Punctuation

Punctuation matters. Period.

Is that all?

Well, you may say:

Don't stop.

Or

Don't, stop.

There's a difference, right? When I read, I don't like wondering what you meant. I want you to spell it out to me.

Writing is about making it easy and enjoyable for the reader. I usually tell my students that when they plan a paragraph, they are signalling a road for the reader to have a pleasant journey.

Extending this journey metaphor...

"Think of punctuation and mechanics in terms of driving your car. Punctuation and mechanics provide direction and signal the information to which you need to pay attention. Without punctuation and mechanics, phrases and sentences would run into each other and would be unclear, and your writing would go virtually nowhere. The purpose of punctuation and mechanics is to make your meaning clear by telling the reader when to pause, when to stop, when to take notice, etc" (I found it here.)

The power of punctuation is better explained by examples. Then you need some general rules. Above all, you need exercises!

The Purdue University website has a good menu to cover the punctuation you need to know.

If you find that too much, you may wish to do a quick quiz instead.

In the middle of your writing, you may need to consult a guide about specific punctuation marks. This one is quite comprehensive. This one is faster and has exercises.

A quick cheat-sheet to have near you while you write could be this Oxford site.

Last, but not least...

Beware the use of apostrophes and unnecessary quotation marks!

Too much? OK.

Period.

Image source:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/maubrowncow/2956760927/

Text X-ray

Essay Reading and Writing

Reading comprehension is quite a challenge for some students. First of all, it is hard to distance yourself from your own culture and the possible interpretations that can force into a foreign text. It can be learnt, though.That's something that takes a lot of reading in original texts or dialogues.

Next, we need to recognize the anatomy of a text. You need to learn to develop an X-ray view of a it. That is to say, learn to see the logical nodes, the progression of ideas, the links. Forget about the details or the specific content. I'm talking about learning how it is that a text flows naturally while making sense.

So the idea is to learn to identify this with the aim of improving our capacity to read and eventually write a sequence of organized paragraphs. This link from Victoria University of Wellington will help you to do just that.

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/llc/academic-writing/

What you will learn:

-Identifying topic sentences

-Rearranging sentences to form a paragraph

-Incorporating sources

-Types of paragraphs: introductory, body, and concluding paragraphs.

This online 'course' might take about two hours of your time to complete. It's simple basic knowledge of how to go about an essay or any article paragraph. This is a recognition exercise before you try your hand at writing. At FCE and BEC Vantage level, I'd say this knowledge is sort of taken for granted.

Make sure you get the basics! Improving reading and writing go hand in hand.

Hat tip to Carl Dowse for sharing the Academic Writing link in his Business English wiki.

Image source:

Sharp by Claudia Ceraso on Flickr

Related post:

Paper 2 Articles

Pre-writing

Last week I asked my students this:

If you were writers, what would you write about?

I got some puzzled faces for an answer. At least, I got them to wonder.

Perhaps the word writer has an aura of profession that a few gifted people can pursue. This post aims at demystifying writing and -perhaps- bring it to your door.

Today 20th October is the 1st edition of the National Day on Writing. Clicking around their tips for writers, I came across this guideline called Determining What to Write About (pdf).

The guide is short and worth reading through. Here are three samples.

1) I find this advice very useful for writing stories for the exam. Some students focus a lot on big events worth telling, which only lead them to writer's block or the impossibility of doing so in roughly 140 words.

"Think about 'small moments' of life to expand and explore rather than creating large, involved stories"

2) The other complaint I hear from students and teachers who correct compositions is the predictability of the ending. When the story is too fantastic, we know the cliché closing line: abrupt waking up from a nightmare. You needn't try to be that original anyway.

"[...] Most of the time authors decide what to write about from examining their personal lives and interests or by examining the work of other authors and making parts of existing material into something new and different."

Notice that it must be new and different. That is what leaves plagiarism out.

3) The number one obstacle when learning to write for an exam is probably losing the pleasure of writing. You have to find a way to get into your writing. It's a personal road.

My favourite quote from the guide is definitely this one:

"Choosing topics or experiences that you care about will develop a sense of 'you' which only you can create."

So before I end this post, let me share new options for reframing my original question...

I should think of asking you:

What reading topics are so interesting that they make you lose track of time?

What are you keen on? What would you like to know more about?

What is your passion?

If you could share a bit of the learning you've made reading something you love, what would that be?

For more inspiration on pre-writing:

Developing Ideas for Writing from the State University of New York.

Study Guides and Strategies for more than just a pre-writing stage.

The guide at Purdue University for writing at advanced levels.

New questions for you (because I am curious):

Writing on paper or at the keyboard? Do you know that there are electronic versions of the exam? OK. That's for another post.

Do you identify with the opinion of the blog picture author?

"Call it brainstorming, prewriting, or jotting, this is what I usually do before I start writing. I think a lot better and faster with a pencil and a notebook than I do at the keyboard. Sometimes it's specific thoughts, other times it's free ideas. A lot of times I take a conversational tone with myself while taking notes."

Image credit

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeoliveri/685358132/

Word Count

Analising your text- Word Count

In your FCE exam, all written answers must be between 120 and 180 words. When writing under exam pressure, it is important to count words and not to lose time.

How do you count words?
Here's the trick: train your eye.

On paper
By the time you sit for an exam you should know how many words in your handwriting fit a line.

If you must count, do not count word by word. Select two or three lines of your text; count the words on those lines. Obtain the average and then multiply by the total number of lines. Much faster.

On the computer
When you practise for the class, you may use your word processor to do the word count. (Tools>Count Words). There is also a toolbar in some versions of Word that will update the count when you make alterations.

Online!
My students are writing on a wiki which does not include a word counter. It is quite uncomfortable to open Word just to cut and paste your sample and check on the total number.
Here are a couple of websites with word counting tools

http://www.wordcounttool.com/

http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/countwords.shtml




How many words is too much?
Let's say that 10% more than the total mentioned in the exam rubrics is as far as you can go. If you have written a remarkable piece, a few extra words will not affect your mark.

Let's count!

Related Link
Time Yourself!