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Resources for Academic Writing Academic Writing Exercise 1

Exercise 1

In the texts below there are some mistakes that should not occur in academically written texts.

  1. The Romantic hero is isolated and so is Roderick. His friend has had to ride for a whole day through a 'singularly dreary tract of country' before getting to the house of Usher (277). He rode alone and doesn't tell us about getting to meet any people on the road. In Rodericks room the windows are 'altogether inaccessible from within' (232), suggesting that he can't get out of the house. Roderick isn't, however, only physically isolated, the isolation's also psychological. The narrator recalls that he'd always been reserved and now he finds that Roderick hasn't been out of the house for several years, and thus he hasn't met other people.
  2. It’s the argument of this essay that stability symbolised by the estate is being threatened in various ways. In order to study the threats the essay is going to bring forth characteristics of a good landowner and contrast it with those of a bad landowner’s, as a bad landowner is going to inflict instability on his estate. Changes in contemporary society is also going to be studied. For this purpose I’m gonna use two novels, The bride of lammermoor written by sir Walter Scott and Mansfield park by Jane Austen. First, however, we’ll look at the sociological background during 17th and 18th centuries, as Scott’s novel is set round 1700 and Austen’s novel 100 years later.
  3. A nation's story isn't, or shouldn't be, solely about wealth or power, but about the quality of the communities existence. Britains loss of power needn't damage that quality, unless this is measured only in material terms. (McDowal: An Illustrated History of Britain, p. 159).
  4. By this time Britain had an army of over 5 million men, but by this time over 750.000 had died, and another 2 million had been seriously wounded. About 50 times more people had died than in the 20-year war against napoleon. Public opinion demanded no mercy for Germany. (McDowal:An Illustrated History of Britain, p. 161).

2004 Nationellt centrum för flexibelt lärande Uppdaterad: 2006-04-20