OF CRITICAL WRITING

Cri
tical approaches to literature reveal how or why a particular work is constructed and what its
social and cultural implications are. Understanding critical perspectives will help you to see
and appreciate a literary work as a multilayered construct of meaning. Reading literary criticism
will inspire you to reread, rethink, and respond. Soon you will be a full participant in an endless
and enriching conversation about literature.

Critical
Approaches
1. Formalism

Formalist Criticism emphasizes the form of a literary work to determine

its meaning, focusing on literary elements and how they work to create meaning.
Literature is a form of knowledge with intrinsic elements--
style, structure, imagery, tone, and genre. Formalist critics don't deny the historical,
political situation of a work; they just believe works of art have the power to transcend by
being "organic wholes"--akin to a being with a life of its own. The appreciation of
literature as an art requires close reading--a careful, step-by-step analysis and explication of
the text
(the language of the work). An analysis may follow from questions like, how do various
elements work together to shape the effect on the
reader?

2. Psychoanalytic

Psychoanalytic Criticism emphasizes the process of introspection, or looking into the past
experiences and latent desires, to understand the rationale of human behavior. He identified
three
sections of the human psyche, namely id, or the place of deepest secret desires of humans,
the ego, which informs humans on how to act in a socially acceptable manner,
and the superego, which represents people’s unselfish tendencies.
3. Feminism

The women's movement in the 1960s to struggle for the equality of rights as a social class.
Related to the ways in understanding literary works, in both production and reception

in literature. Feminist Criticism is concerned with the role, position, and influence of women in
a literary
text. It asserts that most “literature” throughout time has been written by men, for men.
Examines the way that the female consciousness is depicted by both male and female
writers.
Four Basic Principles of Feminist Criticism:
 ●Western civilization is patriarchal.
●The concepts of gender are mainly cultural ideas created by patriarchal
●Patriarchal ideals pervade “literature.”
●Most “literature” through time has been gender-biased.

4. Lesbian/Gay/Queer Criticism

Queer Criticism examines how certain works display fear of the unknown, especially
homophobia, of the fear of the LGBTQ community, which leads to repression. For instance,
a particular text may show certain homoerotic tendencies, or a strong sexual
desire for a member of the same sex but is repressed because such ideas is deemed as taboo
by the society in general.

5. Marxism

Marxist Criticism emphasizes economic and social conditions. It examines literature to

see how it reflects the way in which dominant groups (typically, the majority) exploit the
subordinate groups (typically, the minority); or the way in which people

become alienated from one another through power, money, and politics. The Marxist critic
simply is a careful reader or viewer who keeps in mind issues of power and money, and any
of the following kinds of questions:
• What role does class play in the work; what is the author's analysis of class
relations?
• How do characters overcome oppression?
• In what ways does the work serve as propaganda for the status quo; or does it try to
undermine it?
• What does the work say about oppression; or are social conflicts ignored or blamed
elsewhere?
• Does the work propose some form of utopian vision as a solution to the problems
encountered in the work?

APPROCHES IN LITERARY CRITICISM

You have listed some opinions. Opinions are your own views of certain issues or concerns.
There are words that you can use when expressing your opinion. Here are some phrases that
you can use:

I think… From my point of view

I believe… From my perspective

I feel… In my view

In my opinion… It seems to me that

I would say…
(Source: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/how-to-express-your-opinions-in- english/4755937.html)

These are examples of ways to express your opinion:

I think technology is harmful.

In my view, technology is not useful and helpful.

 In my opinion, technology is very important nowadays.

You may also just state your opinions without using those phrases. You can just say,
Technology is harmful but only when you are in an informal situation. If you are in a formal
setting, it would be appropriate to use those phrases.

You are entitled to your own opinions, but these opinions must be based on facts so that
you will not be biased.
It is very important that you will not be focused only on giving opinions. You must also
look for information that will help support your opinion because -

• this will add to the credibility and validity of your opinion; and
• more will believe you if what you express is strongly supported with information
that are true and correct.

A very important expository discourse that you must learn how to write is the reaction
paper, review, or critique. It is mainly written to communicate a fair assessment of situations,
people, events, literary and artistic works and performances. Whether a social commentary,
or a critical judgment, it conveys incisive insights into its analysis of events, its interpretation
of the meaning or importance of a work or artifact, or its appreciation of the moral or
aesthetic values reflected in the work or performance. It may include the main purpose of the
event; the devices and strategies employed; an evaluation of its success or failure; and an
assessment of its significance and relevance, timeliness or timelessness. (English for Academic
Purposes Teacher’s Guide, DepEd, 2016)

The Digital Divide: The Challenge of Technology and Equity

-anonymous-

(1) Information technology influences the way many of us live and work today. We
use the internet to look and apply for jobs, shop, conduct research, make airline reservations,
and explore areas of interest. We use E-mail and internet to communicate instantaneously
with friends and business associates around the world. Computers are commonplace in
homes and the workplace. Although the number of internet users is growing exponentially
each year, most of the world’s population do not have access to computers of the internet.
Only 6 percent of the population in the developing countries are connected to telephones.
Although more than 94 percent of U.S households have telephones, only 56 percent has
personal computers at home and 50 percent has internet access. The lack of what most of us
would consider a basic communication necessity -the telephone-does not occur just in
developing nations. On some Native American reservations only 60 percent of the residents
have a telephone. The move to wireless connectivity may eliminate the need for telephone
lines, but it does not remove the barrier to equipment costs.

(2) Who has internet access? The digital divide between the populations who have
access to the internet and information technology tools and those who don’t is based on
income, race, education, household type, and geographic location, but the gap between
groups is narrowing. Eighty-five percent of households with an income over $75,000 have
internet access, compared with less than 20 percent of the households with income under
$15,000. Over 80 percent of college graduates use the internet as compared with 40 percent
of high school completers and 13 percent of high school dropouts. Seventy-two percent of
household with two parents have internet access; 40 percent of female, single parent
households do. Differences are also found among households and families from different
racial and ethnic groups. Fifty-five percent of white households, 31 percent of black
households, 32 percent of Latino households, 68 percent of Asian or Pacific Islander
households, and 39 percent of American Indian, Eskimos, or Aleut households have access to
the internet. The number of internet users who are children under nine years old and persons
over fifty has more than triple since 1997. Households in inner cities are less likely to have
computers and internet access than those in urban and rural areas, but the differences are no
more than 6 percent.

(3) Another problem that exacerbates these disparities is that African- American,
Latinos, and Native Americans hold few of the jobs in information technology. Women about
20 percent of these jobs and receiving fewer than 30 percent of the Bachelor’s degrees in
computer and information science. The result is that women and members of the most
oppressed ethnic group are not eligible for the jobs with the highest salaries at graduation.
Baccalaureate candidates with degree in computer science were offered the highest salaries
of all new college graduates.
(4) Do similar disparities exist in schools? Ninety-eight percent of schools in the
country are wired with at least one internet connection. The number of classrooms with
internet connection differs by the income level of students. Using the percentage of students
who are eligible for free lunches at a school to determine income level, we see that the higher
percentage of the schools with more affluent students have wired classrooms than those with
high concentrations of low-income students.
(5) Access to computers and the internet will be important in reducing disparities
between groups. It will require higher equality across diverse groups whose members develop
knowledge and skills in computer and information technologies. The field today is
overrepresented by white males. If computers and the internet are to be used to promote
equality, they have to become accessible to schools cannot currently afford the equipment
which needs to be updated regularly every three years or so. However, access alone is not
enough; Students will have to be interacting with the technology in authentic settings. As
technology has become a tool for learning in almost all courses taken by students, it will be
seen as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. If it is used in culturally relevant ways,
all students can benefit from its power.

The text is a good reaction paper due to the following reasons:

1. The text tells us of the author’s opinions about how technology affects lives of people
especially students. You may agree or disagree with what the author says and your
reaction would depend on how the author supported his ideas with facts.
2. The text contains statistical data and these are good evidences which helped in making
the opinions strong. Without those data, you might think that the author is just inventing
ideas.
3. Even your personal experience can be used as support because it was also mentioned that
students use the internet and computers.
4. You will most likely agree with the author. But if you disagree, it is alright as long as you
also have enough facts to support why you disagree with the author.
5. The most important thing to note is facts are necessary in supporting opinions because
these will make your opinion objective and not biased.
Lesson 2: Approaches in Literary Criticism
When you express your views, it is also important to use appropriate language for a
specific discipline. There are terms that you should prefer to put in your writing depending on
the field or context you are in.

For example, if you are to convince people who are experts in the field of Science
and Mathematics, you need to use their language. Here are examples of terms that you can
use in the following disciplines.

Science Mathematics General Terms

Experiments Equation Test

Lab equipment Statistical tool Materials

Invention Solution Action

 Laboratory test Result Pregnancy Test

Hormones and Genes Equivalent Values Family

You should be formal and use technical terms that are familiar to them. However, if
your audience is the general public, you also need to use the language they know. Do not use
those that are not common to them. Avoid jargons or technical words and slang or invented
words. You can be informal when necessary. However, you must never forget to be POLITE to
avoid having future problems.
Learning appropriate language and manner is not enough in expressing your views.
There are critical approaches that you can use to make it more convincing and appropriate.

Read about the critical approaches. You can highlight some important ideas. You can
use these in expressing your views.

1. Formalist Criticism
- This approach regards literature as “a unique form of human knowledge that needs to be
examined on its own terms.” All the elements necessary for understanding the work are
contained within the work itself. Of particular interest to the formalist critic are the
elements of form—style, structure, tone, imagery, etc.— that are found within the text. A
primary goal for formalist critics is to determine how such elements work together with
the text’s content to shape its effects upon readers.

2. Gender Criticism

- This approach “examines how sexual identity influences the creation and reception of
literary works.” Originally an offshoot of feminist movements, gender criticism today
includes a number of approaches, including the so-called “masculinist” approach recently
advocated by poet Robert Bly. The bulk of gender criticism, however, is feminist and
takes as a central precept that the patriarchal attitudes that have dominated western
thought have resulted, consciously or unconsciously, in literature “full of unexamined
‘male-produced’ assumptions.” Feminist criticism attempts to correct this imbalance by
analyzing and combatting such attitudes—by questioning, for example, why none of the
characters in Shakespeare’s play Othello ever challenge the right of a husband to murder
a wife accused of adultery. Other goals of feminist critics include “analyzing how sexual
identity influences the reader of a text” and “examining how the images of men and
women in imaginative literature reflect or reject the social forces that have historically
kept the sexes from achieving total equality.”

3. Historical Criticism
- This approach “seeks to understand a literary work by investigating the social, cultural, and
intellectual context that produced it—a context that necessarily includes the artist’s
biography and milieu.” A key goal for historical critics is to understand the effect of a
literary work upon its original readers.

4. Reader-Response Criticism
- This approach takes as a fundamental tenet that “literature” exists not as an artifact upon a
printed page but as a transaction between the physical text and the mind of a reader. It
attempts “to describe what happens in the reader’s mind while interpreting a text” and
reflects that reading, like writing, is a creative process.

5. Media Criticism
- It is the act of closely examining and judging the media. When we examine the media and
various media stories, we often find instances of media bias. Media bias is the
perception that the media is reporting the news in a partial or prejudiced manner.
 Media bias occurs when the media seems to push a specific viewpoint, rather than
reporting the news objectively. Keep in mind that media bias also occurs when the
media seems to ignore an important aspect of the story. This is the case in the news
story about the puppies.

6. Marxist Criticism
- It focuses on the economic and political elements of art, often emphasizing the ideological
content of literature; because Marxist criticism often argues that all art is political, either
challenging or endorsing (by silence) the status quo, it is frequently evaluative and
judgmental, a tendency that “can lead to reductive judgment, as when Soviet critics rated
Jack London better than William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, and Henry
James, because he illustrated the principles of class struggle more clearly.” Nonetheless,
Marxist criticism “can illuminate political and economic dimensions of literature other
approaches overlook.”

7. Structuralism
- It focused on how human behavior is determined by social, cultural and psychological
structures. It tended to offer a single unified approach to human life that would embrace
all disciplines. The essence of structuralism is the belief that “things cannot be
understood in isolation, they have to be seen in the context of larger structures which
contain them. For example, the structuralist analysis of Donne’s poem, Good Morrow,
demands more focus on the relevant genre, the concept of courtly love, rather than on
the close reading of the formal elements of the text.

WRITING THE REACTION PAPER/ REVIEW/ CRITIQUE

REACTION PAPER is a form of paper writing in which the writer expresses his ideas
and opinions about what has been read or seen. Reaction paper is evaluated due to the
writer's communication skills and only then due the unique ideas and the content. This paper
writing may be informal, two pages long. As all essays, a reaction paper comprises
introduction, body, and conclusion. In introduction the writers states the main premise, in a
body he expresses his ideas and in conclusion summarizes the results. The reaction paper is
not a summary of the article although information should be included.

Source: https://www.bestessays.com/glossary/reaction_paper.php

You may be asked to write a reaction paper indirectly, and you have to get the
intention of the examiner fast. A good example is that you may be asked to give a critique
about a certain subject, and this would constitute a reaction paper, or to write a review about
a literature book; it also falls into the same group.

Source: https://www.aresearchguide.com/write-reaction-paper.html

Despite the fact that you are writing about your reactions, thoughts and
impressions, you still need to follow an appropriate structure. So make sure to: •
Read the material carefully

Whether it is a book, article, or a film, make sure to read or watch it very carefully.
Sometimes, you will need to repeat this procedure for a couple of times.

• Mark interesting places while reading/watching

This will help you focus on the aspects that impressed you the most and come back to
them after you are done with reading or watching.

• Write down your thought while reading/watching Doing so, you won’t forget any

important ideas that came to your head.

 • Come up with a thesis statement

Use your notes to formulate a central idea you will develop in your further work. Then
put it in one sentence and make it your thesis statement.

• Compose an outline

Every time you write an academic paper, you need to make an outline. Try at least once
and you will see how helpful an outline could be!

• Construct your paper

Only when all the preparations are done, start writing a paper itself.

SOURCE: https://ozzz.org/reaction-paper/

The first part of your paper should contain information on the author and the topic.
You need to write down the main ideas and highlight the main points of the paper. You can
use direct quotations if needed. Avoid your personal opinion in this section. The second part
should contain your personal thoughts on the subject. Focus on a main problem or address all
of them and describe your opinion. Explain how the material can relate to the modern world,
to the society or separate individuals. Back your statements with sources if needed and make
conclusions whether you support the author or not.

Writing a reaction paper can be quite a challenging task, so many students use
examples to learn more about its structure and key features. Here are a few
recommendations, which will help you complete an outstanding reaction paper:

• Read the original article carefully and highlight the main ideas and points you want to
discuss;
• Describe your point of view and back it with additional information if needed. Use
vivid examples;
• Use various sources to make your statement more argumentative.
There are also a few tips, which will help you to avoid common mistakes. First, don’t give a
summary of an article. You should perform your personal opinion, not an overview. You
should always back your ideas with examples. However, avoid using examples, which are
difficult to relate to the topic.