reflective journal 3

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

WEEK 3


This week we did a lot of class discussion and reading exercises. We also practised note taking and were introduced to elements of computer. It was an intensive week. We began the week study with writing class, where we discussed differences of deductive and inductive style of writing. With this lesson we concluded a topic on academic culture. Up to this point, we learned a many features of academic text. We learned that academic text is always logical, rational and impersonal. Every statement in academic text needs to be supported by evidence, in reverse claims not supported by evidence have to be qualified using qualifying words such as: may, many, some etc.In academic text opinion is called position. It differs from personal opinion in the sense that it is impersonal and needs evidence. A position always needs to be supported by verifiable evidence. In some instance, an academic text can have a personal opinion only if; writer is taking a responsibility for his statement or, is presenting an academic text/argument based on his /her research study.

Furthermore, we looked at descriptive and analytical approach to academic text. Descriptive text provides information about the subject, while analytical analyses the text through comparison and contrast. Last, we learned deductive and inductive style of writing. Deductive text features a statement of position supported by evidence and concludes with re-statement of position, while deductive text presents a reason first and than leads to conclusion. Deductive style is the one accepted at University.

Similarly to writing class, we discussed Academic culture in reading class in slightly different way. We read and talked about difficulties overseas students encounter studying in Australia. The ‘culture shock’ it is called. Some of the social aspects of difficulties that overseas students face are: finding hard to adapt to a new environment, make new friends and missing their loved once.
From academic point of view, language barriers, adjusting ti a new study pattern are more common difficulties.

In listening class, we practised note taking and then learned how to look and listen for directions (clues) to lecture excerpt. We also did an exercise on text prediction.

Overall week was full on learning. We were given a lot of hand-outs. There is a fairly
large amount of reading to do.
Writing tasks still cause me a headache. I have to deeply concentrate and brainstorm my thoughts. I need time to come with writing that I am happy with. I spend time re-reading and re-writing my thoughts in better words and sentences. I hope my flow of writing will improve with practice.
I also feel a bit anxious about a computer class. My computer skills are pretty basic. Knowing that I need to type my writing on to computer is an extra time consuming task to do. But practise makes perfect, so hopefully it will work for me.