Ex. 2. Read the information and answer the questions below.

STARTING UP

UNIT 2.

SKILLS

Make a review of a research paper you would like to recommend to your fellow students. Use the questions [7] below as a plan for your review.

1. Who was the paper written by?
2. What is the title of the paper?
3. What are the year and the place of its publication?
4. What is the target audience of the research?
5. What is the overall purpose of the research?

6. How does the research fit into the context of its field? Is it, for example, attempting to settle a controversy/ show the validity of a new technique/ open up a new field of inquiry?

1. Do the title, abstract, key words, introduction and conclusions accurately and consistently reflect the major point(s) of the paper?

8. Do you agree with the author's rationale for studying the question in this way?

1. Are the methods appropriate/ current/ described clearly enough so that the work could be repeated by someone else?

10. Were the measurements appropriate for the questions the researcher was approaching?

1. Are all tables and figures clearly labeled? well planned? too complex? necessary?
2. Point out any errors in technique, fact, calculation, interpretation, or style.

13. Do you agree with the conclusions drawn from the data?

14. Are these conclusions over-generalized or appropriately careful?

15. Give your comments on the list of references. Is it complete/ accurate? Does it include the latest materials on the topic of research?

1. What is the major contribution of the paper?
2. What are its major strengths and weaknesses?
3. What portions of the paper should be expanded? condensed? combined? deleted? Please, be specific!
4. Is the writing concise, easy to follow, interesting?

Writing Abstracts and Annotations

Ex. 1. Look at these sayings. What do they mean? Which of the ideas do you agree with?

• Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

Henry David Thoreau, American author (1817 – 1862)

• Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.

Ayn Rand, Russian-American novelist (1905 – 1982)

• I can’t write five words but that I change seven.

Dorothy Parker, American poet and writer (1893 – 1967)

Do you know how many new books were published May 10, 2013, the day this unit is being updated? 6,532. And how many new books have been published in 2013 by May 10? 859,249.

Look at the data on books published displayed on the Worldometers’ counter which is based on statistics published by UNESCO. This is the list of the top ten countries with the number of new titles per year as of the latest year available:

the United States (2010) 328,259 (new titles and editions)
theUnited Kingdom (2005) 206,000
China (2010) 189,295 (328,387 total)
the Russian Federation (2008) 123,336
Germany (2009) 93,124
Spain (2008) 86,300
India (2004) 82,537 (21,370 in Hindi and 18,752 in English)
Japan (2009) 78,555
Iran (2010) 65,000
France (2010) 63,690 (67,278 total) [8]

1. How can a reader sail this ocean of books?

2. How can a researcher stay on top of new research in his field?

3. What resources can help a person to browse a large amount of publications? Think about book reviews, reader’s digests, Google Scholar Alert option[9] and others.

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