They might be particularly useful in answering your essay question.

i j f ‘1. EAR ESP and JEAP’ and ‘6. Disciplinary variation or similarity’ - these sections use

abbreviations/technical language, indicating that the intended audience may be experts.

Strategy 3: Read an extract

Are you the intended audience of the book? Is the level too easy or too difficult? If you cannot

Understand much from the extract, the book will be of little use to you.

|\) By looking at a sample of the writing, you must make this judgement yourself.

Is it authoritative?

There is no point in using the ideas of people who are not respected in your academic field.

Strategy 4: Identify the publishers

If the book/article has been published by a well-respected publisher (e.g., a good u n iv er s ity

Pr e s s , a major publishing company), you can assume the publication has a certain quality.

These publishers are unlikely to publish material they think is factually inaccurate or extremely

biased. If, however, it is by a va n ity publisher, its ‘authority’ may be less.

■ Journal o f English for Academic Purposes - a respected journal in its field; experts in the

Field have judged this article to be of the necessary quality. However, the journal is aimed at

Professionals, so the level may be inappropriate for a student.

Question 3: Is it recent?

Scholarship moves forward quickly. In some subjects (e.g., robotics), even five years is a long

Time. You must judge whether the information is still relevant to your topic.

Strategy 5: Look at the date the book was published

fill ‘2002’. Although in ten years the core principles of academic writing will probably not

have changed much, some of the content about ‘new technologies’ may not be relevant.

You may want to compare this source with more recent sources as well.

Question 4: Is it reliable?

Since people can publish material more easily than ever before (mainly via the Internet),

Reliability is an increasingly important issue. Step 7 and Step 8 focus on these issues.

2) The areas of ‘coherence’ and ‘cohesion’

are closely related to each other. While cohesion generally

refers to the way in which a text links together, coherence

Relates to the overall idea of logical development and whether

Your argument is consistent throughout.

Cohesion is an important component of academic writing.

It enables the reader to follow the line of your argument

Clearly and to understand your point of view. In addition,

Using this skill means that your text avoids repetition.