Using corpus-based resources to support academic writing

Using corpus-based resources to support academicwriting Shaoqun Wu Computer Science Department The University of Waikato

Features of academic writing • Complexity • Formality • Hedging • Precision • Objectivity • Explicitness • Accuracy • Responsibility

Complexity • more lexical words than grammatical words • more noun-based phrases • more nominalizations • more lexical variation

Laugesenclaims that, "Two of the group who are Year 13s have noticed a change this year." This point of view expressed is that people understand drink too much is bad and it changes their attitude of drinking. I agree with Laugesen's point that with people getting older and older, they realize drinking is not as fun as it seems to be and they don't need to drink to be cool, instead, they can make their own decision whether to drink or not. However, the problem is that Laugesen doesn't effectively shows the factors that change people's responds to their overdrinking and it seems to be not persuasive enough . It is not only a whether to be cool problem , drinking too much also brings some other problems. To take an example, if people drink a lot and get to be addictive to drinking that cannot get off it, it would bring the physical health problem such as memory loss and myocardial infarction. Hence, Laugesen's claim is not persuasive enough to show why people change their attitude of drinking and more factors should be considered. The other point I want to make is that Laugesen doesn't concluded the article.

In the last paragraph, Laugesenpoints out that teenagers are furious about adults' criticism of their overdrinkingas a problem when adult themselves drink so much . That is, many examples are shown in the article, but Laugesen doesn't really conclude what teenagers think about how they are drinking. The article should be concluded in the last paragraph and make the article more clearly to understand. First, teenagers are drawn to drink and the age to start drinking is getting younger and younger. Second, overdrinking is now becoming a problem; it's not only a teen's problem, but is a problem of the people who get drunk. Finally, people realizeoverdrinking is a problem and change their mind of drinking . Therefore, a conclusion is necessarily needed in the article. In this review, I have discussedLaugesen's article "Our teen drinking culture". The article covers several points of how teenagers think about their drinking. I have argued that while Laugesen is right that teenagers are drawn to drink, but the problems are that Laugesen doesn't effectively claims why and how people change their responds to their overdrinking. A clearly conclusion is needed to make the article more specific and easier understandable.

Laugesen claims that, "Two of the group who are Year 13s have noticed a change this year." This point of view expressed is that people understand drink too much is bad and it changes their attitude of drinking. I agree with Laugesen's point that with people getting older and older, they realize drinking is not as fun as it seems to be and they don't need to drink tobe cool, instead, they can make their own decision whether to drink or not. However, the problem is that Laugesen doesn't effectively shows the factors that change people's responds to their overdrinking and it seems to be not persuasive enough . It is not only a whether to be cool problem , drinking too much also brings some other problems. To take an example, if people drink a lot and get to be addictive to drinking that cannot get off it, it would bring the physical health problem such as memory loss and myocardial infarction. Hence, Laugesen's claim is not persuasive enough to show why people change their attitude of drinking and more factors should be considered. The other point I want to make is that Laugesen doesn't concluded the article.

In the last paragraph, Laugesen points out that teenagers are furious about adults' criticism of their overdrinking as a problem when adult themselves drink so much . That is, many examples are shown in the article, but Laugesen doesn't really conclude what teenagers think about how they are drinking. The article should be concluded in the last paragraph and make the article more clearly to understand. First, teenagers are drawn to drink and the age to start drinking is getting younger and younger. Second, overdrinking is now becoming a problem; it's not only a teen's problem, but is a problem of the people who get drunk. Finally, people realize overdrinking is a problem and change their mind of drinking . Therefore, a conclusion is necessarily needed in the article. In this review, I have discussed Laugesen's article "Our teen drinking culture". The article covers several points of how teenagers think about their drinking. I have argued that while Laugesen is right that teenagers are drawn to drink, but the problems are that Laugesen doesn't effectively claims why and how people change their responds to their overdrinking. A clearly conclusion is needed to make the article more specific and easier understandable.

Formality • avoid:"stuff", "a lot of", "thing", "sort of", • "can't", "doesn't", "shouldn't" • "put off", "bring up"

Laugesen claims that, "Two of the group who are Year 13s have noticed a change this year." This point of view expressed is that people understand drink too much is bad and it changes their attitude of drinking. I agree with Laugesen's point that with people getting older and older, they realize drinking is not as fun as it seems to be and they don't need to drink to be cool, instead, they can make their own decision whether to drink or not. However, the problem is that Laugesen doesn't effectively shows the factors that change people's responds to their overdrinking and it seems to be not persuasive enough . It is not only a whether to be cool problem , drinking too much also brings some other problems. To take an example, if people drink a lot and get to be addictive to drinking that cannot get off it, it would bring the physical health problem such as memory loss and myocardial infarction. Hence, Laugesen's claim is not persuasive enough to show why people change their attitude of drinking and more factors should be considered. The other point I want to make is that Laugesen doesn't concluded the article.

In the last paragraph, Laugesen points out that teenagers are furious about adults' criticism of their overdrinking as a problem when adult themselves drink so much . That is, many examples are shown in the article, but Laugesen doesn't really conclude what teenagers think about how they are drinking. The article should be concluded in the last paragraph and make the article more clearly to understand. First, teenagers are drawn to drink and the age to start drinking is getting younger and younger. Second, overdrinking is now becoming a problem; it's not only a teen's problem, but is a problem of the people who get drunk. Finally, people realize overdrinking is a problem and change their mind of drinking . Therefore, a conclusion is necessarily needed in the article. In this review, I have discussed Laugesen's article "Our teen drinking culture". The article covers several points of how teenagers think about their drinking. I have argued that while Laugesen is right that teenagers are drawn to drink, but the problems are that Laugesen doesn't effectively claims why and how people change their responds to their overdrinking. A clearly conclusion is needed to make the article more specific and easier understandable.

Binge drinking is considered harmful, regardless of a person's age, and there have been calls for healthcare professionals to give increased attention to their patients drinking habits, especially binge drinking.Some researchers believe that raising the legal drinking age and screening brief interventions by healthcare providers are the most effective means of reducing morbidity and mortality rates associated with binge drinking. Programs in the United States have thought of numerous ways to help prevent binge drinking. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests increasing the cost of alcohol or the excise taxes, restricting the number of stores who may obtain a license to sell liquor (reducing "outlet density"), and implementing stricter law enforcement of underage drinking laws.There are also a number of individual counselling approaches, such as motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioral approaches, that have been shown to reduce drinking among heavy drinking college students.

Preparing Essay • for teachers: building a topic related collection of articles • for students: collecting topic related noun phrases

Stress at Work • … is caused by word stress • … is affected by work stress • … due to the work stress • …. suffer from work stress • … is under extreme work stress • … causes higher levels of stress • Effects of work stress include … • Sources of work stress are … • … are the signs of work stress • As results of work stress, … • What can you do to reduce work stress? • How to manage work stress? • handle work stress • cope with work stress • uses strategies/resources to cope with work stress • learn … ways of coping with work stress

Domain specific collections

Collecting Collocations

Increase text variation

Using precise words • very very … • a lot of … • more and more … • bad and good • …

Very large corpora and extensive processing are necessary to provide suitable information. • Words of very different lengths would make this task more difficult for some words than for others. • Microsoft Outlook is the primary email management tool for many computer users, and contains some very important data. • He was in bad health and was unable to attend any tutorials. • Public opinion is not just one view held by society and it is made up of many good and bad opinions by individuals and groups throughout the country. • It would be possible for you to keep a limited number of goldfish, as they are very hardy and can tolerate a bad environment. • A lot of studies show that during the course of learning, learners follow a set of rules. • The main purpose of this guide is to provide a lot of information to enable users to create exercises quickly. • Deaf people have a lot of problems with reading and writing. • It is not easy to get happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to get it elsewhere.

Correcting word choice errors • They are emphatically against making divorce more difficult to obtain and unsympathetic to the idea that society should do more to hold marriage. • Everyone has the right to accept education in their own language. • Overseas education widens the experiences which are not learnt in books. • There are inevitable gaps of historyin different countries. • We cannot avoid culture dissimilarity in society and behavior. • I support students to anneal themselves.

Expanding text • from face challenges to … • from make progress to … • from nuclear weapon to … • from environment protection to …

Correcting grammatical errors • play important role on … • many countries is famous with … • give priority for encouraging … • take an advantage of • gain advantage

Using academic words • Academic wordlist • Finding usage patterns of an academic word

Finding useful sentence structures • Epistemic: are more likely to, it can be argued, the fact that the • Directive: it is necessary to, it is important to • Ability: it is difficult to, to be able to • Topic introduction: essay is going to, last but not least, in this essay I • Topic elaboration: in more detail in, on the other hand • Inferential: as a result of, in view of • Identification/focusing: one of the most, there would be no

flax.nzdl.org • Learning Collocations • Web phrases • The BAWE collections • Physical Sciences • Arts and Humanities • Life Sciences • Social Sciences • The British National Corpus

Thank you Shaoqun Wu (shaoqun@waikato.ac.nz) Computer Science Department The University of Waikato

Using corpus-based resources to support academic writing