Hedging in Data Commentaries

Dear Professor,

I noticed that the results of regular exam and makeup exam were quite different last time. The average score of students during a regular exam was 86 in comparison with the 72 score of makeup exam. The discrepancy between both exams may be explained by various factors. One of the most significant difference was an administered time. The regular exam took place on Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. in contrast with the makeup exam which took place on Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. The results may be explained by the level of attention on different day and at different time. It seems like the middle day of workweek might be more appropriate to retain attention of students as well as the evening time. Friday afternoon does not seems appropriate at all, because students are already concentrated for upcoming weekend. Another factors could be a number of students in the class and the room environment. In the higher concentration of peers, students might feel more comfortable. In the case of makeup exams is interesting to note the omission of board examles. All these factors may play a role in the student’s results and should be taken into account.

Best Regards

Information flow

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the story of King Lear and his daughters was popular. By the time Elizabeth died, at least a dozen available books offered the story to anyone wishing to read it. Making the story a simple narrative that stated an obvious moral, however in most of these stories the characters were undeveloped. When he began work on Lear, perhaps his greatest tragedy, Shakespeare must have had several version of this story available to him. Even though the characters were based on the stock figures of legend, he turned them into credible human beings with complex motives.

Graph description

The graph shows a circulation of people in DC metro during a day. The amount of people using a metro spikes two times a day, at 8 am and 6 pm. It points out the time people commute to work and back home. After the morning peak, occurs a steep decrease till 10 am and after begins a slow rise till 12 pm. Between 11 pm and 2 pm, there is a plateau, which could be due to a lunch break people have at work. Between 2 pm and 4 pm, the number of passengers falling to 100 000 people by 4 pm. The second rise of a day occurs after 4 pm when the number of people soars to a peak of 400 000 at 6 pm. After this time, begins the steady decline in number of people using the DC metro.

Methodology Section

This research project is going to investigate the elderly Chinese living in the US to find out whether the ,,prevailing myths“ that Chinese communities would always look after their elderly, is still truthful. The subjects were found due to contacts on friends and friends of friends in the local Chinese community. Primary were used face-to-face interviews to ensure one-on-one situation. The purpose was to assure a private mood without a family members, to have a truthful information about their feelings and experiences. There were not any significant problems and interview method were usually quickly approved. Only about ten persons have been interviewed, because there were not enough time. Not all of contacts worked out and also there were some refusals. We are aware that ten interviewees is not enough for statistical analysis so this was just a small-scale pilot study. Every interview last about an hour. Always not all questions were used, because data could be based on semi-structured interviews. The strong aspect of interviews was the possibility to chose a language for the interviewees. They could chose the language the most comfortable for them, like English, Mandarin or Taiwanese. Due to this aspect was possible to achieve a desired outcome.

Literature Review of Introductions

Recently, there has been growing interest in examining of academic article introductions. Research area of linguistic is broad and expanding in last decade, especially with the focus on structure of academic articles. A central issue of the research is a linguistic examination of academic articles with focus on introductions. The CARS Model is a central theoretical framework of linguistic research focusing on introductions, because provides a comprehensive steps to examine single steps of introduction with a logic order. However the CARS Model may be problematic to apply in non-English countries or in non-humanities sciences. This article investigate a structure of academic introductions in a different languages and different areas to determine where the CARS model is relevant and where is not.

The main theoretical framework used in researches had been a CARS Model. Few researches had been done during the nineties, but majority of researches were conducted after 2004, when the CARS Model had been revised. The previous researches have a similar structure. Mostly quantitative methods were used with the focus on corpus of academic articles ranging from six articles (Liao, 2009) to two hundreds articles (Mahzari & Maftoon, 2007). The domains of investigated articles differs from social sciences to natural and computer sciences, so the extent of research is extensive. As well as representation of different languages is broad and range from English to Chinese and Hungarian.

The most of the articles uses the CARS Model as a central framework of research and there is almost no comparison with another framework. CARS Model is thus in a position as the only correct model for examining the structure of academic articles. Also the corpus of examined articles is quite narrow and the result of research may be misrepresenting. There is also a narrow range of examinated languages. Languages as a Spanish, Chinese, Russian, French and Hindi are used by the majority of the world but in the research are represented minimally. There are still a gaps and place for further research.

The Summary of Academic Article

Article: A contrastive analysis of English and Hungarian theoretical research article introductions

Authors: Anett Árvay and Gyula Tankó

The main task of this article is to find out whether the structure of research articles written in languages other than English is the same or different from the structure of articles written by Anglo-American authors. This research question has two sub-issues. First one is whether the CARS Model accurately describes the introduction of English theoretical research articles and second one the differences of rhetorical patterns of English and Hungarian theoretical research paper introductions.

Till today no research has been conducted to contrast the rhetorical structure of research papers written in English and Hungarian. The selected discipline became linguistics and the primary materials examined were an english and hungarian academic articles, particulary their introductions. From each language were selected twenty academic articles focusing on linguistics. The framework for analysis was chosen a CARS Model for its structure of academic articles and used methodology was a comparative analysis of chosen linguistics academic articles in English and Hungarian.

The authors found that English introductions are much longer and more thoroughly divided into paragraphs than the Hungarian introductions. In addition the English introductions are clear and consistent in numbering and labelling and Hungarian introductions varies not only by journals but also by articles. In general was found that CARS Model does not capture fully the characteristic features of theoretical research article introduction.

Citation Theories Example

There are two major citation theories that are widely accepted. The first theory emphasizes the recogition and acknowledgement of the intellectual property rights of authors. The citations are matter of ethics and a defense against plagiarism. The second theory has supporters in well-established fields like the sciences. In this perspective citations are used to show respect to previous scholars. They recognize the history of the fileld by acknowledging previous achievements.

Furthermore there are also theories proposed by individual authors which highlights different aspects. The rhetorical aspect is accentuated in Gilbert (1977) theory. The writers use citations to give their statements greater authority. Also Swales (1990) emphasize the rhetorical aspect when he claim that citations point the way to what has not been done and so prepare a space for new research. There is also an economic aspect in Ravetz (1971) theory. This author perceive citations as a kind of mutual reward system. Rather than pay other authors money for their contribution, writers ,,pay“ them in citations. The last visible is a sociological aspect in Bavelas (1978) theory. Citations are used to supply evidence that the author qualifies as a member of the chosen schoraly community.

The citations in APA Style

Samraj, B. (2008). A discourse analysis of master's theses across disciplines with a focus on introductions. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7,1, 55-67

Martin Martin, P., Perez, L, Isabel K (2009). Promotional Strategies In Research Article Introductions: An Interlinguistic And Cross-Disciplinary Genre Analysis. Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses, 59, 73-87

The problem graduate students face in managing time

Almost every graduate student faces the problem of time management. The study at university is time consuming in general due to everyday courses, reading preparation, writing an essays, preparation of presentations, mid-term exams, final exams and so on. This list of duties is sometimes difficult to manage and graduate student face to this problem in their everyday life.

However, the modern time goes hand in hand with modern technologies thanks to which students life is easier than before, the world has also become faster and the expectations from graduate students are higher. Today it is automatically expected that every student has a notebook with immediate access to an internet connection and is able to work with basic programs like Word, Exel, Power-point and so on. Due to this fact, the professors expect more work than graduate student are able to do.

How can graduate students manage everything in time and properly? Proper management of time relies on systematic preparation and attention to scheduling while, at the same time, avoiding excessive work. The key to this balancing act is to do not leave everything at the last moment. Instead of this, make a list of duties for the month, for each week and also for each day and follow it. Scheduling makes life easier. Sometimes is impossible to manage reading of five academics text in a day, but thanks to list of duties you know the extent of work. It is not necessary to read whole text, but just to have an outline what is the basic idea of each text and have some particular details or examples in your mind to better remember.

This systematic time-management helps to graduate students to better coordinate their work. The sooner they learn this system, the better. Because in their future professional life, it goings to become more and more relevant.

Comparison of Academic and Informal Writing

The audiences of both autors are mostly university students but Dahl's audience is more specific and concerned in an academic topic based on research. On the other hand the audience of Azuma is more wider and they expect much more the personal experiences than academic research.

The tone of Dahl's article is formal, as you can see an example. ,, Disciplines differ in what they see as constituting knowledge within their domain and in how new knowledge is produced.”

In comparision the Azuma’s article is informal. - ,, In February 1995, on a beautiful sunny day with clear Carolina blue skies.”

The structure of both articles differ significantly. Dahl uses traditional academic structure divided to introduction, methods and results, conclusion. On the other hand Azuma's article is descriptive. The arguments of Dahl are based on research in comparision with Azuma's arguments based on his own experiences.

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