Comparison of Academic and Informal Writing

Here after, Kim2006 is used to denote article “Academic oral communication needs of East Asian international graduate students in non-science and non-engineering fields”; Azuma1997 is used to denote article “A graduate school survival guide”.

Audience
How do the intended audiences of the two articles differ?
Kim2006: the audiences are East Asian international graduate students in non-science and non-engineering fields.
Azuma1997: the audiences are PhD students in science and engineering fields.

What are the concerns of these audiences?
Kim2006: the audiences concern required academic listening and speaking skill levels in their university courses.
Azuma1997: the audiences worry about whether and how they can graduate from the PhD program.

What do these audiences already know?
Kim2006: the audiences know the skills, academic listening and speaking, which they are required to master, however, have difficulties to meet them.
Azuma1997: the audiences know it is difficult to finish a PhD program, particularly, when the student has to work alone on a long-term research topic without detailed direction from the advisor.

What are their expectations when they read the article?
Kim2006: the audiences want to know how to improve the academic listening and speaking skills.
Azuma1997: the audiences want to know how to solve the problems in the process of PhD program and graduate as soon as possible.

What do they want to know and/or feel?
Kim2006: same as above.
Azuma1997: same as above.

What elements of the articles indicate the intended audience?
Kim2006: the title.
Azuma1997: the title.



Tone
Writing conveys a certain tone or “feeling” about the author and the author’s attitude towards the topic of a text. When referring to more expressive texts, tone is often discussed in terms of voice—the idiosyncratic features of a writer’s style. How does the tone or voice of the two articles differ? Provide some examples from the text.
Kim2006: this article is published in a journal, hence, the author has to be as much objective as possible. Basically, the author wants to do some analysis based on the data the author collected. In order to make the analysis convincible, the author provides a complete description about how the data are collected, filtered and demonstrates the different between the result and other researchers’ conclusions.
Azuma1997: Because the author was a recently graduated PhD student from computer science field and wanted to give some advices to junior graduate students in the same or close fields, the author basically wrote a letter in the flavor as a personal letter.



Authority
Audiences are interested in reading informative writing (or listening to informative oral presentations) because of the author’s authority or expertise in a given domain. What is the basis of the two authors’ authority? How is this established in the texts?
Kim2006: the author analyzed the data collected during a survey and compared the analysis with other researchers. Basically, this article is data-oriented.
Azuma1997: the author gave his personal experience for easing the difficulties met during the PhD program. Because the author has successfully finished the program, audiences are willing to believe him.


Rhetorical Structure
Texts are more than collections of words: They have a structure that sets up and meets readers’ expectations. What is the structure of the two texts? How and why does the structure differ? What purpose do the structural elements serve?
Kim2006: this article is a technical paper published on a journal and this means this article follows the typical format of a regular paper, i.e. abstraction, introduction, background (or related work), methodology, data analysis, and conclusion. In order to make the paper valuable and not repeat others’ work, it is very important to compare this work and the work done by other researchers and point out the difference at the very beginning. Then the methodology follows and results are provided. Analysis based on the data should be detailed and demonstrate the points what the author wants to present in the paper. Finally, a conclusion or summary presents the main points again.
Azuma1997: this article is a guide to junior PhD graduate student and, hence, does not follow any format. At the beginning of the article, the author presented his motivation for writing this article. Then the author started several sections focusing different aspects of the skills or techniques a PhD student needs to have to successfully reach the end of the program. Every section talks one particular skill, however, no direct relation between two contiguous sections.

Argument
How do the texts put forth their arguments? Are there different standards of proof in the two texts? How do they treat claims, reasons, evidence, counter-arguments, and basic assumptions? Do they position their discussion within the previous discourse of a particular community? If so, what is this community?
Kim2006: In this paper, what the author exactly does is to analyze the data collected from a survey. In order to make the analysis valuable, the author compares s/he work with previous related works and emphasizes the different between his/her work and others. In the writing, the author refers a lot of research papers published before and emphasizes the conclusions that differ from previous ones. The paper is written by EAP professional and for classroom instructors in general and EAP professional in particular.
Azuma1997: In general, this article is the collection of personal experience about how to finish PhD program in science and engineering fields successfully. Because this is only an informal writing, the author does not try to prove what he claims all the time and it is up to the audience to make the decision accepting them or rejecting them. This article is mainly for new PhD students.


Scope
What is the scope of the two texts? Which text deals with a wider, more general topic and which one deals with a more focused topic? What factors are responsible for the difference in scope?
Kim2006: This article discusses how to improve the English writing and speaking skills for East Asian international students in US. Thus, the topic is very much focused on one particular point which is very common for technical papers. Limited by page size and numerous efforts done on the similar topics before, it is very difficult to cover a broad topic in a 10-page paper and the author has to narrow its scope to the contribution only.
Azuma1997: This article discusses different skills a PhD student needs to master or pay attention to in his/her degree program. Hence, it covers a much broader scope than the other one.


Sentence Mechanics and Grammar
Academic and informal texts have different requirements in terms of grammar. In broad terms, how does the grammar of the two texts differ? What specific features differ? Provide some examples from the text. Examples should include punctuation rules.
Kim2006: Academic paper should be written in an objective way. For example, “Because the response rate was fairly low, it should be emphasized that the results of this study do not reflect the opinions of all EAGS in the academic departments surveyed. Since the survey was rather long, it is likely that the respondents were primarily those who had strong interest in academic listening/speaking tasks and may thus not be representative of all EAGS.” In the above example, the author avoids to use “I”, “you”, etc. and tries to describes the things as a third-party viewer.
Azuma1997: Informal papers generally are more interesting for reading and consist of many subjective opinions. For example, “If you do not have an acceptable answer to this question, then don't get a Ph.D. I repeat: if you do not have a rock-solid reason for getting the Ph.D., then it is better that you leave with a Master's. Why? Completing a Ph.D. is a long, hard road with many potholes and washed out bridges along the way. You may run over some land mines and have to stop and turn around and explore other routes. If the goal is important enough to you, then these obstacles will not prevent you from completing your journey. But if you don't know why you are on this road, then you will get discouraged and will probably leave without finishing, having wasted years of your life. ” In the above example, the author writes the paragraph like he is talking to you directly which never happens in formal writing.


Style
Do the two texts include colloquialisms and casual expressions? Provide some examples.
Kim2006: This article does not include colloquialisms and casual expressions.
Azuma1997: This article is full of those words and expressions. The example given above demonstrates this very well.


Reference to Others’ Ideas
What conventions do the two texts use to refer to others’ ideas? What’s the purpose of the citations in each text? What determines the citation style used in each text?
Kim2006: This article refers others’ work a lot and follows the formal way to put citation in the text. The purpose of the citations is mainly to provide arguments developed by other researchers and proof materials for its own arguments.
Azuma1997: This article almost does not refer any others’ work except providing further reading at the end.


Vocabulary
How does the vocabulary used in the two texts differ? Discuss the differences in detail and provide concrete examples.
Kim2006: this article uses formal vocabulary, such as “examine”, “concern”, “consider”, “explore”, “conduct”, and “perception”.
Azuma1997: this article uses casual words, such as “toil and sweat”, “strike”, “magically”, “star graduate student”, “rock-solid”, and “soul searching”.