20
The Writing Process: Reading and Note-making
d) She felt that the older she got, the less she really
knew.
e) The negotiation process reminded him of
a game of
chess.
f) By the end of the semester most students were
in the
red.
g) When a student arrived late, the teacher asked
if he
had had a good sleep.
h) He claimed that his book was
the most important work
of the century.
6. When writing academic work, it is important not to use
phrases met in non-academic texts, e.g. newspapers or
magazines. The features marked with an asterisk (*) above
should be avoided in academic writing.
Find examples of them in the sentences below and rewrite them
in more academic style.
a) Obesity is the most serious problem facing civilisation
today.
b) One cause is the famously healthy Western diet of
chocolate and hamburgers.
c) So people with podgy tummies should think about
fighting the flab.
d) They should pull themselves together, and get down
to the gym.
e) They must remember the saying: God helps those

Having selected these sections of the text, you can then go
on to make notes from them:
British women live longer than men: 79/ 74 years
reasons? new research suggests immune system/thymus >
T cells
women have more T cells than men = better protection
2.
Read the following and then choose a suitable title which
expresses the key point.
Title:
Dean Kamen is a 50-year-old American eccentric who is
also a multi-millionaire. He always wears blue denim shirts
and jeans, even when visiting his friend, the president,
in the White House. He flies to work by helicopter, which
cross-reference
1.7 Note-making
22
The Writing Process: Reading and Note-making
he also uses for visiting his private island off the coast
of Connecticut. As an undergraduate Kamen developed
the first pump that would give regular doses of medicine
to patients. The patent for this and other original medical
inventions has produced a huge income, allowing him
to run his own research company which, among many
other projects, has produced the iBot, the world’s first
wheelchair which can climb stairs.
3.
Underline three key points in the following text.
EMPOWERING HEALTHCARE
In many parts of the world hospitals have none of the

accurate estimates as nobody knew how many species of
animals lived on the planet. So far 1.5 million species had
been named, but the true figure might be as high as 100
million. Our ignorance of this made it almost impossible
to work out the actual rate of extinction. However, the use
of intelligent guesses suggests that losses over the past
1.6 Selecting Key Points
23
century were comparable with the extinctions of earlier
periods, evidence of which is found in the fossil record.
5. When preparing to write an essay you may be concerned with
only one aspect of a text, so that your key points relate only to
the topic you are examining.
a) You are planning to write an essay on ‘Marketing – art or
science?’ Read the text below and underline the sections
relevant to your essay.
BOTTLED WATER UNDER ATTACK
The Water Companies Association (WCA) has claimed
that bottled water costs 700 times more than tap water,
but is often of inferior quality. The chief executive of the
WCA pointed out that although bottled water advertising
often associated the product with sport and health there
was no truth in this link. The reality, she said, was that
the packaging of bottled water was environmentally
damaging, since millions of empty bottles had to be
disposed of in rubbish tips. 2% of samples of bottled
water failed a purity test conducted by the Drinking Water
Inspectorate, while only 0.3% of tap water samples failed
the same test. Labels on bottled water often referred to
‘spring’ and ‘natural water’, which were meaningless

to the work, as does the threat that the plague might be
used as an agent of bacteriological warfare.