Graduate Reading course: Phase 3
Graduate Reading course: Phase 3
In Phase 1, you learned Global Local Reading, in which the focus was on spending as little time as possible to read longer texts. In Phase 2, you learned about the Academic Word List, and started learning the words in the lower sublists of the list.
In Phase 3, you will continue learning the AWL words, but this time you will learn them in sentences relevant to your specialist field. In order to do this, you will need to make a database of about 5000 words or more, preferably consisting of abstracts taken from a specialist journal in your field. Your database will of course be different from students studying in different fields. If you know a student doing research in the same field, you can work together to create a database. Please keep the database safe, because you will also use it in Phase 4 of the course.
The main tools you will use for Phase 3 are the AWL Highlighter and AWL Gapmaker. They are available at various sites, so please use Google or similar search engine to find them. The other tool is rikai.com , a site that translates words in context. (Try it on this text!)
The best sources for your database are the big academic journal sites. Alternatives are general science magazine sites such as New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/) and Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/), and the science/environment sections of newspapers such as the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/), but you should choose these only if you cannot find a suitable journal.
Major Journal Sites
- http://www.sciencedirect.com
- http://springerlink.com/home/main.mpx
- http://www.ingentaconnect.com/
- http://www.doaj.org/
- http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/
Your Tasks
1. Find a journal or other suitable source.
2. Collect about 5000 words of text in one document. Make sure you keep a backup!
3. Choose short excerpts and make AWL Highlighter documents.
4. Make AWL Gapmaker documents using the same excerpts as in (3).
