Before you read a discussion text, the steps you must study are the following general features of the discussion below.
Social Purpose
Discussion are used to present information about arguments for both sides of an issue. Discussion also allow us to explore various perspectives before coming to an informed decision.
A discussion relies on the logical presentation of facts and can be written to :
Persuade the reader of the writer's point of view
Present pros and cons of an issue in order to convidence the reader of the writer's point of view, and
Present pros and cons of an issue to allow the reader to reach logical conclusion.
Generic Structures (Schematic Structures) of the text
Discussion are usually organized to include :
A statement outlining the issue, often accompanied by some background information about the issue.
A case for/argument for case/argument against, including evidance for different points of view,
A conclution, which might sum up both sides or might recommend in favor of one particular side.
Argument : the body of an exposition, presenting the evidence in fabour of a thesis.
Argument for : part of the body a discussion presenting arguments in favour of the proposition in the issue stage.
Argument against : part of the body of a discussion presenting arguments against the the proposition in the issue stage.
Grammar
Common grammatical patterns of the discussion text include :
Use general nouns to make statements about categories, e.g. air port aprons.
Use relating verbs to provide informaton about the issue, e.g. smoking is harmful, to eliminated accidents and incidents that occur on airport aprons (ramps).
Use thinking verbs to express the writer's personal of view, e.g. feel, believe, hope.
Use of additive, contrastive and causal constrastive to link arguments, e.g. similiarly on the other hand, however.
Use the detailed noun groups to provide information in compact way, e.g. the primary cause of....
Use of varying degree of modality, e.g. perhaps, must, should, might.
Use of adverbials of minner, e.g. deliberately, hopefully.
Use of relational, e.g.: are, can be, are having, should or shouldn't have, is, become.
Reasoning expressed as nouns (abstraction), e.g. reason, or many reason, etc.
Reading for the gist (the main idea) and the information
The general idea is the topic of the text which is discussed generally for the whole paragraph.
The topic sentence of a paragraph contains the main idea. The main idea can be in the first sentence of a paragraph or in the last sentence of a paragraph, or somewhere in the middle of a paragraph or stated implicity.
The specific information or the detailed information is the information which is givin in detail to support the main idea in the text.
