Postgraduate English

TOEFL IBT

2011-09-20T10:54:00.002+03:00

Exam dates:

14 October 2011

11 November 2011

9 December 2011

Please contact the SFL Promotion Office for more info.

Phone: 0 392 -- 630 2009

Email: sflemu.promotion@emu.edu.tr

Taking IELTS in Northern Cyprus

2011-09-07T12:31:00.000+03:00

Upcoming dates for the IELTS Exam in Northern Cyprus:

17 September 2011
8 October 2011
22 October 2011
5 November 2011
19 November 2011
3 December 2011
10 December 2011

You can find out more about the exam at the IELTS home page.

New Postgraduate Students: Which English courses should we take?

2011-08-27T12:33:00.000+03:00

Check out our course information sheet; this will tell you which English courses you may need to take, which courses you may be exempted from, and which courses we would advise you to take.

Can we take IELTS and TOEFL at EMU?

2011-08-26T13:07:00.001+03:00

Yes, you can. See our IELTS and TOEFL Information sheet to find out how.

2011 dates for IELTS in Cyprus
17 September 2011
8 October 2011
22 October 2011
5 November 2011
19 November 2011
3 December 2011
10 December 2011

Postgraduate Student Language Support System

2011-08-25T11:05:00.000+03:00

Postgraduate Student Language Support System

The Postgraduate Student Support System is a brand new project. The purpose of the project is to put postgraduate students in touch with each other and to provide a framework for improving language skills outside the classroom.

Activities are expected to include:

ü English language conversation club

ü English language film shows and discussion

ü Presentations by students for students to help develop academic presentation skills in English

ü English language and study skills workshops and seminars by postgraduate language teachers through invitation

ü Peer support framework in your academic studies

ü Survival Turkish and workshops in other languages should you choose

ü Options to gain some work experience by voluntarily mentoring English Preparatory School students, and helping out in the School of Foreign Languages

ü Social activities and excursions

The philosophy of the system is that it is run by students for students. In the first meeting of the year therefore, we will elect a committee to oversee the system.

In order to join in, please complete the application form, and send it to:

emupld@gmail.com

Postgraduate Course Fees 2011-2012

2011-08-25T10:12:00.000+03:00

You can check the fees for all postgraduate courses for all courses, including English courses at the website of the Graduate Research Institute.

Postgraduate English Courses for Summer!

2011-05-17T14:36:00.000+03:00

This summer, we are considering opening ENGL 515 and ENGL 521 Summer courses. The courses would run on an intensive basis from June 27th to July 15th; please contact elmaziye.ozgur@emu.edu.tr to register or for enquiries; Tel: 630 1330 / 2423

Health Center

2011-04-14T16:00:00.001+03:00

Thanks to Nurcan Garip for the information about PD RAM in the last post, and for this information about the EMU Health Center

i) The working hours of the Health Center are similar to that of the University. Additional modifications can be made with the suggestion of health Center Responsible Unit and approval of the Rectorate in case of necessity.

ii) Clinic and Lab work days and hours can be increased and reduced upon the suggestion of the Health Center Responsible Unit and approval of the Rectorate in case of necessity. Note: Working hours are form 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. in winter time. Summer time schedule of the University is also valid for the Health Center.

Health Reports

i) Health reports can be given to students and staff by Health Center doctors in case of necessity.

ii) Health reports taken from anywhere else but EMU Health Center must be approved and registered by the Health Center for 3 days the latest inland and 10 days the latest overseas starting from the report completion date.

iii) It is obligatory that the reports prescribing long-term resting be approved by Health Center Responsible Unit.

Services not Offered by the Health center

When needed Health Center responsible doctor refers the EMU staff and students to the poly-clinics under the Ministry of Health and Welfare for medical services that cannot be offered at Health Center. Students who pay insurance premiums can benefit from the consultation and examination (lab, x-rays) services in all poly-clinics of hospitals under the Ministry of Health and Welfare free of charge. However, advanced imaging (MRI and CT), drugs and other apparatus required for treatment will be paid by students.

Personnel Of Health Center
NAME-SURNAME DUTY
Phone No.
DR. SALH ÇAVUOLU Director, Ear-Nose-Throat 2202
DT. IIN AKCAN Dentist 2209
DR. OSKAY ALP Ophthalmology 2210
DR. ÖZALP NASIFOLU Dermatology 2212
DR. MEHMET EMN KARAGL Internal Medicine 2213
DR. MEHMET YALI Psychiatry 2216
DR. EMINE KUNTER Gynecology 2217
DR. SMAL BAARIR Gynecology 2217
MNE YETERL NALBANT Office Management 2201
YEM KAYA Nurse 2200
TÜLAY AKBAAK Nurse 2200
SULTAN SARIYAR Nurse 2200
ALI BURUK Ambulance Driver 2200
HÜLYA KUMYALILI Cleaner Kitchen Responsible 2207

PD RAM

2011-04-13T15:55:00.001+03:00

Here's a reminder of the services offered to all EMU students by PD RAM

The aim of EMU-PDRAM is to help EMU students by offering Preventive Mental Health Services, by creating self-awareness and by increasing the level of successful experiences with their search for understanding, and developing an awareness of their social, academic and cognitive potential.

Interested in Summer Courses? Please complete this poll.

2011-04-06T21:46:00.005+03:00

Language Support this week

2011-04-04T18:52:00.002+03:00

Please note that this week academic support has been canceled due to exams in EPS. However, Omid and Anna will be providing support to postgraduate students. On Friday though, Anna will not be able to give support as she has class.

3rd Children's Festival

2011-04-02T18:44:00.001+03:00

Thanks to Elmaziye Ozgur for passing this on, and to Aytul Dereboylu for the organisation:

A group of instructors from the SFL are participating in the 3rd Annual Children's Festival which will be held on Saturday, 09th of April 2011 in the walled city to collect donations for a 3 years old cancer patient who is the son of a colleague! The donations which will be collected during this event will completely go towards the fight against cancer!

The instructors are planning to have a food stall with some delicious cakes, desserts, cookies,pastries etc.They will have some activities for children, as well. Hope you can participate in the event on the 9th, and show your support for the cause.

For more information about the the 3rd Annual Children's Festival on Saturday, 09th of April 2011 organized by Famagusta Walled City Association (MASDER) please click here.

As you will know, Famagusta is an extremely historic city. Do check out the activities of the Famagusta Walled City Association. You can download a great map from their website as well as learn more about our town.

Temporary Closure of Site

2011-03-18T16:11:00.000+02:00

Some of you may have noticed that this site was closed for a few days last week. This was due to a court decision in Turkey, after an application by Digiturk seeking action against the website for failing to prevent a few Bloggers using the site to stream live Turkish football matches.

We seem to be up and running again, though I'm not sure whether that means a a solution has been found or not.

Extra Postgraduate English Language Support

2011-03-07T19:51:00.003+02:00

If any of you feel that you would like some extra support with your English, then there's some good news for you.

Tuesday at 14.45, Anna will be available to help any of you who would like to improve their speaking skills.

Tuesday and Thursday, 14.45, Omid will be available to help with writing skills.

All these sessions will take place in the SSSC (Student Self Study Centre)in the English Preparatory School on the South Campus, thus providing you with an additional excellent exercise opportunity.

We thank our postgraduate students Anna and Omid for volunteering their time to provide such an opportunity and the SFL academic support team - Michila Katlantur and Seren Reynolds for their organisation and support.

If you would like any further information, please contact hatice.gunes@emu.edu.tr

ENGL 525 Poster Presentations Gallery

2011-03-07T19:20:00.002+02:00

Today was Poster Presentation day for ENGL525 students. Have a look at the picture gallery:

German Defence Minister Resigns!

2011-03-01T13:54:00.003+02:00

Now, here's a fascinating story about where academic plagiarism can lead!

Question about IELTS

2011-02-20T10:36:00.001+02:00

Here's a question from one of our students:

I am Mehrdad from Iran and really happy to see your Postgraduate English team and I really hop we can work together. I am in class 515. I want to know If I want to get 7 score in IELTS what an exactly classes I need to attend.
Thank you

Mehrdad, after you have completed ENGL515, look out for the ENGL521 elective next semester, which will be designed as a specific IELTS preparation course. Continue with the other electives (523 and 525) if you can, and make use of IELTS preparation sites on the Internet, starting with the IELTS homepage.

IELTS and TOEFL costs and details

2011-02-18T12:01:00.000+02:00

Costs
IELTS - €170;
TOEFL - $200

Applying
TOEFL iBT - application required a week in advance.
IELTS - six weeks in advance.

Results
Candidates can access their results after 15 days for both tests.

Contact for IELTS
Cyprus, North Nicosia
British Council
28 Kasim Sokak
Nicosia

Telephone +90 392 227 4938
Fax +90 392 2285809
E-mail enquiries@cy.britishcouncil.org
Exams: exams.enquiries@cy.britishcouncil.org

Contact for TOEFL
aygun.ozyahyalar@emu.edu.tr

Taking TOEFL IBT at EMU

2011-02-16T19:51:00.002+02:00

The TOEFL IBT exam is used by EMU and many universities internationally as a measure of English Language Proficiency. At EMU:

80 on TOEFL IBT exempts postgraduate students from the compulsory postgraduate courses.

74-79 on TOEFL IBT exempts postgraduate students from the compulsory first semester postgraduate English course, ENGL 513.

TOEFL IBT may secure your entry for a course of further study at many institutions, particularly in the USA. And of course, it will also give you a good idea of your real level of English and how much you may need to improve your language skills.

Find out more about TOEFL IBT here.

And if you would like to take TOEFL IBT here at EMU, the dates for the Spring Semester are as
follows:

11 March 2011 (09:45)
15 April 2011 (09:45)
13 May2011 (09:45)
17 June 2011 (09:45)

8 July 2011 (10:00)
27 August 2011 (10:00)
16 September 2011 (10:00)
14 October 2011 (10:00)
11 November 2011 (10:00)
9 December 2011 (10:00)

Contact aygun.ozyahyalar@emu.edu.tr for details of how to apply. And see the TOEFL site for updates at:

http://www.ets.org

Orientation for Postgraduate English Courses

2011-02-15T15:42:00.001+02:00

Spring Semester Orientation

Postgraduate English Programme

An orientation session will be held in Mehmet Tahiroğlu Hall (Blue Hall) on Friday, 18th February at 14.00 to welcome all new postgraduate students and to bring both new and old students up-to-date with the latest changes and developments in the Postgraduate English language support programme.

The Postgraduate English Team

School of Foreign Languages, Modern Languages Division

Course Announcement

2011-02-14T11:05:00.000+02:00

Postgraduate English Courses

2010-2011 Spring Semester

Postgraduate English Team would like to welcome all new students and bring both new and old students up-to-date with the latest changes and developments in our English language support programme.

The codes of all courses have been changed to provide a more logical structure to our curriculum. The courses on offer are now as follows:

Compulsory Courses
ENGL 511: Intensive English for Post-graduate Students

This 20 hour weekly course is for students who score beneath 30 on the EMU Proficiency Test and who have only limited English language skills.
ENGL 513: Academic English for Postgraduate Students

This 6 hour weekly course is for students who score between 31 and 59 on the EMU Proficiency Test. The course covers all the major skills from an academic perspective and is closely linked with students’ own individual academic studies. (Earlier code 503)
ENGL 515: Advanced Academic English for Postgraduate Students

This 4 hour weekly course is for students who score between 60 and 75 on the EMU Proficiency Test. In this course students develop their academic English skills further with a particular focus on the IELTS exam. (Earlier code 502)
Elective Courses
ENGL 523: Thesis Writing for Postgraduate Students

This 4 hour weekly course assists students with planning, developing and writing their thesis and helps them with producing work at an internationally publishable standard. (Earlier code 501)
ENGL 525: Advanced Presentation Skills for Postgraduate Students

This 4 hour weekly course aims at improving students’ academic speaking and presentation skills for the purpose of thesis defence, conference, and seminar presentations. (Earlier code 504)
Elective Courses for Turkish-Speaking Postgraduate Students
ENGL 531: General English for KPDS / UDS I

This 4 hour weekly course is for students who are engaged in postgraduate study in Turkish but who wish to improve their English for future academic or professional purposes. It has a particular emphasis on preparing students for the KPDS/UDS exams. (Earlier code 505)

For further information please contact Asst.Prof.Dr. Elmaziye Ozgur at elmaziye.ozgur@emu.edu.tr, phone no: 6301330/2423

Postgraduate Newsletter 2

2011-02-10T13:10:00.001+02:00

This is the second Postgraduate English Newsletter. You can see, save or print the original here.

Latest Postgraduate English Newsletter

2011-02-09T23:09:00.000+02:00

Do take a look at the latest Postgraduate English Newsletter.

Brief Overview of Spring Semester Courses

2011-02-08T15:45:00.000+02:00

Compulsory Courses
ENGL 511: 20 hours weekly for students who score beneath 30 on the EMU Proficiency Test
ENGL 513 6 hours weekly for students who score between 31 and 59 on the EMU Proficiency Test (503)
ENGL 515: 4 hours weekly for students who score between 60 and 75 on the EMU Proficiency Test (502)
Elective Courses
ENGL 521: Advanced English for IELTS
ENGL 523: Thesis Writing for Postgraduate Students (501)
ENGL 525: Advanced Presentation Skills for Postgraduate Students (504)
Elective Courses for Turkish-Speaking Postgraduate Students Only
ENGL 531: General English for KPDS / UDS I (505)
ENGL 533: General English for KPDS / UDS II

Old codes are in brackets

Information about ENGL 525 for Spring Semester

2011-02-07T21:21:00.005+02:00

Overview of ENGL 525 (formerly ENGL504): Advanced Presentation Skills for Postgraduate Students

Spring Semester 2011 Changes

2011-02-06T11:41:00.000+02:00

Please check out this powerpoint to see what courses are being offered by the postgraduate team this semester.

Changes to Courses in Spring Semester

2011-02-04T11:45:00.000+02:00

Please note that there have been a number of changes to the postgraduate courses for this coming spring semester, including changes to all the course codes. Some of the information on this website is therefore now out-of-date. Please be patient and we will try and have all the pages and information fixed and fully up-to-date over the next few days.

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T11:05:00.002+02:00

Happy New Year to all Postgraduate Students from the Postgraduate English Team. We look forward to working with you more in 2011!

Vocabulary Powerpoint

2010-12-17T10:28:00.000+02:00

Here's a Powerpoint about Vocabulary Learning from ENGL 503 that may interest you all:

YouTube

2010-11-23T10:20:00.000+02:00

It may not be too surprising to learn that the ever growing GOOGLE empire also acquired YouTube; For all the nonsense on YouTube, there are also some exceptionally good educational materials.

And with today's webcams and digital technology, you have some options in how you can make good use of YouTube and other such sites:

1) Rather than keep a Blog, you could keep a VLOG (Video-Log) as a study-research diary. This would help improve your oral fluency and act as a useful check mechanism to see if you really understand what you're studying or researching.
2) Video presentations can be uploaded into YouTube.
3) Video presentations and Video CVs are becoming more common. They can be stored on YouTube (or elsewhere) and linked from your website or Blog.

One warning about YouTube: It does periodically get closed down in some parts of the world (rather pointlessly since it is always possible to access it through a proxy server).

Surveys, Forms and Questionnaires

2010-11-22T10:12:00.000+02:00

One other point about GOOGLE Docs: You can custom design online forms and surveys - a resource that you might find rather useful in some types of research.

GOOGLE Documents

2010-11-21T10:05:00.000+02:00

Although Blogger and GOOGLE sites offer only limited storage space, this is not really a problem, because you can create and store presentations, documents, and charts in GOOGLE documents, and create links to them.

GOOGLE Docs is simply Google's answer to MS Office. It's not as sophisticated, but it's flexible, and its online storage mechanism means you can access your documents anywhere you go, not to mention share them with as many or as few people as you choose.

Some people make back-ups of their Office documents in GOOGLE docs to guard against theft, loss, and failure of their computers and storage devices.

GOOGLE Docs also has a wealth of templates, e.g. for reports, cvs etc.

GOOGLE Sites

2010-11-20T10:01:00.000+02:00

If you would prefer to establish a more traditional fixed website at speed, setting up a GOOGLE site takes approximately 5 minutes; again, thinking ahead, cvs, presentations, academic work, video and much more might be organised into a highly professional looking website calculated to impress future employers, and promote your research activity.

Blogger

2010-11-19T09:56:00.000+02:00

Blogger as you will have realised is the home of this site; it's another GOOGLE-owned operation, and again simple enough to use. A Blog functions as a diary / interactive web-environment, and can be public (like this Blog), or kept private for personal use.

Four reasons to consider keeping a Blog.
i) A great medium to keep a research and study diary.
ii) A simple way of improving your writing fluency.
iii) A possible medium for gathering and presenting your work to a public audience.
iv) A possible medium for organising a portfolio of your achievements for future employers.

Picasa

2010-11-18T09:49:00.000+02:00

Picasa is GOOGLE's photo storage site, and the equivalent on GOOGLE to FLICKR. It's a useful site to store and categorise your personal photos.

What has this got to do with postgraduate English you may ask?! Not a lot, possibly; but images you may use in your research work may find a place here (and a unique URL you can use); and one day you might find that a professional / research album of some type may come in very handy in research work (e.g. presentations) and when applying for employment.

As we'll discuss later, traditional methods of applying for jobs through old-style cvs are very much being overtaken by technological developments.

I-GOOGLE

2010-11-17T09:45:00.000+02:00

I-GOOGLE enables you to create your own private homepage. Again it is very user-friendly, and enables you to collect the feeds, web-links and gadgets that you find most useful in your day-to-day work in one place.

GOOGLE Reader

2010-11-16T09:42:00.000+02:00

Have a play around with GOOGLE Reader (under the 'more' button); it enables you to store and share websites and RSS feeds that you find particularly useful.

Blog Searches

2010-11-15T17:41:00.000+02:00

One further search facility GOOGLE has is a BLOG search (Blogger, one of the most popular Blogs on the Internet is Google-owned). Many people use Blogs and for all kinds of reasons, some of them very specialised and research-orientated. It's worth therefore doing a BLOG search using some key search terms; you might just find some material that will be both useful and interesting to you.

Video and Image Searches

2010-11-14T17:13:00.000+02:00

Probably everyone is familiar with GOOGLE video and image search; two things worth noting however:
1) There is no reason as such why you can't use these sources in research.
2) Material is often copyrighted, and if you use it, you must reference it.

Check out the APA website to check on referencing conventions.

Wonderwheel

2010-11-13T16:33:00.000+02:00

An alternative option to Timeline you'll see is Wonderwheel, which provides a linked graphic of the main themes in the fiekl you are searching for.

Timeline Search

2010-11-12T16:21:00.000+02:00

On your left after a standard GOOGLE search, you'll notice some other options; one of these is timeline, which will give you a list of research results in chronological order to give you a kind of history of the topic you are interested in. Very good if you want to get an overview of developments in a particular field.

GOOGLE News

2010-11-11T13:56:00.000+02:00

Google News in the top toolbar is at first sight a digest of just what you'd expect - the latest news. But it is also a search engine in its own right, which means you can use it to search for all the latest news in your subject field, as well as look back through the news archive. It's a good way of staying in touch with all the latest developments in your field.

Create E-mail Alert

2010-11-10T13:45:00.000+02:00

If you look at the GOOGLE Scholar toolbar, you'll see a 'create e-mail alert' button. This is quite neat. With GOOGLE Alert, you type in your search terms and then set GOOGLE to conduct a regular search for you (daily, weekly etc.). When GOOGLE finds a new hit for you, very simply you get an automatic e-mail from them. So, it's well worth deciding on key research words and phrases for your studies and setting up a GOOGLE Alert system for yourself.

Of course, you'll need a free g-mail account to take advantage of all of this - but on balance it's well worth having.

GOOGLE Scholar

2010-11-09T13:42:00.001+02:00

Google Scholar is an academic search engine. For example, if you are doing scholarly research into tourism, you probably don't want your search results to include bargain holiday offers from travel agencies and the like. GOOGLE Scholar is the answer; again, you'll find it under the 'more' button on the main page.

Google Books Search Types

2010-11-08T13:34:00.001+02:00

Most search engines provide hits in order of 'popularity'; GOOGLE Books allows you to alter this, so that you can search. for example, 'architecture' as normal, but click in the left-hand options column to restrict the search to the most recent books publihsed, or books in the nineteenth century only; a pop-up calendar enables you to custom set the search for the exact dates you're interested in. You can see these options if you double click on the webshot in the last entry.

Google Books

2010-11-07T13:21:00.000+02:00

Up on the top right hand side of the toolbar is a label with the title 'more'; This is not very informative, but click it, and you'll find a whole range of useful resources and specialist search engines. One of these is Google Books, which when you enter a search term provides you with a list of books on the subject or topic you have entered:

GOOGLE Advanced Search

2010-11-06T12:35:00.002+02:00

It's easy to ignore GOOGLE's advanced search feature, as it's almost unnoticeable on the main search page, just to the right of the search box. But in fact it's a very user-friendly search engine to refine your searches to track down what you're looking for with greater speed and efficiency.

Take a look, and see what you can find.

Google Search Results

2010-11-05T12:22:00.000+02:00

GOOGLE search results provide not only information about your research but a series of mini language lessons if you look at the results carefully. Take a look at the following search results, for example and see if you can identify useful words and phrases to follow up:

Mechanical Engineering

- [ Bu sayfanın çevirisini yap ]

Freelance Writing Jobs | Today's Articles | Sign In ... Steel as an Engineering Material. The range of mechanical properties that can be created through ...
www.suite101.com/mechanical-engineering - Önbellek

Mechanical Engineering Magazine - MEMagazine

- [ Bu sayfanın çevirisini yap ]

ASME's flagship magazine for Mechanical Engineers. ... ADVERTISEMENT Measurement Computing · Mechanical Engineering Magazine - The Magazine of ASME ...

Back articles - Features - Engineering Jobs - Advertise

memagazine.asme.org/ - Önbellek - Benzer

Mechanical Engineering - Articles from Mechanical Engineering ...

- [ Bu sayfanın çevirisini yap ]

Mechanical Engineering - Find current articles and Mechanical Engineering archives for information or help with school homework.
www.encyclopedia.com/Mechanical+Engineering/publications.aspx?... - Önbellek - Benzer

Mechanical Engineering articles | HighBeam Research - FREE trial

- [ Bu sayfanın çevirisini yap ]

Mechanical Engineering: Find and search current online magazines and journal articles, issues, and archives from Mechanical Engineering for research and ...
www.highbeam.com/Mechanical+Engineering/publications.aspx - Önbellek - Benzer

Index of mechanical engineering articles - Wikipedia, the free ...

- [ Bu sayfanın çevirisini yap ]

This is an alphabetical list of articles pertaining specifically to mechanical engineering. For a broad overview of engineering, please see List of ...
en.wikipedia.org/.../Index_of_mechanical_engineering_articles - Önbellek - Benzer

Mechanical engineering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- [ Bu sayfanın çevirisini yap ]

Main articles: Structural analysis and Failure analysis. Structural analysis ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_engineering - Önbellek - Benzer

wikipedia.org sitesinden daha fazla sonuç göster

Mechanical Engineering Articles | Find Articles at BNET

- [ Bu sayfanın çevirisini yap ]

A system to deliver local hypothermia could one day improve the lives of heart-attack patients. On July 18, 2006, engineer Dean Cowles. ...
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5325/ - Önbellek - Benzer

Here are some ideas:

What is a flagship magazine? What does flagship mean in this context?

Articles pertaining to? What does pertaining mean?

What adjective can be used before the word overview?

What preposition can be used with the verb search? When do we use it? When do we not use it?

Spend a few minutes longer with your search results, and you'll be surprised how many odd bits and pieces of language you may learn.

GOOGLE in English

2010-11-04T12:18:00.000+02:00

In this series of entries, we'll take a look at how you can make use of GOOGLE.

The first piece of advice regarding GOOGLE is to use the English version of GOOGLE, very simply because it will provide you with a simple way of improving your English language comprehension skills.

APA Style

2010-11-03T12:14:00.000+02:00

One site worth bookmarking and taking a good look through is the main APA web-page at: http://www.apastyle.org/

This site will provide you with help about any referencing and formatting questions you may have,

University of Richmond Writer's Web

2010-11-02T17:33:00.002+02:00

We've just come across another very useful site for academic writers - very clearly organised and helpful. It's from the University of Richmond in the USA, and well worth exploring. Check it out here.

What can be used as sources in academic work?

2010-11-01T09:24:00.000+02:00

If you study bibliographies, you may be surprised by the number of different sources that can be used in academic work (each of which has a referencing convention).

Books, articles and Internet sites are obvious of course, but you don't necessarily need to get stuck on these:

There are newspapers and magazines; films, television, video and radio; and lectures and speeches; and personal communications both orally and in writing, and more beyond. Depending on your subject area, there may be many more sources available than you think.

APA

2010-10-31T09:18:00.000+02:00

APA (The American Psychological Association) is one of the most common referencing systems used, including at EMU. It's therefore important to learn about it. There's a short introduction in Wikipedia that tells you basically what it is and how it came about.

Avoiding Plagiarism

2010-10-30T23:29:00.000+03:00

Make sure you reference all your sources at all times. Direct quotations with reference are often used for this purpose. So are paraphrases. Paraphrasing means rewriting the author's original words into your own words. But remember! When paraphrasing, you still have to provide the reference and source!

What is Plagiarism?

2010-10-29T23:26:00.000+03:00

Plagiarism is one of the most serious academic offences. It is using other people's work or ideas without crediting their work by referencing it. These days it's also rather easy to detect through plagiarism detecting software, and even through search engines. A reader familiar with subject content will also spot plagiarism relatively easily, and so will a reader familiar with the style and level of the writer's English.

Daily Postgraduate English Newspaper

2010-10-28T12:16:00.001+03:00

With the wonders of modern technology, we can now proudly announce that we have a Postgraduate English Daily Newspaper, updated every twenty-four hours. Take a look at the first edition and add the site to your bookmarks. A link to the newspaper is also provided in the EMU links section of this Blog.

However, to access the newspaper, you will need to open a free twitter account if you do not already have one. (Make sure you become a follower of EMUPLD at the same time!)

Concordancer

2010-10-28T11:43:00.000+03:00

Our final post on Lextutor is about Concordancer. With the concordancer, you enter words to find out how they are used in the corpuses the site makes use of.

Let's say, I want to know how to use the word 'research'; I enter the word into the keyword box, and select the corpus I want to use (it's a drop down box) and submit. You get something like the following back, and studying it you start to see how 'research' is used and the types of words that are commonly used with 'research'.

Frequency Counter

2010-10-27T11:33:00.000+03:00

The LexTutor Frequency Counter works in a similar way. You paste text or upload a file and the programme gives you the frequency of words in a text.

How might this be useful? Well, say, you were about to read an article, and you wanted to find the most important words in the article that you might need to know before reading it. Put the article in the frequency counter, and you'll find out.

You can also obviously learn something about the frequency with which you use certain words in your own writing.

International Night

2010-10-26T10:07:00.000+03:00

Just a reminder that this Thursday evening at 8.00 is International Night, with a range of activities, performances and cuisines from many different countries. Hope to see as many of you there as possible.

Advice (based on last year): Come hungry!

Vocabulary Profiler in Action

2010-10-26T09:49:00.003+03:00

If you put a text into the profiler, you'll see something like this (click to enlarge): Blue words are the most frequent 1000 words in English, green words are from the 1001-2000 range (GSL2) and yellow words are from the Academic Word List. The red words are the 'others'; very often these might be technical words from your own field.

A nice feature of the profiler is that you can edit your text in another window, changing words to make your vocabulary more varied and sophisticated.

Vocabulary Profiler

2010-10-26T09:40:00.000+03:00

LexTutor also has a Vocabulary Profiler. You can enter any text into the vocabulary profiler and it will tell you, for example, which words in the text are from General Service Lists 1 and 2, and which are from the Academic Word List and give you percentages.

Some people say that very good academic writing makes use of more lower frequency words. You can get an idea of your profile by entering a text into the profiler, and comparing your writing, say, with an article from your field.

List-Learn

2010-10-25T07:09:00.000+03:00

Lextutor provides more than tests; it also provides lists to learn from. On its list-learn pages, you will find help with revising or learning the:

GSL (General Service Lists) 1000 and 1001-2000 lists. These are the most frequent 2000 words in English.

UWL (University Word List) and AWL (Academic Word List). These lists provide lists of additional words that their designers identified as being particularly useful in academic work.

Lextutor

2010-10-24T09:19:00.000+03:00

Lextutor is a Canadian vocabulary site for researchers, instructors and students. Amongst many other useful tools, you can test your vocabulary knowledge of the most frequent words in English to the level of 14,000.

In the tests, you'll see references to K1 and K2. K1 refers to the most frequent 1000 words in English; K2 to the next most frequent 1000 words, and so on. What's the significance of this then? Take a look at the figures below. Basically, the first 1000 words in English are so common that they make up an average of 79.7% of any text you read. After that word families get less frequent and as a result harder to learn. But note that the 6000 mark has still not hit 90% - some way from the magic 95% number. Here's the link to the tests.

86,741 100 %
43,831 99.0
6,000 89.9

5,000 88.6

4,000 86.7
3,000 84
2,000 79.7
1,000 72.0
10 23.7

Test your vocabulary knowledge

2010-10-23T14:28:00.002+03:00

You can test out your vocabulary range and knowledge by taking this test. To reach the magic 95% figure for full comprehension by the way, you probably need a vocabulary of at least 6000-8000 words.

How good is your vocabulary?

2010-10-22T08:53:00.000+03:00

It has been suggested that to have a fairly complete understanding of a text that you should know approximately 95% of the words in front of you. With this knowledge, you can probably work out the meanings of unknown words from context. This means knowing 19 out of every 20 words in front of you. Try it out with a few pages of academic text, and see how close you are to the magic 95% figure and how much further you need to go.

Academic Phrase Bank

2010-10-21T08:46:00.000+03:00

There's a useful bank of words and phrases you can use in academic writing at the Manchester University Phrasebank.

Postgraduate English Workshops and Seminars

2010-10-20T19:16:00.000+03:00

Soon, we hope to be starting off a series of postgraduate English language seminars and workshops. Before we do so, we'd like to hear from you about the kinds of workshops you'd most benefit from. There's a poll now on this site that will only take a few seconds to complete, and if you'd like to make any additional suggestions, just hit the 'comment' button and fire away.

ISI Web of Knowledge

2010-10-19T10:43:00.000+03:00

ISI Web of Knowledge is an academic citation indexing and search service, which is combined with web linking and provided by Thomson Reuters. Web of Knowledge coverage encompasses the sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities. It provides bibliographic content and the tools to access, analyze, and manage research information. A notable attribute is that multiple databases can be searched simultaneously.

Find out more about the importance of citation in academic work by browsing the rest of this Wikipedia article.

Then learn more about citation indexes at Thomson Reuters.

Indian Film Festival

2010-10-18T10:03:00.000+03:00

The Indian Student Society is holding a film festival from the 19th-21st October (Click on image for more information. Each of these classic films will have English subtitles, so as well as being an introduction to an extraordinnarily rich culture, there's an opportunity to see how watching films and using subtitles might contribute to English language learning and development.

Plagiarism Checking

2010-10-18T00:01:00.000+03:00

Many institutions now have advanced plagiarism software and run a standard check on work submitted, particularly at higher levels, e.g. for theses. There are some free plagiarism software programmes available also. One of these is called Plagiarism Checker. If you're worried about something you're working on, you can paste your text into the programme, and it will scan the internet for similarities.

Out of interest, I pasted one of my published articles into the site in the original Word format. Sure enough, it found me out ! At the same time, because it conducts the search on the basis of relatively short phrases, it directed me to some sites and research I wasn't aware of, which was a useful bonus.

Of course, even GOOGLE can perform the same function, so it's sometimes worth self-checking work through such sites.

Back up your work

2010-10-17T08:53:00.000+03:00

It's obvious isn't it? Your computer crashes, your flash drive ends up in the washing machine, you drop your portable hard disk... But it still happens and all your hard work disappears into cyberspace. So, do regularly back up important work by:

i) keeping copies of your work on portable media.
ii) e-mailing work to yourself (free services like dropsend are available that will send large files by email).
iii) saving work on the Internet, e.g on GOOGLE docs or other similar web-based services that will store your work for you, and enable you to access it at anytime and any place.

These days, losing data and work will not be accepted as a good excuse or an unfortunate accident, but just viewed as carelessness.

Translation Tools

2010-10-16T08:22:00.000+03:00

Translation tools are more and more widely used these days. Both GOOGLE and Microsoft have translation services. You can access the latter directly from Word 2007. But: Beware of using them for anything much more than getting a quick general understanding of a document:

Take a look at this. It's part of the original English of our first newsletter.

http://twitter.com/emupld

So, we’d suggest you create a Twitter account, and become a follower of the EMUPLD twitter, so that you receive regular updates and learning advice throughout the year.

You’ll also receive news through the website and twitter of extra seminars and workshops and other events to help you with your language learning.

All of you are also invited to keep up with research at EMU, by creating an account at the EMU research newsletter website at: http://researchnewsletter.emu.edu.tr/

When your own research is advanced, you can even consider publishing some of your work in the newsletter.

I then used a well-known translation service to translate this to Arabic. And then the same service again to independently translate the Arabic version into English. Here's what came back:

http://twitter.com/emupld

Therefore, we would like to suggest a Twitter account and become an affiliate of Twitter Amobld, since you receive regular updates and learning advice throughout the year.

You will also receive news via a website and Twitter additional seminars, workshops and other events help you in your language.

You all are invited also to keep up with research in economic and Monetary Union, by creating an account at site newsletter research in economic and Monetary Union http://researchnewsletter.emu.edu.tr/:

When your search, you can consider to publish some of your work in the newsletter.

This alone should suggest that using translation tools as any kind of basis for academic writing is definitely not a smart idea.

Spellchecking and more with Google

2010-10-15T09:34:00.001+03:00

A quick spellcheck can also be conducted by sticking a word in the GOOGLE search engine. The results will also show the word is used in sentences and phrases.
If you want to check phrases, use the Advanced Search option (just to the right of the normal GOOGLE search window).
GOOGLE has many other specialised search options. Included as a link on this page is the GOOGLE Scholar Search, which narrows a search to academic material.
For example, if you are studying tourism, a general search may well provide hits of no relevance (e.g. travel agencies, airlines etc.); A GOOGLE Scholar search excludes this material.

Pasting from Word into the Internet

2010-10-14T12:20:00.000+03:00

Before putting text into a web-based environment - e.g. a MOODLE discussion, it's really useful to draft your work in MS Word, saving a copy, and using the MS Word spellcheck and grammar check tools.

However, according to the programmes you are using, you may sometimes see some funny results from your pasting with odd bits of computer code appearing. These come from the Word source.

To avoid this:

1) Some Internet sites have a special 'clean Word' copy icon to use to paste. Check toolbars for this.
2) Other Internet sites will ask you whether you want to keep or remove 'formatting'; Remove it.

This works the other way round as well, i.e. when copy-pasting from the Internet to Word. When doing this:
1) Instead of using paste, use paste special (go to 'edit' on your toolbar); and select paste as unformatted text.

This gets rid of images, codes and all other unnecessary material and makes the pasting a lot quicker as well.

EMU Research Newsletter

2010-10-14T11:41:00.000+03:00

Did you know that EMU has its own Research Newsletter and Research Newsletter website, which is published four times a year? The Research Newsletter lists all the publications by the EMU community, conferences attended and more. Furthermore, the newsletter includes short research articles by staff and students; so if you are looking to start publishing some of your research, the newsletter is a good place to start.

So, why not take a look at the Research Newsletter Website to find out more.

Grammar Check in Office

2010-10-13T14:56:00.001+03:00

The University of Wisconcin have a short tutorial on how to use the grammar check in Word. It is worth using the grammar check, but as the Wisconcin site points out, you do have to use some judgement;

The grammar check is not always right!

Check out their advice here.

Paper Rater

2010-10-12T14:31:00.001+03:00

Paper Rater is another site you might try out. You paste your text into a window and ask for a report, which examines your writing according to six categories, as shown below (click image to enlarge):

Spellcheck Plus

2010-10-11T13:57:00.001+03:00

If you google around for spellcheck programmes, you'll find other alternatives, many of them free and others offering 'extras'. Here, for example, is a screenshot from SpellcheckPlus

You'll see that spellcheck plus is identifying phrases for you to check. By putting our mouse over the highlighted section - in this case 'the military service', we can get an explanation - see top right - of the problem. Quite clever! (Click on the image to see this in full size).

Careful with spellcheck!

2010-10-10T13:46:00.001+03:00

Spellcheck is built on a dictionary and is trained to recognise existing words. If you choose the wrong word, or if in your 'wrong' spelling you accidentally spell another word correctly, spellcheck won't spot the problem. Here's an example:

Were are the students? I want to no if these are there books?

3 'spelling' mistakes but spellcheck won't notice any of them, because they are all real words.

Always use spellcheck!
Always check spelling again yourself!

Gettting your spacing right!

2010-10-09T13:38:00.001+03:00

Important: Do make sure when using Word that you space words properly.

Wrong Use: I have a big house,which is painted red.The neighbours hate it.

There are no spaces after the commas and full stops; The computer will count the part in red as one word, and indicate a spelling mistake.

Right Use: I have a big house, which is painted red. The neighbours hate it.

Readability statistics in Word

2010-10-09T09:40:00.001+03:00

When word has finished a spelling and grammar check and if you have checked the Flesch and Flesch-Kincaid options in word, you should see something like the image on the left. This gives an idea of the level you are writing at. The Flesch-Kincaid level approximates to the American High School system. Here the grade level is 12.0 - meaning 12th grade, age around 17-18 would be the lowest level at which to use this piece of writing.
Now take a look at this explanation of the Reading Ease formula. As you'll see 17.7 means you need to be a college graduate to deal with the text. There is also a suggestion that the text may be confusing to some readers. Perhaps worth having another look, particularly to check on sentence length and punctuation?

Use spellcheck and grammar check in MS Office

2010-10-08T09:22:00.001+03:00

Whichever version of Office you use, and wherever you are working, make sure that the language of the computer is switched to English.

Go to Tools and then Options, and check mark the options you want to make use of.

DO check the options for the Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid reading ease scales.

Then check out this Wikipedia Entry to find out what they are.

New language discovered

2010-10-06T12:21:00.000+03:00

Here's an extraordinary story. We all know that many rare languages around the world are dying - but it's certainly not often that a new language is discovered. But that's what's happened here. Check out this fascinating story from today's BBC

ENGL504 Group Closure

2010-09-30T19:14:00.000+03:00

Just a quick note. ENGL 504 - Academic Speech - will not run this semester, but it will be on next semester's menu. We'll run orientations, particularly for 501 students later this semester to introduce the course more fully.

ENGL 501 and 504

2010-09-29T11:08:00.000+03:00

Attention to all post-graduate students:
The following elective courses are available for students who have reached the thesis stage of their post-graduate programme:
ENGL 501: Advanced Thesis Writing (This course is a second year elective course and assists participants with planning, developing and writing their thesis and helps them with producing work at an internationally publishable standard)
ENGL 504: Advanced Academic Speaking Skills (This course is a second year elective course to help participants prepare for thesis defences, conference presentations, and applications for jobs and further courses of study)
For further information, please contact:
Asst. Prof. Dr. Elmaziye Ozgur Kufi elmaziye.ozgur@emu.edu.tr
Asst. Prof. Dr. Nilgun Hancioglu nilgun.hancioglu@emu.edu.tr
Telephone: 630 3063

Orientation Session

2010-09-29T10:31:00.001+03:00

The third orientation to the postgraduate English programme took place yesterday in the Blue Hall. Watch this space for further information about upcoming orientations, seminars and workshops.

ENGL505

2010-09-28T11:43:00.000+03:00

ATTENTION TO ALL TURKISH-SPEAKING POST-GRADUATE STUDENTS, AND ADVISORS:
The following elective course is available for Turkish-speaking post-graduate students:
ENGL 505: Intensive English for Turkish Post-graduate Students (KPDS and UDS Preparation)
This course is for students who are engaged in post-graduate study in Turkish but who wish to improve their English for future academic or professional purposes. It has a particular emphasis on preparing students for the KPDS and UDS exams. Turkish post-graduate students in English-medium programmes can also benefit from this course if they wish to take KPDS or UDS.

For further information, please contact:
Course Instructor: Berna Bereket e-mail: berna.bereket@emu.edu.tr Telephone: 630 2606
Or
Coordinator of Post-graduate English Courses: Asst. Prof. Dr. Elmaziye Özgür Küfi, e-mail: elmaziye.ozgur@emu.edu.tr Telephone: 630 3063

Orientation for New Postgraduate Students

2010-09-27T19:55:00.000+03:00

The next orientation for new postgraduate English programmes will be held on Tuesday 28th September at 14.30 in the Blue Hall.

EMU Opening Ceremony

2010-09-24T21:02:00.000+03:00

Just a reminder that there will be no classes at EMU on Monday morning, 27 September, as the university will be conducting its official opening ceremony.

New Postgraduate English Courses this semester

2010-09-22T14:20:00.000+03:00

Two new elective courses are on offer this semester:

ENGL504 is a second year elective course to help participants prepare for thesis defences, conference presentations, and applications for jobs and further courses of study.

ENGL505 is a course for Turkish speaking postgraduate students who wish to prepare for KPDS and UDS exams.

Postgraduate English Courses this semester

2010-09-20T21:05:00.000+03:00

Postgraduate courses offered by Modern Languages Division this semester are as follows:

ENGL 503: Academic English for Postgraduate Students
The course covers all the major language skills from an academic perspective and is closely linked with students’ own individual academic studies.

ENGL 502: Advanced English for IELTS
In this course students develop their academic English skills further with a particular focus on the IELTS exam.

ENGL 501: Advanced Thesis Writing
This course assists students with planning, developing and writing their thesis and helps them with producing work at an internationally publishable standard.

ENGL 504: Advanced Academic Speaking Skills
This course aims at improving students’ academic speaking and presentation skills for the purpose of thesis defence, conference and seminar presentations.

ENGL 505: Intensive English for Turkish Postgraduate Students (KPDS and UDS Preparation)
This course is for students who are engaged in postgraduate study in Turkish but who wish to improve their English for future academic or professional purposes. It has a particular emphasis on preparing students for the KPDS and UDS exams.

More information about the Postgraduate English Support Programme will be provided in the orientation sessions to be held on 21st September (today) at 14.30 in Blue Hall and on 28th September at 14.30 again in Blue Hall.

For further information please contact Asst. Prof. Dr. Nilgun Hancioglu at nilgun.hancioglu@emu.edu.tr or Asst. Prof. Dr. Elmaziye Ozgur Kufi at elmaziye.ozgur@emu.edu.tr, Office phone no: 630 3063