synthesising those articles?

Hai and hello! 

We meet again and for sure for the new topic of lecture. 

This week we finally learnt the last chapter which is SYNTHESISING. 

What is synthesising?

Is it something important in our academic writing?

Is it familiar?

source from internet

At first, i feel unfamiliar with this word, but that is actually what we always do when doing our assignment. Usually we will find many sources of information for our assignment right? Then we will list out the similarities or the differences of each sources of information that we desired to. After get the all information, we will start doing our assignment. The process of collecting and combining the information from different sources is known as synthesising.

Generally synthesis is combination, a shortened version of several texts made into one written in own words. It draws on two or more sources and combines the ideas into a coherent whole.

In any academic writing, it is important to fulfil some requirement to ensure the writing is correct. In synthesis essay, atleast these four things might help to get the successful synthesis essay.

1. Read accurately and objectively,

2. See relations among different viewpoints,

3. Define a thesis based on these relations,

4. Support the thesis effectively.

From four things above, we able identify the idea for writing the synthesis essay. The idea can be developed and varied by several ways. Usually 3 methods below might help.

Thesis supported by examples: this method using common point of each sources and supports it with examples.

Comparison and contrast: we can draw our own conclusion based on the writer’s viewpoints after compare the similarities and differences.

Argument: we can collect all the opinion from the selected writers’ viewpoints to support our solid/strong point than compare or show the weakness of the others point that we feel are not valid.

By identifying the thesis statement of the essay, it will help us easier to develop the idea. From the thesis statement, we will know which method of that we would like to choose to develop our essay. It will guide us in identifying the point from our sources and easier us to construct the essay.

Synthesise is not that difficult to do, but there are some method and techniques that we should learnt and practice. Those method and technique will guide us to get correct synthesise essay and easier our work.

This class really helping me in improving my writing and enhancing my knowledge about writing.

“The first step in knowledge is to listen, then to be quiet and attentive, then to preserve it, then to put it into practice and then to spread it.”

 -Sufyan Ibn ’Uyainah, rahimahullah, [Reported in Hilyah Al-Awliya Vol.3 p.283]-

Amazing Summarising!

Hello everyone!

Today our class has a new chapter which is summary. Summary can be defined as condensation or shortened version of a text. Summary usually used for summarize, simply or short the text. It is helping us to get the information directly rather than need to read in detailed. From the text given, we need to identify necessary and important information to construct a summary. In summary should include the main points and the major supporting details of the whole text. It is important to exclude any opinions, background knowledge and personal information in the summary. If we include any one of it, our summary considered poor summary writing since the objective of writing summary to give important point of the original text.

Before this we already learnt about paraphrase right? Basically, summary might look like a paraphrase but there are the different between them.

source form internet

In summary, there two types of summary we can used which are 

1) one sentence summary: commonly used in academic writing where more concern about thesis statement of the author’s idea and 

2) informative summary: consist of author’s main ideas, main supporting details, data and arguments where more longer.

In writing, we should know how to get the maximum mark or have a good writing. Writing summary also has its own characteristic to have a good summary. There are four characteristics of summary that I’d learnt in the class.

FIRST: proper citation

•   State the title, author and source of the text

SECOND: main ideas

•   Clearly stated the thesis statement
• Exclude the additional personal opinions, views and judgement except key ideas from author
•   Exclude the examples, illustrations, descriptions and detailed explanations

THIRD: paraphrase

•  Rewrite using own words and sentence structure of author’s ideas
•  Ensure did not unchanged the original ideas of author when paraphrase

FOURTH: length

•   Should shorter than given text
•   Depends on summarise attention either for one-sentence summary or informative summary

That’s all about the topic this week, hopefully for better writing in future we are able to apply it in our writing. The most important thing is we are able to write better than before and able to write in proper, appropriate and improve our writing skills. 

"The capacity to learn is gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice."

via- Islamic Thoughts

Documenting Evidence

hai everyone!

We meet again this week. Almost 2 week we have not a class due to some event in our faculty. This week we continue with documenting evidence. What it is? Is it really important for us? Yes, it is really important. It is really important especially for students and those who like doing a research or report. 

Basically, documenting refer to sources that we used for our writing where we acknowledge them. Documenting can occur in two ways which citation and references.

Citation we can found in the text that we wrote while references usually located at the back of the report or paper. References appear more information rather than citation.

Oh ya, before we continue about citation and references, there are several type of style in writing citation and references and the commonly use is APA style (American Psychological Association). And yes, we currently use it.

Citation usually involve in the text of the paper. Which means we show the information that we wrote are from the others idea. Citation usually contain name of author and the year of the source published. An example of citation is

According to Crystal (1985),………………………………………..

………………………………………. (Cohen, 1996).

Citation can be either at the beginning or at the end of the sentences and it can be written as above.

While for references, it is the information that enables reader to find the sources we use. It is consist of all the citation information that we had use in our writing. Besides references, we also use bibliography as the information collection at the end of our paper. There is some different between references and bibliography which is references consist all of the citation we had use or stated in our writing but bibliography consist of all the information obtained either from proper or non-proper sources such blog. All the information is stated in the bibliography eventhough we did not use it as our citation in our paper. It is considered as all the material we used in our writing.

There are different in citing style for each type of sources we used. Books, journal, newspaper, websites or any others sources have its own style in writing it. Below is the example of writing the references and citation for different type of sources.

Both source from  internet

After learning it, we should able to use it in our assignment and it is important for thesis writing. I hope that we able to practice it and expert and more familiar with it.

See you again later with new lesson. Bye!

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi

Chapter 2: source of material

Hello everyone!

Source of material is one of the important parts in doing our assignment. For me the most important thing is, how we find it. How can we know the sources is
  valid?
reliable?
credible?

So today our lecture emphasized on how to find valid, reliable and credible information. In academic writing, these three criteria are important to ensure our work is genuine and acceptable. There are some strategies that we can apply in our work.

First: URL address
URL address is one of the most important parts in searching our sources. From the URL address we can know how reliable the information is. Some URL address that we familiar are ".gov" stands for government, ".edu" or ".ac" stand for education or academic and lastly ".com" stand for commercial. These types of URL address can be categories into two which are less reliable and more reliable. However, the reliability is depending on what purpose of the information we wish for. For example, we looking for academic purpose, we are suggested to rely on government or education site. The information provided can be trusted and these web sites are authorized to publish it. If we just looking for some common tips such as cooking tips, commercial site is recommended. Youtube, blog or discussion forum are the example of the commercial site that we can looking for.

Second: Content
After looking the URL address, the content of the web site should be emphasized. Common details that we should focus on are the author, audience and bias/prejudice. The author always symbolized the credibility, validity and reliability of the information. For example, their expert in certain field will increase trustworthy of people with the content of the web site. Title of Professor, Doctor example symbols of credibility, validity and reliability of the author. Audience is the group of people that the author focus on to read or used the content of the website. For example, Chemistry, Biology or Physics are content that focus on science people. Some website had provided sorting of content through this audience preferred. So it is easy for the audience to looking for their information materials. Bias or prejudice in the content also important which as a reader we have able to filter the content that contain bias or prejudice in their writings. It is because, bias and prejudice can cause credibility, validity and reliability of the source of materials vanished.

Third: Currency
Other than URL address and content, currency of the web site is important. The date publish, the updated info are example of the currency that we have emphasized on. Copyright also important because from that we know the reliability of the sources we used.

Hopefully from these strategies, we able to write a good assignment and it is really useful in future especially for us as a students.

So, lets practiced it!


"The words you speak today should be soft and tender,
because tomorrow you may have to eat them."
via AllahAlJalil

Today's lesson

Hello guys!

Plagiarism.
 Are you familiar with this 'word'?
I am pretty sure that as students we really familiar with it. What means by plagiarism? According to Karuthan , Abdullah, & Muhammad (2010), plagiarism can be define as any others work or ideas that used without acknowledge the owner or writer. Buying other work also can be categories as plagiarism. Based on the lecturer, there are seven type of plagiarism which are copy and paste, paraphrase, translate, buying paper, collusion, fabrication and doctoring.

It is really important to cite our work to avoid plagiarism. it is because, when we cite our work, it is shows that our work have a credibility. All the sources are gathered and it can be reliable for other readers.
Other than that, we able to help people that search for the information from the references we provided. They will be able to check and find the sources. Indirectly, we had help others in doing their work.
 Lastly, for sure we can avoid our self from plagiarism. It is mean that, others cannot blame us steal our work from other sources.

In writing, we should able identify the information we get can count as plagiarism or not. it means that, not all information we have to cited. it is including certain sources which are general knowledge and common knowledge within our field. General knowledge is information that generally known by public. For example is name of past Prime Minister, special date such as our teacher's day and famous event in history such as Independent day. These information is a general knowledge that known by public and it is necessary to cite.
In certain field, we have our term which commonly used and shared. For example, for science people word "photosynthesis", "heat capacity"  or "movement of electrons".

So that, there are some tips in order to avoid plagiarism that we can applied.
First thing first, we should avoiding copy and paste others work.
Ensure record the search engine we used to easier the acknowledge process.
Since the technology becomes advanced, we can used any application that can detect similarity of our work with original text.
Lastly, always acknowledged all work and ensure all sources acknowledge in bibliography.

When we know what is plagiarism, the important of avoiding it, know the criteria of plagiarism and method to avoid it, plagiarism can be reduced and it can help increase credibility of our work. In advanced, from our work it can show the integrity of the person is.


"Prayers cleans the mist and brings back peace to the soul."
 via-allahaljalil

First entry for my new blog

Hai everyone!

As I mentioned before, this is my first entry for my new blog. Actually I have some experienced in writing blog but I didn't wrote frequently. Usually I will wrote when I have enough time and great idea in sharing my story. For me writing is an interesting way in expressing our though, experiences and knowledge. Other than for sharing, writing blog can improve our writing style, wording and can enhance our creativity in writing.

For my second blog, I was told by our ELC lecturer for having our own blog as one of our medium in writing task. Our entry or writing will be mark and will count in our carry mark. Eventhough this blog is create for academic purpose, I will used this opportunity to improve my language and writing especially in English. So, all my post in this blog will totally in English and I hope people will help in correct my error and help me improve my weakness. 

I think that's all for my first entry in my new blog but later on I will write more and I hope all my friend will post some interesting entry for us to read. It is an interesting for having friend in blog where we can share our experience and feel what others experience. So, I am really excited waiting my friend's entry and I hope we will use this opportunity as good as possible. ^____^

And, welcome for new blog writer!

"No leaf falls without His knowledge.-Al An'am-59"