What I have learned:
In this week’s class, first of all, our teacher showed us how to formulate a working thesis. A working thesis is a hypothetical answer to one’s research question and a good working thesis should be a single clear sentence, positive,non-obvious statement and can be tested. I think this could force us to narrow our topic and we should have our own opinion on the topic or what we want to prove. Then according to what I have learned I proposed three hypotheses of my own topic . After finished this task, the teacher showed us how to write the literature review . First, if we want to write a good literature review, we should have a clear thesis or research question. In the literature review we should describe the history and current situation of the field related to our research subjects, the definitions of some important terms and so on. I think the most important thing are that we should not ignore our own evaluation of the current cited paper and also our own opinions on the topics.
Then according to what I have learned from this class, I read the article which the teacher have given us. I found that the author used the Thematical Method in the literature review. The author first introduced the surveys on the ownership of PDE in different countries, and then the function of the PDE and the disadvantages and advantages of the use of PDE , the teacher’s attitude towards the PDE and how to train students to use the PDE . At last, the author evaluated all the researches of this topic ,and showed what his own paper would do. Therefore, we can see that the author introduced all the related theories to the study of PDE these years in good order, but in each paragraph the author used the chronological method to introduce each period of the researches on this topic.
About the tense of the literature review the author mainly used the past tense to introduce what the other authors have found . Then, in the last part, the author used the simple present tense to evaluate the researches and illustrated what would be tested in his own paper. I think the tenses that the author used are appropriate.
About my own paper, first I collect more articles about my topic and read two articles carefully to find out the hypotheses and comprehend their literature reviews. Then, I also discuss the topic with my partner and supervisor. At last I find what I
should do first is to search some political news in China Daily and the Liberty Times(the newspaper of Taiwan). Then I should read these news carefully to find out and analyze the main features of the use of metaphors in political discourse from different newspapers.Then I can analyze the differences and similarities of the use of metaphors between Mandarin and Taiwanese. Only after that can I illustrate the different ideologies of the two different language varieties. At the same time, I should read more articles and books about my topic so that I can write a good article.
