Bailey.Academic_Writing

1.10 Combining Sources
Most essays require the writer to read more than one book or
article. Your essay should include a summary of the views of the
different sources you have studied. In some cases the contrast
between the ideas of different writers may be the focus of the essay.
This unit examines ways of presenting such varying views.
cross-reference
2.11 References and
Quotations
3.22 Verbs of Reference
1. Read the example, from a study of women’s experience of prison.
According to Giallombardo (1966), women alleviated
the pains of imprisonment by developing kinship links
with other inmates. Similarly, Heffernan (1972) found that
adaptation to prison was facilitated by the creation of a
pseudo-family. Owen (1998) also notes that the female
subculture is based on personal relationships with
other women inmates. Others, however, believe that the
subculture in women’s prisons is undergoing a gradual
shift that more closely resembles that of male prisons.
Fox (1982) states, for example, that the cooperative caring
prison community that has embodied characterizations of
female prisons has evolved into a more dangerous and
competitive climate.
a) How many writers are mentioned?
b) What is the function of the words in italics?
c) What phrase is used to mark the point in the text where
there is a shift from one point of view to another?
2. Below are two sources used for an essay titled ‘Should
genetically modified (GM) foods have a role in future
agriculture?’
Read the sources first, then the essay extract.
Source A
Genetic modification (GM) is the most recent application
of biotechnology to food, which can also be called
genetic engineering or genetic manipulation. The phrase
‘genetically modified organisms’ or GMOs is used
frequently in the scientific literature to describe plants and
animals which have had DNA introduced into them by
means other than the ‘natural’ process of an egg and a
sperm.
New species have always evolved through natural
selection by means of random genetic variation. Early
farmers used this natural variation to selectively breed
wild animals, plants and even micro-organisms such as
yogurt cultures and yeasts. They produced domesticated
variants better suited to the needs of humans, long before
the scientific basis for the process was understood.
Despite this long history of careful improvement, such
procedures are now labelled ‘interfering with nature’.