English for Academic Purposes | 2017

John Berger Obituary (Michael McNay/Guardian), John Berger, 'If I'm a storyteller it's because I listen' (Guardian), John Berger, Go ask the time (Granta)
John Berger articles in the New Statesman
John Berger and Susan Sontag: To Tell A Story (1983)

SOAS students have a point (Guardian), Universities warned over 'snowflake' student demands (Telegraph), Decolonising our minds society (Facebook page)
special snowflake

Rhodri Lewis, Shakespeare and the American oligarchy (TLS). The strangers case (OpenCulture/Quartz)

Richard Freeman, Who Owns the Robots Rules the World (Harvard Magazine), Thomas Pynchon, Is it O.K. to be a Luddite? (New York Times, 1984)
Jo Glanville, Milo Yiannopoulos, David Irving and free expression (TLS), Five conservative articles examining Milo Yiannopoulos (Guardian)
Joel Stein, How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet (Time)

Brian Martin, Fostering greater awareness of how universities operate can serve them well when their integrity comes under attack (LSE Impact blog), Defending university integrity (Internat. J. Educational Integrity)

Bert Blocken, 10 tips for writing a truly terrible journal article (Elsevier)

24 February
Articles and clips
Jill Lepore, The New Economy of Letters (Chronicle of Higher Education). Nicholas Kristof, Professors, we need you! (New York Times op ed)
Joshua Rothman, Why is academic writing so academic? (New Yorker). Emily Lordi, Why Is Academic Writing So Beautiful? (Feminist Wire).
Compiliation ( SPSSI ), excerpts
Sarah Perry, In praise of readability (TLS). George Orwell , The prevention of literature (Polemic)
Grammar and vocabulary
English phonemes, English pronunciation problems for Czech speakers (Sandy Millin)
Luddite
social vs. societal
shtick - Walk Softly and Carry a Big Shtick (Forward),kvetch, schlep
troll , trolling
listicle , flibbertigibbet
MOOC

3 March
Articles and clips
Improve your pronunciation (BBC Learning English - introduction to 44 short videos on English phonemes; complied as one video British pronunciation )
Steven Pinker, Why academics stink at writing (Chronicle of Higher Education).
Theodor Adorno, Punctuation marks (tr. S.W. Nicholsen).
Grammar and vocabulary
The Punctuation Guide
Punctuation , Six punctuation marks (Oxford Dictionaries), Hyphens-dashes-brackets (James Cook Univ.)
Style Guide (Univ. Oxford). Punctuation rules and exercises (Wallwark)
Joseph M. Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace - Punctuation , William Strunk, Jr, Elementary Rules of Usage (The Elements of Style)
Word stress rules (J. Kenworthy, Teaching English Pronunciation)

10 March
Articles and clips
Steven Pinker, Why do academics write so poorly? (Belfer Center interview), Steven Pinker on Good Writing, with Ian McEwan (Royal Geographical Society, 5 Sept. 2014).
Grammar and vocabulary
Joseph M. Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace - Passive, characters and metadiscourse (Lesson 4), Metadiscourse (Lesson 7: Concision),
Below, under and beneath (EnglishGrammar), beneath and under (StackExchange)
Example sentences in:beneath, under, underneath , below (Oxford), beneath , under , underneath , below (Cambridge),

17 March
British Academic English Corpus , Corpus Concordance English

24 March
Articles and clips
Bertrand Russell, Message to future generations ( Face to Face interview 1959, BBC)
Grammar and vocabulary
Commonly known rhyming slang.
ergative verbs (Collins Cobuild English Grammar - Grammar Patterns 1: Verbs ), Actives, passives and ergatives (Univ. Adelaide)
ergative and unaccusative , exercise 1 (Perfect English Grammar)
reflexive and ergative verbs (British Council), ergative verbs (menu Verbs/link ergative verbs, ueafp), exercises (ueafp)
tide , tide someone over , time and tide wait for no man
fiddlesticks

7 April
Articles and clips
Hill of beans
Britain: an economy on the brink (NYRB)
Grammar and vocabulary
Cherries, cake and tea
Joseph M. Williams, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace - Passive, characters and metadiscourse (Lesson 4), Metadiscourse (Lesson 7: Concision)
hedging , exercises (ueafp), being cautious (phrasebank), hedging (tefltastic)

21 April
Articles and clips
Donald Trump and the 'rise' of scare 'quotes' (Guardian)
Pinker, Munger, Sword, Toor, MacPhail on academic writing
Grammar and vocabulary
Academic word lists , first test (Exam English)
scare quotes , air quotes
turbid/ turgid , turgid/turbid , turbid,turgid, torpid &
prefixes: per-

28 April
Grammar and vocabulary
complicated , complex, complicated/complex
capability , ability
base , basis
nuanced , cogent, coherent

5 May
Grammar and vocabulary
mugwump , aloof
homologous , analogous
patois
different from/to/than , different (Oxford dict.)
compare to/with , compare with/to (Oxford dict.)

12 May
Articles and clips
Is Theresa May silencing the academy? (The Dial), RCUK General Election Purdah Guidance
Maybe academics aren't so stupid after all (Peter Elbow, OUP blog), Understanding incoherence (explorations of style - Rachael Cayley)
Grammar and vocabulary
trope
purdah , purdah (pre-election period)
noun+preposition examples (BBC learning English)
commas, parentheses, dashes
even a worm will turn
consilience

19 May
Articles and clips
Rachael Cayley, In support of academic writing (explorations of style - response to Pinker's Lament)
Mash Gessen, The autocrat's language (NYRB)
K. Hyland and P. Tse, Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal
Czech punks and skinheads: first draft , final version
Grammar and vocabulary
metadiscourse (explorations of style), metadiscourse (Ryan Miller)
word formation exercises, cohesion exercises on signalling (ueafp)
retrograde
early, mid, late: to hyphenate or not to hyphenate?

26 May
Articles and clips
Pinter, The Birthday Party opening scene (BBC, 1987). Up/down (transcript)
Grammar and vocabulary
Phrasal verbs dictionary (usingenglish.com)
List of phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs in formal writing (Cambridge Dictionary blog)
Phrasal verbs in writing and speech (Macmillan English Dictionary Magazine)