Book Review

Oshima, A. and Hogue, A. Writing academic English (1999)-3rd edition, Addison Wesley Longman, NY.ISBN 0201340542 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The student's library is not complete without one of Oshima and Hogue's comprehensive rhetoric and sentence textbooks. For more than twenty years the duo have been producing quality books to help educators teach students to write essays. Likewise their books also provide students with authoritative textbooks and workbooks that students can use at home to improve their academic writing skills. Students can pick from three options, First Steps in Academic Writing, Introduction to Academic Writing, and Writing Academic English, the last one is reviewed on this website to support student essay writing. Regrettably, most Australian universities today are dependent on overseas student enrollments to fill their admission quotas. Notwithstanding this national disgrace, overseas students must first convince the universities that they have sufficient English language skills to deal with the rigours of academic writing. This book is designed to do just that. Writing Academic English has been written for intermediate to advanced international and English as a Second Language high school or college students who are writing essays to score good marks before they enter university. This book will continue to be very useful to students who have gained admission to university because most academic writing at the undergraduate level is expository in nature. In the same way the book should appeal to native speakers of English who need to develop or refresh their basic composition skills. Good writing is rarely a talent with which one is born. There is most likely a writer's gene but it remains so elusive as to warrant no further discussion. On the contrary, success hinges on the student's commitment, sound pedagogical texts and dedicated, well-informed tutoring. The authors of the book under review here are well-informed experts in their field with a straightforward writing style. This style is constant throughout the entire book, substantiating and reflecting their teaching epistemology. The book has several noteworthy features, the first of which is the exclusion of a double page organisational chart at the beginning of the book that seems to have been so popular in recent years with textbooks of all persuasions. This should immediately put the reader at ease. These well-meaning charts dividing books into sections, schemes, categories, or chapters are regularly the bane of learners trying to plough their way through labyrinthine textbooks. Instead, the contents of Writing Academic English are clearly stated and spaciously arranged. It is crucial that books of this type are effectively organised with the important components taught in small step-by-step units. The authors' commitment to concision and clarity is again reinforced with clear illustrations and munificent examples. The book is divided into three parts and fourteen chapters with no less than four appendices. Intelligent use has been made of a word processor, the charts, diagrams, shading around boxes and highlighted headings add character to the presentation without overdoing it. At all times the manuscript remains clear and focused. The charming pictographic inclusion of artifacts from academies and museums, for example, the Runic writing discovered in the eleventh century Sweden on page eighty-two, add a measure of interest and influence to the book and a welcome departure from the rigourous textual demands. The authors (Oshima & Hogue, 1999 pX) advise course leaders to cover the book in a 15 week semester, meeting 5 days a week. This is obviously just a rough guide. Chapter 10, "Types of Sentences", they recommend, should be taught at the beginning of the course. They suggest that chapters in part I & II, "Writing a Paragraph", and "Writing an Essay", be taught in sequence. Then the chapters in part III relating to sentence structure should be taught alongside the chapters on paragraph and essay in parts I and II. The remaining chapters, they conclude, may be taught at the discretion of the tutor. Other attractive features of this book include practice lessons and culturally appropriate model paragraphs, tips and tricks on how to use your computer to support your essay writing, thoughful annotations at the base of each page explaining tricky abstract vocabulary for non-native speakers particularly, and a sprinkling of cross references to guide the student painlessly through. The popularity and quality of Writing Academic English (1999) by Oshima and Hogue and their team of assistants is universally accepted. Educators and the wider educational community use and refer to their books everywhere, including the University of Western Sydney, Ohio State Univesity, the Univesity of Toronto to mention only three. If you want to write well and can afford a AUS$50 book, you should go out and buy it. As an afterthought, can you afford nowadays not to buy it?

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