Page 42 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

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CHAPTER 2
Less common writing tasks include:
• Expanded definition (least common in medium-length and out-of-class assignments)
• Process analysis in such disciplines as political science, economics, sociology, psychology, accounting, marketing, and management (hardly ever found in out-of-class assignments)
• Fact-based exemplification of concepts and theoretical premises and constructs (overall least common in both in-class and out-of-class assignments)
• Not found in any assignments—narration/description in the disci- plines or English courses
In general, the frequency of rhetorical patterns does not seem to differ greatly among the writing tasks in undergraduate and graduate courses. Specifically, cause-effect essays can be found in over half of all written tasks in in- and out-of-class assignments, with exemplification, process analysis, and definition being comparatively least common.
Exposition rhetorical tasks require writers to explain or clarify the topic/subject. In general terms, exposition is entailed in expressing ideas, opinions, or explanation pertaining to a particular piece of knowledge or fact. For example,
1. What nonverbal cues communicated the most conflict in the newlywed study? (Psychology) (Epstein, 1999, p. 291)
2. Discuss the various types of accounting information most companies routinely use. (Business) (Zikmund, Middlemist, & Middlemist, 1995, p. 447)
3. Whichforms ofgovernmentpredominated amongtheItaliancity-states?In the end, which was the most successful? Why? (History) (Perry et al., 2000, p. 322)
Cause-effect interpretation tasks deal with establishing causal relation- ships and are based on causal reasoning. Most assignments of this type in- clude a discussion or an explanation of a cause-effect relationship among events or problems, identification of causes or effects, and a presentation of problem solutions in the case of problem-solution tasks.
Examples of cause-effect interpretation assignments can be:
1. Pabst Blue Ribbon was a major beer company when I was in college. However, recently it has lost market share, and now you hardly even hear about it. What happened at Pabst and why? (Business) (Adapted from Bean, 1996)
2. Whydoescultureariseinthefirstplace?Whyiscultureanecessarypartof all organized life? (Sociology)(Charon, 1999, p. 105)
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