Category: Video

HOW DO I WRITE THE DISCUSSION SECTION?

How do I write the discussion section?

“. . . .

I’m indebted to my colleague Josta Heylingers for pointing me at the literature on functional linguistics. Josta uses this literature to teach people how to write discussion chapters at Auckland University of Technology. To do this, she uses the work of John Swales, and his method of ‘move step analysis’. I touched on this method in my own PhD, and of my PhD students is using move step analysis in her work, so I’ve had to become passingly familiar with the method.

Swales starts by assuming that texts are social things: every reader has been ‘trained’ on what to expect from different kinds of texts. Job applications ‘sound’ different from grant applications, which sound different than a journal article. So readers are familiar with the linguistic ‘moves’ to expect. These linguistic moves are sort of like dance steps that build together to make a socially recognisable text.

Swales’ move step analysis is a way of breaking down the text dance so you can understand which bits go where and how to put them together in an accomplished performance. Think of any dance craze you can name. When I was a teenager, in the 1980s (!) it was ‘The Nutbush‘; by the 1990s it was The Macarena. In case you weren’t there, or don’t remember, here’s a helpful video. It’s worth watching, because it’s delightful, and a good way to understand what move step analysis is:

I’m indebted to my colleague Josta Heylingers for pointing me at the literature on functional linguistics. Josta uses this literature to teach people how to write discussion chapters at Auckland University of Technology. To do this, she uses the work of John Swales, and his method of ‘move step analysis’. I touched on this method in my own PhD, and of my PhD students is using move step analysis in her work, so I’ve had to become passingly familiar with the method.

Swales starts by assuming that texts are social things: every reader has been ‘trained’ on what to expect from different kinds of texts. Job applications ‘sound’ different from grant applications, which sound different than a journal article. So readers are familiar with the linguistic ‘moves’ to expect. These linguistic moves are sort of like dance steps that build together to make a socially recognisable text.

Swales’ move step analysis is a way of breaking down the text dance so you can understand which bits go where and how to put them together in an accomplished performance. Think of any dance craze you can name. When I was a teenager, in the 1980s (!) it was ‘The Nutbush‘; by the 1990s it was The Macarena. In case you weren’t there, or don’t remember, here’s a helpful video. It’s worth watching, because it’s delightful, and a good way to understand what move step analysis is:

I’m indebted to my colleague Josta Heylingers for pointing me at the literature on functional linguistics. Josta uses this literature to teach people how to write discussion chapters at Auckland University of Technology. To do this, she uses the work of John Swales, and his method of ‘move step analysis’. I touched on this method in my own PhD, and of my PhD students is using move step analysis in her work, so I’ve had to become passingly familiar with the method.

Swales starts by assuming that texts are social things: every reader has been ‘trained’ on what to expect from different kinds of texts. Job applications ‘sound’ different from grant applications, which sound different than a journal article. So readers are familiar with the linguistic ‘moves’ to expect. These linguistic moves are sort of like dance steps that build together to make a socially recognisable text.

Swales’ move step analysis is a way of breaking down the text dance so you can understand which bits go where and how to put them together in an accomplished performance. Think of any dance craze you can name. When I was a teenager, in the 1980s (!) it was ‘The Nutbush‘; by the 1990s it was The Macarena. In case you weren’t there, or don’t remember, here’s a helpful video. It’s worth watching, because it’s delightful, and a good way to understand what move step analysis is:

The Spanish Flu of 1918: the history of a deadly pandemic and lessons for coronavirus

What was the Spanish Flu, why was it so deadly – and are there any lessons for today’s world as countries try to stem the spread of Covid-19? (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) 100 years ago, the world was hit by a deadly pandemic during the last months of WWI: the Spanish Flu went on to kill millions of people around the globe. Channel 4 News speaks to Professor Howard Phillip, Professor Nancy Bristow and the writer Laura Spinney – all of whom have studied and written about the Spanish Flu crisis.

‘Sløborn’: Series blurs line between pandemic fantasy and reality


Watch video02:54

COVID-19 pandemic changes German moviemaking

https://www.dw.com/en/sl%C3%B8born-series-blurs-line-between-pandemic-fantasy-and-reality/a-54351610

#sloborn#sløborn#virus#alvart#kolmerer#syrrealentertainment#zdf#tobis#nordisk#medienboard#katastrophe#insel#influenza#nordsee#deutschland#dänemark#emilykusche#leavonacken#rolandmøller#alexanderscheer#wotanwilkemöhring#lauratonke#creativeeurope#aaronhilmer#sloeborn#slöborn#sloeboern#sloboern#slobörn#english#trailer#denmark#germany#catastrophe sloborn

Flood warnings issued as NSW hit with heavy rain | ABC News

Jul 27, 2020

A severe weather warning for the NSW coast is in place as damaging southerly winds and powerful surf is caused by a low-pressure system which formed south of Sydney. Wind gusts of up to 90 kilometres an hour hit the South Coast on Monday morning, expected to move north to Illawarra, Sydney and the Central Coast throughout the day. The State Emergency Service (SES) also warned of flooding from the heavy rain along coastal rivers from Sydney to Moruya on the state’s south coast, while Newcastle saw dangerous flooding overnight. Damaging surf conditions have also impacted Sydney’s ferry services, with buses replacing ferries between Manly and Circular Quay today amid wild seas. Read more here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-2… For more from ABC News, click here: https://ab.co/2kxYCZY You can watch more ABC News content on iview: https://ab.co/2OB7Mk1

STAN GRANT’S SPEECH ON RACISM IN AUSTRALIA

https://mannerofspeaking.org/2016/01/26/stan-grants-speech-on-racism-in-australia/

Stan Grant, an indigenous Australian journalist, gave a speech in October 2015 at a debate on racism in Australia. The video of that speech has gone viral.

Stan Grant
Stan Grant

Several people are touting it as the Australian equivalent of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech. While I would not elevate this speech to that status—and Grant himself has said that, while he is flattered, he is “not in any way worthy of that sort of comparison”—it is an excellent speech. Forceful, hopeful, compelling, moving.

Interestingly, Grant apparently delivered the speech off-the-cuff.

I didn’t want to write anything, I didn’t want to be standing there looking down at notes. I just wanted to look people directly in the eye. I wanted to make a statement about how we live with the weight of history.

He succeeded.

What I liked

  • Grant was right to stand behind the lectern. Usually, a speaker should be out in front of the lectern so as to shrink the distance between himself and the audience. But certain occasions mandate the use of a lectern. A debate such as this is one of those times.
  • He has great eye contact throughout the speech.
  • Grant’s voice was powerful without being overbearing. He maintained a good pace and he excellent pauses.
  • He uses good hand gestures to emphasize his points. Even when he holds his hands together (starting at 1:05), it works well. Typically, speakers want to adopt and open posture and not hold their hands together; however, this is a good example of an exception to the rule.
  • He anchors his speech by returning to a phrase, “The Australian Dream”, 11 times. This certainly has echoes of Martin Luther’s King’s speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. In that speech, King invoked the phrase “I have a dream” eight times.
  • He uses alliteration to frame his arguments: “We heard a howl. We heard a howl of humiliation that echoes across two centuries of dispossession, injustice, suffering and survival.” / “The Australian Dream is rooted in racism.”
  • Grant tells personal stories of his family members and the indignities that they suffered, whether they were indigenous or white. He thereby enhances his own credibility when it comes to the subject of racism in Australia.
  • Grant is humble in crediting his success to his family members who came before him.
  • He uses statistics to support his arguments. “My people die young in this country. We die ten years younger than average Australians and we are far from free. We are fewer than three percent of the Australian population and yet we are 25 percent, a quarter of those Australians locked up in our prisons and if you are a juvenile, it is worse, it is 50 percent. An Indigenous child is more likely to be locked up in prison than they are to finish high school.”
  • Grant invokes passages from important Australian songs and poems—the Australian National Anthem and Dorothea Mackellar’s My Country—and then uses antimetabole to show how the state of indigenous peoples in Australia has been the opposite of what is praised in song and verse.

We sing of it, and we recite it in verse. Australians all, let us rejoice for we are young and free. My people die young in this country. We die ten years younger than average Australians and we are far from free.

I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges. It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains. We were shot on those plains, disease ravaged us on those plains.

  • He uses commoratio to emphasize the disdain and hatred with which the British regarded the indigenous peoples of Australia:

And when British people looked at us, they saw something sub-human, and if we were human at all, we occupied the lowest rung on civilisation’s ladder. We were fly-blown, stone age savages and that was the language that was used.

  • Notwithstanding the foregoing, Grant sounds a hopeful note by appealing to the higher instincts of Australians.

The Australian Dream. We’re better than this. I have seen the worst of the world as a reporter. I spent a decade in war zones from Iraq to Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We are an extraordinary country. We are in so many respects the envy of the world.

Of course racism is killing the Australian Dream. It is self evident that it’s killing the Australian dream. But we are better than that. The people who stood up and supported Adam Goodes and said, “No more,” they are better than that. The people who marched across the bridge for reconciliation, they are better than that. The people who supported Kevin Rudd when he said sorry to the Stolen Generations, they are better than that. My children and their non-Indigenous friends are better than that. My wife who is not Indigenous is better than that.

  • He concludes by returning to the line from the Australian that he referenced at the beginning. He thus has a circular ending. But more than that, he emphasizes the word “all” to show his hope for the future:

And one day, I want to stand here and be able to say as proudly and sing as loudly as anyone else in this room, Australians all, let us rejoice.

Congratulations, Stan Grant on your excellent speech. Here’s hoping that it leads to some positive, concrete steps in your country. And elsewhere.

COVID-19 threat to Karla Grant’s mother

https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2020/03/30/its-upsetting-my-mum-there-covid-19-threat-karla-grants-mother

Karla Grant’s mother Elizabeth lives at the aged care facility in Sydney, where four elderly residents have passed away after contracting coronavirus. Karla shares how she juggled reporting on this virus, while her mother is in a lockdown and facing the grave risk of infection.
 By: Karla Grant
30 MAR 2020 – 2:49 PM  UPDATED 8 MAY 2020

At the same time, I have been out in the Redfern community investigating coronavirus or COVID-19, for a special Living Black episode that goes to air tonight.

The strain of juggling personal concerns, with the weight of information I learn on the job has been quite a challenge. On occasions the pressure has bought tears to my eyes.

Karla Grant with her three children and mother.

Karla Grant with her mother Elizabeth and three children, Lowanna, John (left) and Dylan (right).
Source: Karla Grant

This virus has halted life as we know it. It has touched all our lives, at home and work.

At my workplace, virtually everyone at NITV is either working on COVID-19 related content, or they are having to adjust ‘business as usual’ to accommodate COVID-19.

With incredible support from my colleagues, I have carried on working as normally as I can muster under these strained circumstances. The toll has been emotionally and physically draining.

My team and I have all discussed the risks we face of catching COVID-19 while filming and editing this Living Black episode.

We’re all mindful, we are putting our lives at risk in order to produce this story. We all have families at home.

Driving us on is the need to report on how the Indigenous community is being impacted by this killer virus. Our people and communities need to know the seriousness of the crisis and what precautions they need to take to keep themselves, their families and their Elders safe.

I am forever grateful to my team for their dedication, for risking their lives to produce this important episode.

I only hope this special episode on COVID-19 sheds light on the dangers of the virus, how it is impacting the world and most importantly, our own backyard.

And while the last week and a half has tested me, I smiled on the final day of shooting.

I was lucky enough to see my Mum and hear her say ‘I love you Karla’.

It was from a distance, in line with social distancing of course, but it was the most moving and touching moment to see the smile on my Mum’s face, to talk to her and to know that she is doing okay.

For me, distance does make the heart grow fonder.

 

Watch Living Black – Covid19 Special on SBS On Demand. 

 

If you believe you may have contracted the virus, call your doctor, don’t visit, or contact the national Coronavirus Health Information Hotline on 1800 020 080.
If you are struggling to breathe or experiencing a medical emergency, call 000.
Coronavirus symptoms can range from mild illness to pneumonia, according to the Federal Government’s website, and can include a fever, coughing, sore throat, fatigue and shortness of breath.

Living Black can be viewed on on NITV (Ch.34) Monday 30 March at 8.30pm, Wednesday 1 April at 9:30pm and will be available On Demand after the broadcast.