Today's research world demands a variety of different abstracts to serve different purposes. As a result, writing abstracts can be a difficult task for graduate and international students, researchers, and even practiced authors. Abstracts and the Writing of Abstracts is designed to demystify the construction of this essential writing form and to equip scholars with the skills to summarize their work in clear and compelling ways.
This volume represents a revision and expansion of the material on writing abstracts that appeared in English in Today's Research World.
The Abstracts volume focuses on abstracts for research articles before addressing abstracts for short communications, conferences, and PhD dissertations. It also covers keywords, titles, and author names. Wherever appropriate within the text, Language Focus sections discuss options and provide tips for meeting specific linguistic challenges posed by the writing of different types of abstracts.

Abstracts and the Writing of Abstracts (Volume 1) (Michigan Series In English For Academic & Professional Purposes)

Reference

Swales, John M.

Feak, Christine

English as a Second Language

University of Michigan Press/ELT

Telling a Research Story: Writing a Literature Review is concerned with the writing of a literature review and is not designed to address any of the preliminary processes leading up to the actual writing of the literature review.
This volume represents a revision and expansion of the material on writing literature reviews that appeared in English in Today's Research World.
This volume progresses from general to specific issues in the writing of literature reviews. It opens with some orientations that raise awareness of the issues that surround the telling of a research story. Issues of structure and matters of language, style, and rhetoric are then discussed. Sections on metadiscourse, citation, and paraphrasing and summarizing are included.

Telling a Research Story: Writing a Literature Review (Volume 2) (Michigan Series In English For Academic & Professional Purposes)

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Incidents in an Educational Life chronicles the educational journey of John M. Swales. A leading scholar in the field of Applied Linguistics and its subfield of English for Specific Purposes, Swales has taught across the globe in places such as Italy, Sweden, Libya, the United Kingdom, and the University of Michigan. His memoir offers a rare glimpse into the professional journey of a prominent scholar and educator. Incidents in an Educational Life explores the lessons Swales learned by teaching and by being taught. The story follows his gradual transformation from an English as a Second Language teacher to one of the leading international figures in his field, stopping along the way to tell the sometimes amusing, sometimes painful anecdotes that have made him the recognized educator he is today. His entertaining prose make this volume a must-read for anyone considering the field, or the many ways in which we all become teachers. John M. Swales is one of the leading international scholars in the field of English for Specific Purposes. He retired in the summer of 2006 from the University of Michigan after teaching at multiple universities overseas. He is the co-author of the international bestseller Academic Writing for Graduate Students (3rd ed.).

Incidents in an Educational Life: A Memoir (of Sorts)

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Navigating Academia is a bit different from the other volumes in the series because it focuses on the supporting genres that facilitate the more public genres that form the building blocks of an academic and/or research career. Included are statements of purpose for graduate school applications, letters of recommendation, and responses to journal reviewers. One feature that these genres have in common is that they are largely hidden from public view; it is difficult to find examples of them in university libraries. Although guidance about these genres can increasingly be found on the Internet, this guidance is often too general to be helpful in an individual particular situation. This is unfortunate because in almost all cases, the individual needs to be seen as both a serious scholar, researcher, or instructor (whether beginning or getting established) and as a collegial but objective person. As a result, many of these academic communications need to be carefully considered, particularly with regard to the likely effect this communication will have on its intended recipients, who, more often than not, are established figures in the field (as with a job application letter). Because of the roles of these genres, this volume also differs somewhat from the others in that it is as much concerned with social academic practice as it is with more formal academic texts. This volume represents a revision and expansion of the material on academic correspondence that appeared in English in Today's Research World.

Navigating Academia: Writing Supporting Genres (Volume 4) (Michigan Series In English For Academic & Professional Purposes)

Research article introductions are central to Creating Contexts: Writing across Genres with the CaRS (creating a research space) model used as a starting point. This volume focuses on introductions for other kinds of texts that are also part of the graduate student writing experience such as course papers and critiques, proposals, and dissertations. This volume represents a revision and expansion of the material on introductions that appeared in English in Today's Research World. The material presented in this volume is appropriate for graduate students and others already working in their chosen academic fields. The material has, in fact, been used with each of these groups in both writing courses and writing workshops. We believe that the material would also be suitable for those wishing to pursue a course of self-study. To target these different possible uses, we have included a variety of topics and tasks that we hope will deepen users’ understanding of how to create a writing context for their work. Tasks range from evaluating text commentaries to open-ended questions and have been designed to generate lively classroom or workshop discussion as well as thoughtful consideration by an individual user.

Creating Contexts: Writing Introductions across Genres (Volume 3) (Michigan Series In English For Academic & Professional Purposes)

Aspects of Article Introductions has bee reissued to make it more easily available than it has ever been, particularly for the use of university libraries and for younger and newer practitioners and researchers in the rapidly expanding and increasingly global field of EAP.
The original Aspects of Article Introductions appeared in fall 1981 as a ring-bound 90-page monograph. The “publisher” was the Language Studies Unit at the University of Aston in Birmingham. Although essentially an “underground” work, it has remained a relevant part of the short intellectual history of English for Academic Purposes, particularly as genre-based or genre-driven approaches to EAP research and pedagogical practice have become more popular. Its longevity is also a testament to the genre analysis work of John Swales, but in addition, the research article has become the most influential genre in most areas of scholarship, and introductions are at least supposed to be read first and to be designed in such a way as to attract as large readership as possible. 
“If I were asked to list the most influential texts in applied linguistics over the last 30 years, John Swales' Aspects of Article Introductions would be in the top three or four. This was a seminal work which not only presented a novel way of analysing texts and a commentary on academic discourse, but one which helped to establish a foundation for the massive interest we see today in describing the structure and features of academic articles. This is not just a text which offers us a glimpse of an intellectual history, but it remains full of fascinating insights and observations about texts and the workings of academic discourse. While the ideas may have evolved and the genre it describes moved on, both the style of writing and the methodology it describes are as fresh and as revealing as anything written on the topic since.” ---Ken Hyland, Hong Kong University

Aspects of Article Introductions, Michigan Classics Ed.

The Commentary for the third edition of this successful guide to writing has been revised and expanded in many ways to provide more support for instructors; this includes additional tasks for Units Two and Four to supplement the main text. However, the collegial tone established in previous Commentaries between Swales &amp; Feak and instructors has been retained.
This volume contains commentaries on each of the eight units plus the two appendixes. The format for each unit includes
<ul>
<li>a summary of the main points of the unit along with a list of topics covered.</li>
<li>a synopsis of activities, divided into Language Focus sections and description of tasks.</li>
<li>some general notes designed to capture the character of the unit, to indicate alternative activities, or to anticipate problems that may arise. </li>
<li>detailed commentary and discussion of individual tasks, including model or sample answers where possible. </li>
</ul>

Commentary for Academic Writing for Graduate Students, 3rd Ed.: Essential Tasks and Skills (Michigan Series In English For Academic & Professional Purposes)

“John Swales’ textography might also be called ‘comparative rhetoric in a small building,’ offering proof, once again, that another culture may be only a trip up or down a flight of stairs. . . .such an appealing and original book.” ---BAAL News   Originally published in 1998, Other Floors, Other Voices uses texts to capture the lives of three communities operating within a single building (the North University Building, or NUBS) on the University of Michigan campus. Swales' thoughtful exploration of the three units—the Computer Resource Site, the University Herbarium (botany), and the English Language Institute—centers around the individuals who work on each floor and the discourse-related activities they engage in.   The Twentieth Anniversary Edition of Other Floors, Other Voices includes: a new preface, an introductory essay on the value of rereading this volume many years after publication, and an epilogue that reflects on and reveals what has happened to the three units in the past 20 years.  

Other Floors, Other Voices, Twentieth Anniversary Edition: A Textography of a Small University Building

The Birds of Washtenaw County, Michigan provides a comprehensive account of the birdlife in Washtenaw County. Situated to the west of Detroit in southeast Michigan, the county has an exceptionally rich history of ornithological study, fueled by the activists of numerous amateur birdwatchers and by the interests of two major universities. Frequency accounts of the 267 species recorded in the county during the last 15 years are framed by a discussion of the topographical history of the county. In addition, the authors present notes on another 30 species not seen in the county since 1976. A comprehensive site guide offers suggestions of the optimal locals and times to try to find the birds. Michael A. Kielb has studied birds in Michigan for over 15 years and teaches classes on birds at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens in Ann Arbor and the College of Du Page in Illinois. He also leads bird-watching tours throughout the Americas and is currently a Research Associate in the Reproductive Sciences Program at the University of Michigan. John M. Swales first became interested in birds while teaching in the Sudan and has been exploring the birdlife of Washtenaw County since arriving at the University of Michigan in 1985. He is Professor of Linguistics and Director of the English Language Institute, University of Michigan. Richard A. Wolinski has been studying birds of Washtenaw County for nearly two decades. He is a staff biologist with an engineering firm in southeast Michigan.

The Birds of Washtenaw County, Michigan

Science & Math

Kielb, Michael

Wolinski, Richard

Biological Sciences

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN REGIONAL

Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills: A Course for Nonnative Speakers of English (English for Specific Purposes)

Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills (Michigan Series In English For Academic & Professional Purposes)

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Swales, John M.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Swales, John M.