1) Peruse the figures and tables. You will not understand them this first time through but this will help you know what to look for when you actually read the article.
Task 5. Look at figure 1 and describe it in pairs after having answered the questions.The description on p3 will help you.
Fig1
1. What is presented on Figure one?
2. What does each node of tree represent?
3. Why are there only two branches emanating from each node?
4. What is the minimum number of questions needed to arrive to a conclusion?
Figure 2 is the diagram presenting the principle modules of ESTHER system,whose description constitutes the main part of Results section.
Without reading the results part, give a general description of the picture.
Phase IV: First reading
2) Skim the abstract and the introduction once again. At this point you should be able to have an adequate understanding of them.
3) Skim the methodssection. The methods section will need to be studied carefully only if you intend to use some of the procedures in your research.
We will use this section of the article (p.2) to work with academic vocabulary.
Academic vocabulary
Fortunately, 80% of vocabulary in any text, including the academic ones, is known as General Service Word List (Alexander et al, 2008).These are about 2,000 words such as knowledge, our, each, computer screen.
Academic Word List ( AWL) , which is typically 20% of an academic text, can be subdivided into Technical (5%) , Semi-Technical and General Academic Vocabulary. AWL was first compiled by Coxhead ( 2000) and is available at www.language.massey.ac.nz/staff/awl/mostfreq1.shtml
Task 6. Find examples of different vocabulary types in the Methodological Approach section of the article and write them in the last column of the table.
Types of Vocabulary
Explanation
Examples
Examples from the Methodological Approach section
Technical
Terms specific to a discipline, which would not usually be understood by a non-specialist
Task 8. Read the paragraph on p4which starts with ‘In the consultation mode the system’ and finishes with ‘In order to refine the diagnosis’. Analyze the cohesive ties which link the paragraph together and write the examples in the table below.
Cohesionrefers to the range of possibilities that link ideas in the text: what comes next with what has gone before. These are different kinds of cohesive ties:
Reference words
determiners like ‘one, which, this, their, where’
some drug, the tree, at the nodes where, other than, this
( may be the case), when