III The body of the article

How to start?	First the author says that.../ reports that.../ states that.../focuses our attention on… OR The author starts by telling the reader/us that…/about...
How to continue?	The author goes on to say that… After that/ further/ next the author points out/ emphasizes/highlights/explains/details…
How to conclude?	Finally/ in conclusion it is stated/ stressed that… OR The author draws/reaches the conclusion that…

IV Your opinion of the article

	+	–
What do you think of the problem raised by the author? Is it relevant today? Is the article informative enough? Does the author substantiate his/her view?	It is greatly to the author’s credit that he/she raised such a controversial/ topical/pressing problem as… provides the reader with useful information about... provides the reader with some insights into... takes a global view of... makes an important contribution to the debate on... offers a critical appraisal of... unveils some of the myths... exposes the drawbacks of... presents an unusual approach to… substantiates his point with examples/ figures/ statistical data presents a truly comprehensive/well-grounded analysis of…	It must be noted that the problem raised by the author seems to be farfetched/ no longer relevant today the article does not give any new information on… the article lacks true information about… the article contradicts the main ideas of… the author failed to substantiate his point of view with any examples, figures or statistical data the analysis of …given/presented/provided in this article is far from comprehensive
Is the article clear enough? Is it logically developed?	It deserves to be mentioned that the article is clearly and logically developed.	It can also be mentioned that the article is confusing and lacks logical structure.
What is your general impression of the article? What kind of readership can it attract?	On the whole, the article is an excellent presentation of…/gives a foundation for understanding... / provides a framework for thinking about... and may be of (practical) use to ... students and all those interested in… The article provides invaluable guidance to practitioners in this field. The article is intended for the general reader wanting to understand the impact of... upon... The article is an ideal scholarly text for academics and students, policy makers and practitioners. The article is ideal as a teaching text for courses on...	For all its drawbacks, the article may be of some use to…

2.2 Articles for annotating

TEXT 1

NEW SKIN FOR BUILDINGS

HELEN FRISBEE

Bending light

Back in 1936 Einstein predicted a phenomenon called gravitational microlensing. It would enable scientists to discover earth-size planets, at extremely long distances. Dr Martin Dominik, Royal Society University Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews, is a leader in this field. ‘In my first degree I got interested in the gravitational bending of light,’ says Dr Dominik, ‘and in 1993 we saw the first gravitational microlensing event.’ Microlensing is based on gravity from a planet or star in the foreground of vision, bending the light of the planet in the background. ‘Contrary to all other techniques that try to detect other planets, microlensing detects planets at large distances,’ explains Dr Dominik. ‘It detects planets right at the centre of the Milky Way, 20,000 light years away from us. It even works detecting planets outside our own galaxy so it’s the only technique that can tell us something about planet population and galactic populations.’

New planets

In 2006 it lead to the detection of a planet named OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb. Dr Dominik was a co-leader of PLANET, one of the collaborative networks involved. Only five times as large as earth, it was at the time the most earthlike planet. Most importantly, ‘it was also the first observation that planets like earth may not be rare in the universe.’ And though now it is not the least massive planet, it still has a place in the Guinness Book of records as being the coldest and most distant from earth. Its temperature is also why Dr Dominik believes the chances of finding life there are so slim.  In 2008 Dr Dominik and Professor Keith Horne from St Andrews discovered a planetary system with two new planets resembling in some respects Jupiter and Saturn in our own system.

Big questions

These discoveries, and the possibility of more, open up big questions. ‘The question of finding another habitable planet,’ says Dr Dominik, ‘or whether we are alone in the universe, and even deeper questions such as “where do you come from? Why are we here?”. To answer these questions we have to bring together all our knowledge of all the sciences, because we are really studying ourselves and our existence. We can’t answer this question by just one single experiment.’

TEXT 2

LIGHT ENERGY HARVESTING

MichAEL Nickson

Capturing the sun

Solar power is one of the fastest growing renewable energy sources in the world. The challenge is to make it more efficient and robust. Dr Alexandra Olaya-Castro at UCL’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, is part of an international team using their understanding of the quantum mechanics of energy transfer in photosynthesis, to investigate how nature does it so efficiently.

Their work has highlighted the machinery of natural photosynthesis, where more than 100 million billion photons of light hit a leaf each second. The concept of light energy being transferred and regulated quickly, for the plant to grow, is helping scientists to design molecular ‘circuitry’. It is 10 times smaller than the thinnest electrical wire in computer processors for tiny molecular energy grids to capture, direct, regulate and amplify raw solar energy.

Olaya-Castro has been fascinated by the quantum mechanics of photosynthesis since 2008 and began her collaboration with Gregory Scholes, Graham Fleming and Rienk van Grondelle after meeting them at different conferences presenting their work on light harvesting.

Olaya-Castro explains, ‘we decided to gather all the research of several groups, including ours, trying to understand the photosynthesis machinery and present it as a set of methods to implement in artificial combining systems that can exploit sunlight.’ They are using the principles of quantum mechanics to describe how small particles like electrons and atoms behave in the process of photosynthesis. Working in a nanoscale, where a nanometre is one billionth of a metre, they are studying the pigments, such as chlorophyll whose molecular machinery capture light.

In photosynthesis each pigment in the plant acts collectively to capture more frequencies of light and that energy is transported to a particular molecule where it is converted into the chemical energy ATP (Adenosine triphosphate). Using the image of passing a ball around, Olaya-Castro explains that the theoretical breakthrough is that the energy transfer process is conceived as many hands on the ball at once, hence a sharing process rather than passing from one to the other.

From the technological viewpoint, she says, ‘one can explore this phenomenon to make the transfer of energy a process that is more efficient but also more controlled. This could be the basis of a new innovative energy technology.’ Now they aim to turn this into a blueprint for an artificial light harvesting system.

TEXT 3