engleski

). Comparing and Contrasting in EAP: How to master Structure and Vocabulary in Writing

University students encounter comparison and contrast content in numerous forms during their studies: in professional texts, in presentations and discussions. However, one of the most demanding academic tasks is to master writing skills and create a structured and coherent piece of writing. This paper analyses students´ written assignments and examines the way students compare and contrast items from the field of humanities and social sciences considering the structure and vocabulary they use. Since EAP teachers are aware of the challenge that producing any type of a written assignment presents for students one of their priorities is to facilitate that process by starting from smaller units, paragraphs, and then gradually moving to larger ones, essays and reports. Consequently, this work focuses on writing comparison and contrast paragraphs which use two types of organization of information - block and point-by-point structure. The purpose of this work is to determine to what extent students have acquired and applied comparing and contrasting strategies, whether they use appropriate phrases and discourse markers, which criteria of comparison they use and how they structure their paragraphs. Examples from students ´ written assignments are used to illustrate strategies and terminology that students have used appropriately as well as those that still should be improved.

comparison, contrast, block, point by point, paragraph organization

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