Crafting the Purpose Statement

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Из курса от партнера Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

Academic Literacy

100 оценки

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

Academic Literacy

100 оценки

Курс 1 из 5 — Specialization English for Research Publication Purposes

This is the first course of the English for Research Publication Purposes Specialization. The course is an introduction to what you need to know about academic discourse. You’ll gain important critical reading skills to help you develop as a self-critical scientific writer. You will learn practical tools and effective strategies for increasing your academic vocabulary and grammar so that you will write well-structured coherent academic texts.

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MODULE IV : ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

The final module looks beyond the sentence to the ways that grammar structures paragraphs and longer texts. The module covers issues related to the textuality of academic texts, i.e. cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality, and intertextuality. In particular, the module focuses on lexical and grammatical cohesion. The module also discusses the concept of paragraphing and what the topic sentence and the statement of purpose mean for effective academic writing.

Crafting the Purpose Statement7:07

Developing the Rationale6:33

Commandments of Research Writing8:19

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Elena Bazanova
Director of the Language Training and Testing Center
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

[MUSIC]

A clearly written purpose statement is the soul of a paper.

It is the point in which everything converges in the writing.

If well written,

the purpose statement becomes the climax of your research publication.

The purpose statement in your manuscript can represent the chance to bring

your readers to the edge of their seats, and leave them there while you carefully

unveil the answers to all the mysteries in the remainder of your article.

Certainly this is exaggeration, but

some of the best academic writing manages to do precisely that.

Present the purpose of the research publication in such a way

that readers cannot help themselves.

They simply have to read the paper to learn more about the paper.

This is an excellent example of such a text.

Where to begin is often the most difficult decision a writer makes.

The first part of every paper is an introduction of some kind,

which always contains at least three elements,

necessary background, purpose statement, and scope.

These three elements give readers everything they need

to know about what the paper will contain, from the context to the content, and

from the purpose to the limitations of the data or methodology.

The purpose statement is to the paper as the topic sentence is to the paragraph.

The purpose statement tells the reader

with broad brush strokes what the paper will contain.

Purpose statement is in some ways a misnomer, because this

statement really constitutes a broadly written overview of the paper's contents.

It tells the reader that the paper will analyze this, explore that or

disagree with some theory or theories.

In other words, this one crucial sentence frames and

contextualizes the entire paper.

A purpose statement is always general,

leaving the rest of the paper to live up to its promise by filling in the details.

It usually begins with either, this paper examines,

investigates, analyzes, or the purpose of this paper is.

These are some of the sample purpose statements.

This paper identifies, say,

the number of major factors involved in studying something.

Or this article compares something.

This article describes how you can use something to improve something.

This article deals with something.

This paper presents a comprehensive study on something.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and analyze something.

Or the purpose of this paper is to analyze something and to indicate something.

While the proper statement is always one sentence putting the entire purpose

of your paper into only one sentence need not be daunting.

You may then follow it with more details in a sentence starting with a phrase such

as, more specifically, in addition, or in this sense.

With practice, you will be able to write powerful statements

that make your reader back to read the remainder of the text.

To start with, write as many variations as you can of the answer to this question.

What is the purpose of my paper?

Remember, that most often, the purpose is to do something.

Answer a question, or test a hypothesis, compare findings across studies, argue for

a better solution, examine a problem in depth, or analyze data in a new way.

As much as possible, keep your purpose statement active.

In other words, always use verbs to describe your purpose, not nouns.

After the one sentence purpose statement, the authors announce two main arguments

using first, second, consequently hence to frame them.

Framing is essential to the writing of any academic text.

Framing, which means the art of introducing and contextualizing everything

you write is to your argument what a topic sentence is to the paragraph and

the purpose statement to a paper.

Framing makes logic out of unconnected sentences.

Framing fills in the gaps that other linguistic

communities may allow, but thatEnglish never does.

In English, good framing signifies not only good writing,

but also sophisticated thinking.

Framing occurs on many levels.

One is the simple use of transitional adverbs from therefore,

to however, from on the one hand, to as previously mentioned.

A second level is that of letting the reader know what will happen and

when, so the writer can make a transition without losing the reader's attention.

Framing, at all times, works well even with longer phrases such as,

third, and more relevant to the main argument of this article.

A typical framing sentence looks like this.

We intend to answer these three questions in this article by empirically

relating X characteristics to control variables to various aspects of y.

These are absolute models for framing adapted from sentences and

high ranking international journals.

However, before analyzing these theories,

we will review the literature on something.

Or we briefly review the literature on this and that,

refine our hypothesis and then present the results of our analysis.

I argue and present evidence that finally and clearly open for

discussion is the issue of why something happens.

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