academic writer: quiz: context

Context Quiz

Identify the functions of each of the following paragraphs:

1

Describing key concepts
Surveying the existing work in your area of research
Moving from the general to the specific
Describing a point of view

The benefits and insights to be gained from corpus-based studies of the English language are now well established (see for example, Sinclair, 1991; Stubbs, 1996; Svartvik and Quirk, 1980; Svartvik, 1990; Thomas and Short, 1996). Data-driven learning (see for example, Johns, 1991), first pioneered at Birmingham University, is now being used with considerable success in a number of universities around the world. This language learning methodology uses corpora and concordancing programs to enable the language learner to take on the role of language researcher.
2

Surveying the existing work in your area of research
Describing a point of view
Explaining why the text was written
Describing how the paper was researched

The data for this paper was gathered during the summer of 1995 by a multidisciplinary research team which consisted of anthropologists, agricultural economists, biologists, plant ecologists and pathologists, and sociologists. The team was funded by the Sainsbury foundation to study Chinese Root and Tuber Crops in a small community called Hainan. Three students remained in the field to gather more data and to complete questionnaires to get a general picture of production practices and organization in the community. I worked on completing the questionnaires and also with the agricultural and ecological aspects of the project, because of my educational background. During my time in the field, I was able to observe and learn from the peasant farmers themselves how they practiced rotation and how important it was to their system of production. Before I detail the rotation system and other such aspects of this paper, some background is in order.
3

Describing a point of view
Explaining why the text was written
Surveying the existing work in your area of research
Describing key concepts

Why at this time in our society is there such an interest in "repression" and the uncovering of repressed memories? Why is it that almost everyone you talk to either knows someone with a "repressed memory" or knows someone who's being accused, or is just plain interested in the issue? Why do so many individuals believe these stories, even the more bizarre, outlandish, and outrageous ones? Why is the cry of "witch hunt" now so loud (Baker 1992: 48; Gardner 1991)? Witch hunt is, of course, a term that gets used by lots of people who have been faced with a pack of accusers (Watson 1992).

"Witch hunt" stems from an analogy between the current allegations and the witch-craze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, an analogy that several analysts have drawn (McHugh 1992; Trott 1991;Victor 1991).As the preeminent British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper (1967) has noted, the European witch-craze was a perplexing phenomenon. By some estimates, a half-million people were convicted of witchcraft and burned to death in Europe alone between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries (Harris 1974: 207-258). How did this happen?
4

Giving background information
Describing a point of view
Surveying the existing work in your area of research
Describing key concepts

On February 14 1989 Iran's religious leader, the Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a proclamation calling for all Muslims to "send to Hell" a certain author by the name of Salman Rushdie for having written The Satanic Verses, a book that the Islamic cleric found blasphemous. Suddenly the entire literary community was in an uproar, astonished that anyone would go to such extremes to respond to a book they found objectionable. Writers and librarians had faced censorship by religious groups for ages, but never like this. In this paper I would like to examine the response to this particular situation in libraries throughout the USA.

 

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