Feedback For jtkt-1/Engl-1 - University of Helsinki

Feedback For jtkt-1/Engl-1

Donald Smart7th October 2009

Thursday, 8 October 2009


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Edited Text in Microsoft Word

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Marked Essays My email address: [email protected]


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What we’re going to look at

• The Writing Process• Revising Work• Problems with Writing English


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Methods in the Writing Process

• What method do you use when you start to write?

• The personal approach– Asking questions such as: – Why am I doing this? – What is the problem etc?

• The list-maker's approach– Write an outline– Expand the outline

• The "moonshine" method (involves distillation)


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Cycles in the Writing Process

• Writing always involves the following cycle• Write• Read• Discard some• Write again• Read• Discard some more etc. (5x, 10x, 20x YMMV)


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Good Writing (1)

• On good writing, Sir Peter Medawar wrote:• Brevity,• cogency (convincing reasoning)• and clarity• are the principal virtues and the greatest of

these is clarity


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Cultural Differences

• Some cultural differences between Finns writing in Finnish and Speakers of English writing in English– Native Speakers of English write English with a

respect for a reader’s time– Native Finns write Finnish with a respect for a

reader’s intelligence– Please write with respect for a reader’s time


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The Paragraph Level

• Every paragraph you write should have the following features:– It should only express one idea or theme– It should have a sentence which clearly states

this idea– It should be coherent– It should contain variation


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Ideas in Paragraphs

• Every paragraph should only express one idea or theme– The main sentence of a paragraph is known as

the topic sentence• It usually comes first in the paragraph• The topic sentence can be supported by secondary

sentences


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Coherence in Paragraphs

• Every paragraph should be coherent– Sentences in paragraphs should have ordered

patterns, i. e:• An enumerative pattern (first, second, etc)• A chronological pattern (on the first day, on the

second day etc)• A spatial pattern • A logical pattern• A general-to-particular pattern


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Variation in Paragraphs

• Every paragraph should contain variation– You can achieve this by

• Varying the length and structure of your sentences• Using the stronger active voice rather than the

passive (more on this later)• Putting the more important words at the beginning

or end of the sentence


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Transitions in Paragraphs

• It is important to make smooth transitions between sentences in paragraphs– To do this, use some of the following

transitional words

in additionon the other hand

likewisethen


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Parts of a Paragraph

• An example of a good paragraphThe town's traffic problems are appalling. For a start/First/To begin with the town lies on a major commercial route. Second/Next/In addition, it generates its own rush-hour traffic. Moreover/Furthermore it is near enough to London to be caught by the capitals weekend traffic. Anyway/Besides/In any case the narrow streets were not built for today's cars and lorries. Thus/Altogether action is urgently needed.

Topic sentence


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Revision of Your Work

• When you check your completed work:– Revise for content– Revise for clarity– Revise for completeness– Revise for conciseness


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Revision of Sentences• Points you should look for when revising

for content:– Does every sentence say something?– Look out for ambiguous sentences– Is every sentence complete?

• Example of an incomplete sentence– But what about artificial intelligence?


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Revision for Clarity

• Points you should look for when revising for clarity:– Does every sentence say what you want it to

say? Usually, we know what we want to say, but may write it down in such a way that only we know what it means!!!

• he's just gnagin "nah, nah


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Revision for Completeness

• Points you should look for when revising for completeness:– Make sure that your every thought is complete– Can any of your pronouns be confused as to

what they refer to?– Look out for sentences where the reader might

have problems interpreting what you mean– Confusing sentence:

• Horgan's arrogance is obvious when he gives out his sentences for different fields of science.


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Revision for Conciseness

• Points you should look for when revising for conciseness:– Throw out phrases such as:

• It should be noted that– Example of wordy sentence

• it most certainly would be the truth but luckily every person's ideas and pictures differ from one another

– Throw out unnecessary prepositions• In terms of the field of computer science,


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Use of the Passive

• Use of the passive voice:– Writers should use the active voice when

possible, because:• The active voice gets you closer to your readers• You use fewer words when you write using the

passive– Do not overuse the passive


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Spell checkers

• Beware of spell checkers:• Look at this paragraph which would have gone

through a spell checker unchanged, and remember to never depend totally on a spell checker!

I rote a text witch I ran threw a spelling checker. Sins their where know mistakes in the hole paper, it must bee perfect. I sawed the fail on may computer and I can use it whenever I wont two shoe that I can right good English.


Use English for your proofing language!


Some Problems with Essays

• Spelling• Words• Articles• Prepositions• Verb Forms• Punctuation

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Words in English

• English has a very large vocabulary. This leads to the following problems– Similarly spelled words get confused– Similarly sounding words get confused– Words just get confused because they all look

and sound the same (my problem with Finnish)


Problems with Spelling

• Hogan writes about the kind of critisism• Either to be content with the monotonous

work of filling the small blank spots of already well-understood phenomenons

• He has many good points and I have been thinking about too for example that computer science

• The grate days?27


Problems with Words

• Preferences:The End of Science Revisited (IEEE... • he’s criticizing many brands of science for• discoveries or fiddling on something that

hasn't• Horgan gives them critic of seeing

computers as some magical tools,• He tries to proof it by

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Articles in English

• Watch out for articles (a, an, the and Ø)– This is hard because the rules for the use of

articles in English are so difficult to formulate– The situation is so bad that “definiteness in

Finnish and English” is the favourite subject for Ph.D’s at the English Department


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Flow Chart for ArticlesENTER

NOUN

Does this noun nave a unique referent?

no(2,3)

Is it a countable noun?

no(2)

Use no article

yes (3)

(solar energy)

yes (1)

Use the*

(the continuing depletion of domestic fossil fuels)

Is it singular? Use a or an (an important part of these descisions).

yes (3)

1. continuing depletion of domestic fossil fuels2. solar energy3. important part of these decisions

Use no article

no

*Or a demonstrative adjective (usually (this or these) under certain special conditions .

FIGURE 18-2 Use of flow chart for choosing the correct article.


Problems with Articles

• slowdown instead of a total stop Horgan is• It's clear that in the end, if these ways won't

do any good so the progress will stop• There have been some major inventions in

past few years, multitouch screens, oled displays, and multi-core processors

• are the key for riddles of nature Horgan writes also about artificial intelligence and it's been big disappointment. 31


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Prepositions

• The use of prepositions is different in Finnish and English, this leads to problems

• English has many phrasal verbs, i. e. ones that use prepositions to give them different meaning– Phrasal verbs are quite common– Their constructions are irregular


Problems with Prepositions

• He bases his opinions to the fact .....• I agree this,.....• I would concentrate in.....• computer sciences has started to grow onto• to understand the difference of words and• There is no algorithm to creativity and a • fast growth will result in running to a wall

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Crashing INTO a wall


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English Verbs

• The differences between verb use in English and Finnish cause problems, mainly with:– Use of the continuous forms– Expressing the future tense– The conditional tense– Modal forms (verbs that express uncertainty)


Problems with verb forms• When the options of metal and silicon will be finished, computer

science will find more materials and • Al so far has been a failure. In public, no machine was introduced that

would pass the Turing test.• if they keep getting the money, they will make energy so inexpensive

to produce that it's almost free to the end-user.• John Horgan is one of the people who say that there is a limit in

knowledge• There just isn't enough pencils to do all the countings computer does

for them every day• if the power of computers will increase at the same rate as during the

last 20 years36


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Punctuation in English

• Bone up on the rules for the use of punctuation in English

• The English comma is particularly difficult to pin down

• We’ll now look at some punctuation marks and their uses


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The comma

• Used between words in a series• Used between phrases in a series• Used between clauses in a series


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The Semicolon (;)• The semicolon is usually used in long complex

sentences. It gives a longer period of rest than a comma, but a shorter rest than a full stop.

• It is used to separate clauses which could have been two sentences, but have a similar meaning and are of equal importance e.g.– I saw him the other day in the broad light of day, he

was almost as I had known all those years ago; although he was much fatter.


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The Colon (:)• This punctuation mark is used to signal something

ahead rather than separating or stopping the reader. We use it:

• To introduce a list• To introduce direct speech: He said: "I like it

here.”• To introduce an explanation, or some other aspect

of the first part of a sentence e.g.– I had three problems with it: with its size, its ability to

cope, and its inventor.


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The Dash (–)

• It is used to mark a pause, like a comma


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The Hyphen (-)

• This is used when we form compound words such as a 7-year-old boy, or in numbers such as twenty-seven.


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The Apostrophe (‘)

• To form plurals of expressions which usually don’t have plurals, such as the 1990’s, this can be also written as the 1990s

• To form plurals of numbers and letters, e.g., 2 s’s or 2 20’s make 40.

• To form the possessive case e.g., Seppo’s books


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The Apostrophe (‘)

• However note that possessive pronouns do not take an apostrophe, note the difference between the it’s and its in the following sentence.– It’s (it is) common known that its colour is

blue.


Problems with Punctuation

• The Book of Horgans • But even the science has it's limitations• Horgan's thesis is, that mathematics• An avoidance of semi colons, and colons

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Problems with Style

• You should try to write in a serious academic style

• Avoid less formal styles• Make jokes by all means but use formal

language

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How Can We Help?

• Give some extra writing exercise to students who need them

• Make available links to practice sites on the Internet

• Encourage all of you to write in English as much as possible

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Lobachevsky• Finally, pay no regard to that well known

mathematician and cabaret artist, Tom Lehrer when he says in his song, Lobachevsky:

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lochevsky.

In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:Plagiarize!


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Happy Writing: “Real Good”

Donald Smart

email: [email protected]


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