Foreword 

To Students and Teachers 

Essay-Writing Foundations 

This book is designed to guide novice writers of English from basic paragraph composition to short essays. The approach taken is structural, with each chapter emphasizing particular components of English academic style. Since the audience for this book is first-year university students in all departments, the content focus is English for General Academic Purposes (EGAP). Teachers and students should take this into account as they complete the exercises in the book.  

Students coming to this course directly out of Japanese high school should picture EGAP essay writing as situated between the kansobun (a common writing assignment in Japanese Junior and Senior High Schools) and the sotsugyoronbun (the research paper required by most departments for graduation from university). Academic writing needs to explain ideas clearly, in a logical order so that it is understandable to a large number of readers. The aim of this course is to help students acquire English writing skills that enable them to write clear and concise essays. 

While academic writing may be defined differently depending on who you ask, academic essays generally have the following features: 

• a specific topic focus,
• unified and coherent paragraphs,
• a generic Introduction-Body-Conclusion structure,
• references to external sources of information.

Learning how to write academic essays is important and relevant for university students because academic essays:

• create a bridge to research papers,
• help students organize ideas logically,
• are required by many academic tests and university courses,
• introduce students to proper citation to avoid plagiarism.

This textbook takes a structural approach to learning how to write an EGAP academic essay. There are two main components comprising this approach. First, the book aims to serve as a practical, accessible reference guide for students wishing to review the main parts of academic essays. The book’s focus on structural components showcases the parts of an essay by referring to the following:  

Location: Where is the part?  

Functions: What does the part do? 

Features: How do the characteristics of that part help to achieve its function? 

This approach helps students to identify, describe, and explain the parts and then apply them in their academic writing.  

Second, the book introduces novice writers to a process approach for academic writing. While there is more than one way to organize your academic writing, being aware of the writing process can help students approach their writing assignments strategically in a systematic way. The writing process is a sequence of steps writers can follow when writing essays. This book outlines six steps for producing academic essays. 

EGAP Writing 1: Academic Essays has 14 chapters. Each chapter opens with a list of objectives, and the components of essay writing are introduced through the following sequenced sections: 

• Learn It! Introduces key information about the parts of the essay and writing process
• Practice It! Offers exercises to practice newly acquired knowledge
• Write It! Presents tasks allowing students to demonstrate their understanding of academic writing

Some chapters include Preview It! and Review It! exercises as well. In boxes titled FYI (For Your Information), teachers and students will find additional information to raise students’ awareness about certain issues in academic writing and give tips for better writing. The glossary at the end of the book presents the chapters’ key terminology as a quick reference for both students and teachers. 

Exercises in this book form the foundation students will need for completing the more advanced writing exercises in the volume: EGAP Writing 2: Research Writing. A teacher guide is available for both books. 

English Writing-Listening Instructors

Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, i-ARRC

Kyoto University 

January 2021

Foreword 

To Students and Teachers 

Research Writing Foundations 

This volume follows up on the essay writing foundations laid in EGAP Writing 1: Academic Essays. Chapters 1 to 7 of this book maintain a structure-based approach to academic writing with a focus on the location, function, and features of the primary elements of essays. The focus on structural components showcases the parts of an essay by referring to the following:  

Location:     Where is the part? 

Functions:   What does the part do? 

Features:     How do the characteristics of that part help to achieve its function? 

This approach helps students to identify, describe, and explain the parts and then apply them in their academic writing. These first seven chapters also guide students step-by-step through the process of writing a basic academic essay by utilizing writing and research strategies. This practice with process writing helps students learn how to approach their writing assignments in a systematic way. 

After leading students through the writing process to complete a short essay, exercises begin to focus on writing extended essays, or academic reports. The focal point of chapters in the second half of the book shifts from the structure-based approach to a quality-focused approach for producing academic reports. Chapters 8 to 14 concentrate on the development and expression of ideas and persuasive arguments in English academic reports. Each of these chapters introduces a specific point of academic language and style to raise students’ awareness of key issues in academic writing and ways of constructing evidence-based arguments. The transition from a scaffolded process to a more individualized reflective process allows for: 

• students to develop more autonomy in their writing by further practicing procedures introduced in previous chapters;
• adaptation of basic academic essay structure to a style resembling that common to the student’s field of study; and
• flexibility in the teaching sequence of chapters.

"Quality" in this book means learning how to write an EGAP report in a more refined academic style. The quality focus aims to guide students to use the process approach to writing more autonomously by engaging in self-reflection on that process. To write high-quality EGAP reports that achieve the intended purpose, students need to pay attention to the following three features: quality of thought (reasoning), quality of content (evidence), and quality of language (expression). Quality of thought includes careful consideration of organization, planning, thesis development, and logical reasoning. Quality of content includes evaluating outside sources for credibility, selecting appropriate evidence from sources, and documenting sourced evidence responsibly. Quality of language includes writing with attention to formal academic style, hedging of claims, as well as accuracy and precision of expression. 

There are variations in the requirements for academic essays; however, the primary task is always the same. The writer investigates an issue, makes a claim about the issue, and supports that claim in a logical manner with independent sources. An academic essay clearly lays out what the author believes is the correct stance on a particular issue. The exercises in this book guide students on how to make arguments specific, reasoned, detailed, and supported with credible evidence. There is also instruction on anticipating and addressing objections or limitations intended to prepare students for more advanced research writing later. 

EGAP Writing 2: Research Writing has 14 chapters. Each chapter opens with a list of objectives, and the components of essay writing are introduced through the following sequenced sections: 

• Learn It! Introduces key information about the parts of the essay and writing process
• Practice It! Offers exercises to practice newly acquired knowledge
• Write It! Presents tasks allowing students to demonstrate their understanding of academic writing

Some chapters include Review It! exercises as well. Furthermore, in boxes titled FYI (For Your Information), teachers and students will find additional information to raise students’ awareness about certain issues in academic writing and give tips for better writing. The glossary at the end of the book presents the chapters’ key terminology as a quick reference for both students and teachers. A separate teacher guide is available for this book. 

English Writing-Listening Instructors

Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, i-ARRC

Kyoto University 

January 2021