‘Notice the Similarities between the Two Sets …’: Imperative Usage in a Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine A. Neiderhiser ◽  
Patrick Kelley ◽  
Kohlee M. Kennedy ◽  
John M. Swales ◽  
Carla Vergaro
Keyword(s):  
Upper Level ◽  
Level Student

Linguistic Markers of Stance and Genre in Upper-Level Student Writing

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Aull
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Academic Writing ◽  
Writing Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
Writing Research ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Level Student

Stance is a growing focus of academic writing research and an important aspect of writing development in higher education. Research on student writing to date has explored stance across different levels, language backgrounds, and disciplines, but has rarely focused on stance features across genres. This article explores stance marker use between two important genre families in higher education—persuasive argumentative writing and analytic explanatory writing—based on corpus linguistic analysis of late undergraduate and early graduate-level writing in the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP). The specific stance markers in the study, both epistemic and textual cues, have been shown to distinguish student writing across levels; this study, then, extends the analysis to consider the comparative use of these markers across genres. The findings show two stance expectations persistent across genres as well as significant distinctions between argumentative and explanatory writing vis-à-vis stance markers that intensify and contrast. The findings thus point to important considerations for instruction, assignment design, and future research.

‘Two rules are at play when it comes to none’: A corpus-based analysis of singular versus plural none

English Today ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 50-56
Author(s):  
Sugene Kim
Keyword(s):  
Academic English ◽  
Spoken English ◽  
Plural Noun ◽  
Actual Use ◽  
Grammar Rules ◽  
Singular Noun ◽  
Prescriptive Grammar ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Indefinite Pronoun ◽  
Level Student

This paper identifies discrepancies between prescriptive grammar rules concerning the number of the indefinite pronoun none and the actual use of this pronoun in modern academic English as shown in the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE) and Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). Whereas prescriptive rules state that the number of none is determined by its referent or by the user's desired effect, the analyses of the MICASE and MICUSP search results suggest that, regardless of the modality of discourse, (1) the number of none with an anaphoric referent is determined by the number of its referent and (2) the principle of proximity applies without exception when none is used as part of a ‘none of + singular noun/pronoun’ phrase and applies frequently but not always when followed by an ‘of + plural noun/pronoun’ phrase.

scholarly journals Beyond the single course: teaching research throughout the curriculum

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-171
Author(s):  
Paula A. Mazzer ◽  
Bethany Melroe Lehrman
Keyword(s):  
Research Skills ◽  
Stem Majors ◽  
Laboratory Courses ◽  
Teaching Research ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Level Student

Our STEM majors arrive on campus as rule followers—“Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it,” is their refrain. To break this mindset, we redesigned our suite of laboratory courses to scaffold research throughout the program. Every laboratory incorporates both discipline-specific and research-specific skills. Foundational courses introduce research skills, leading to upper level student-driven research. This model should be extensible to any curriculum and makes research an integral part of the undergraduate career.

Revealing disciplinary variation in student writing: a multi-dimensional analysis of the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP)

Corpora ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack A. Hardy ◽  
Ute Römer
Keyword(s):  
Dimensional Analysis ◽  
Student Writing ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Successful Student ◽  
Communicative Functions ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Procedural Discourse ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Procedural Evaluation ◽  
Level Student

The purpose of this study was to uncover sets of co-occurring, lexico-grammatical features to help to characterise successful student writing. The writing was captured by the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP, 2009) and was taken from sixteen disciplines. MICUSP is a corpus of A-graded, upper-level student papers of different disciplines and paper types ( O'Donnell and Römer, 2012 ; and Römer and O'Donnell, 2011 ). Following Biber (1988) , we used a multi-dimensional analysis to identify dimensions of frequently co-occurring features that best account for cross-disciplinary variation in MICUSP. The four functional dimensions of MICUSP appear to distinguish between: (1) Involved, Academic Narrative versus Descriptive, Informational Discourse; (2) Expression of Opinions and Mental Processes; (3) Situation-Dependent, Non-Procedural Evaluation versus Procedural Discourse; and (4) Production of Possibility Statement and Argumentation. Along with a description of the methodology, this paper defines the features that constitute the factors, which have been labelled based on their communicative functions. Similarities and differences at the disciplinary and genre-specific levels are discussed as are the implications for discipline-specific and register-based pedagogies.

Evaluating the Graduation Gap: Interventions Designed to Enhance Upper-level Student Success and Commitment

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian B. Lord ◽  
Beth Bjerregaard ◽  
Jennifer L. Hartman
Keyword(s):  
Student Success ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Level Student

From student hard drive to web corpus (part 2): the annotation and online distribution of the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP)

Corpora ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Brook O'Donnell ◽  
Ute Römer
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Account ◽  
Online Application ◽  
Hard Drive ◽  
Annotation Process ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Level Student

This paper continues the detailed account of the central steps involved in compiling and distributing the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). In this paper, we discuss the annotation process used to encode MICUSP files in TEI-compliant XML, and the development of MICUSP Simple, the online application through which the corpus is now freely available online. We also describe how MICUSP Simple can be used to carry out simple word/phrase searches and to browse papers within different categories.

From student hard drive to web corpus (part 1): the design, compilation and genre classification of the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP)

Corpora ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Römer ◽  
Matthew Brook O'Donnell
Keyword(s):  
Graduate Education ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Text Type ◽  
Genre Classification ◽  
Online Submission ◽  
Upper Level ◽  
Type Classification ◽  
Level Student

In this paper, we provide a detailed account of the steps that were central to designing and compiling the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP). MICUSP is a new collection of 829 papers (around 2.6 million words) written by University of Michigan students in their final undergraduate year or in their first three years of graduate education. The papers come from sixteen disciplines, ranging from Humanities and Arts to Physical Sciences, and represent a range of different text types. In this paper, we offer an overview of the design of MICUSP, the online submission process used to collect papers, and the text-type classification of the papers.

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