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Everything You Wanted to Know About English but Were Afraid to Ask

Everything You Wanted to Know About English but Were Afraid to Ask. Amy Kubista, Writing Specialist Laurel Walsh, Writing Faculty. The Basics. Writing is about getting your point across. Writing is about sharing your knowledge.

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Everything You Wanted to Know About English but Were Afraid to Ask

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  1. Everything You Wanted to Know About English but Were Afraid to Ask Amy Kubista, Writing Specialist Laurel Walsh, Writing Faculty

  2. The Basics • Writing is about getting your point across. • Writing is about sharing your knowledge. • If your writing isn’t clear, you’re not getting your point across or demonstrating expertise.

  3. Worst Case Scenario

  4. The Bad News Theorists don’t have a model or theory to show teachers how students learn to write in English (Cumming, 1998), or even what such a theory would look like (Carson, 2001).

  5. The Good News: What We Do Know What makes a successful learner YOU What makes a successful lesson US

  6. Common Problems Sentence-level issues— • Comma usage • Possessive Errors • Semicolon errors • Subject-verb agreement • Which vs. that • Excessive prepositional phrases • Parallel construction • Passive construction • Sentence fragments • Unnecessary words Local Issues

  7. Sentence-Level Issues Slow Composition When you worry about your commas, semicolons, integrating quotation, and grammar issues, it is hard to write an essay. We want you to be able to ruminate about your field of inquiry and not spend time fretting about punctuation.

  8. Basically…

  9. The Rules Exist: Let’s Learn them

  10. Get Rid of Extra Words According to a series of one-on-one qualitative interviews, it has been determined without a doubt that when it comes to daily behavior and grammar instruction, Laurel Walsh is insane.

  11. Use Parallel Construction Wrong: Artists love painting, drawing and to see the world in a fresh way. Right: Artists love painting, drawing, and seeing the world in a fresh way.

  12. Know Comma Rules Commas cordon off material that doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence. Example: Sheila, with her five-inch stilettos and huge beehive hairdo, asked my boyfriend on a date. Commas do not cordon off material that changes the sentence meaning. Example: The man with too many ties has too few necks.

  13. More Rules? Yes! • Semi-colons are your friend. • An independent clause is a sentence; it has a subject and a verb and can stand alone. • There are three ways to marry two independent phrases: semicolon alone, semicolon with a sentence modifier, and a comma with a conjunction.

  14. Our Pal the Semicolon Joining two independent phrases with a semicolon insinuates that there is a relationship between the two sentences. Jon is ugly; Jon is single. You can also slip a sentence modifier in to explain the relationship. Jon is ugly; however, Sheila loves ugly men.

  15. Avoid Passive Construction Wrong: The lingerie was given to her by her best friend’s husband. Right: Her best friend’s husband gave her lingerie. Better: The soon-to-be divorced man gave her ugly underwear.

  16. Possessives are Easy Owning things is fun! We like to obtain things. Possessive errors turn an owner into a plural noun. Common noun becomes a possessive by adding an apostrophe and an “s”. The cat’s tail was short and stubby. Proper nouns also become possessive form by adding an apostrophe and an “s”. Sarah’s fingers are short and stubby. What if the proper noun ends in “s”—do we add an “s” or no?

  17. More Possessives YES! Thank you, Ms. Britney Spears for your antics. You allow us to know that: Britney Spears’s nervous breakdown was dramatic. Also remember that applies to first names also: You are invited to Seamus’s party!

  18. Integrating Quotations To integrate a quote into a paragraph, check the verb. If the verb indicates expression (thinks, says, yodels) then you use a comma. Charlie says, “I love ice cream.” If the sentence is complete, use a colon. The problem is that Charlie cannot stop eating ice cream: “I love the stuff.”

  19. Your Printer Cartridge Does Not Contain Unicorn Blood: REVISE!

  20. Paraphrasing

  21. WHAT? “References to external sources of knowledge represent a requisite means of supporting one’s position in rhetorical argumentation” (Hinkel, 2004, p. 187).

  22. Talking about what other scholars wrote and researched is a huge, necessary part of any paper; it is the main way writers back up their ideas (Hinkel, 2004).

  23. Apply a Formula • According to Patterson (2007), … • Patterson (2007) stated… • Paraphrasing is important (Patterson, 2007).

  24. “In real terms, however, few students may need a supply larger than five or six citational expressions” (Hinkel, 2004, p. 189). Only six?? I can handle learning six phrases!

  25. Subject / Verb / Tense Agreement

  26. It’s Not Easy, But… • Read it out loud. • Get a peer editor (even a friend). • Send it to the specialists! • Write in the past tense.

  27. I look. You look. We look. They look. Teachers look. The results look ___. But…. He / She / It / The author / Frank (2003) looks.

  28. It's not that you don't know it; it's simply that it's not automatic.

  29. “Use the past tense to express an action or a condition that occurred at a specific, definite time in the past, as when discussing another researcher's work and when reporting your results” (APA 2.06, p. 42).

  30. I lookedYou lookedShe lookedThe researchers lookedThe author lookedBush (2004) lookedThe children lookedThe patient looked

  31. Academic Language vs. BAD WRITING

  32. But it is acceptable to write in simple sentences. In fact, it is advisable. Students can write research papers in the same way that they write reflection papers; with short sentences, basic vocabulary, and a straightforward tone. Just like this!

  33. Don’t Believe Me? “Keep the writing simple and interesting. While scholarly writing has style conventions, it does not have to be wordy, stuffy, or dispassionate. You should avoid colloquialisms and slang, but do not strive to sound academic. Sentences should not be long and complex” (Yob, 2007, p. 36). KAM GUIDEBOOK!

  34. Let’s Not Get Too Informal!

  35. How? • Avoid contractions. You weren’t meant to do this; don’t try it unless it can’t be avoided. • BETTER : Writers were not meant to write in contractions; do not do it unless it cannot be avoided.

  36. Then… • Do not use the personal pronouns we and you.You should be more specific. Otherwise, we get off track. • Better :Writers should be more specific. Otherwise, their readers may get off track.

  37. And… • Spell out Latin abbreviations, etc. It is informal to use them (i.e., something like this). • Better : Use and so on instead of etc. That isis a good substitute for i.e.

  38. Revise informal phrases and tired words. Writers should keep an eye out for phrases that are really informal or just plain unnecessary. • Better : Writers should revise phrases that are informal or unnecessary.

  39. You try!

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