Assingment for Language and Written Expression

1. ADVICE ON ACADEMIC WRITING

2. SOME GENERAL ADVICE:
✓ An essay should have an argument.
✓ Try to formulate an hypothesis.
✓ Present your argument clearly and persuasively.
✓ Revise it.

3. ESSAY TOPICS
✓ Note the key terms.
✓ Use specific concepts and methods.
✓ Ask yourself questions.
✓ Look for controversies in the material.
✓ Formulate a tentative thesis statement.

4. PLANNING AND
ORGANIZING
✓ Help you to organize a logical and orderly argument.
✓ Make easier for you to notice whether you have left anything out.
✓ Allow you to concentrate on writing issues such as grammar, word
choice and clarity.

5. USING THESIS STATEMENTS
✓ It makes a definite and limited assertion
that needs to be explained and supported.
✓ It shows the emphasis and indicates the
methodology of your argument.
✓ It shows awareness of difficulties and
disagreements.

6. INTRODUCTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
INTRODUCTIONS:
✓ Quote an expert, give
some background
information.
✓ Find a statistic that
illustrates the
problem.
✓ Get to the point as
CONCLUSSIONS:
✓ Try to convey some
closing thoughts.
✓ Recommend a specific
course of action.
✓ Use a quotation or
expert opinion.

7. PARAGRAPHS
✓ Express the central idea in a topic
sentence.
✓ Repeat key words or synonyms.
✓ Use pronouns and specialized linking words.

8. TOPIC SENTENCES
✓ They state the main point of a paragraph.
✓ They usually appear at the very beginning
of paragraphs.
✓They can help strengthen the coherence of
the essay.

9. READING AND
RESEARCHING
✓ Know what ideas you need to record
✓ Don’t write down too much
✓ Label your notes intelligently

10. DEALING WITH NEW WORDS
✓ Sound it out and examine the structure.
✓ Look at the context.
✓ Check the dictionary.
✓ Write a brief definition or synonym.
✓ Try writing a sentence using the word.

11. PREVIEWING
✓ Read the title.
✓ Think about the subject matter.
✓ Look for information about the author.
✓ Check where and when the text was originally
published.

12. SKIMMING AND SCANNING
SKIMMING:
✓ Read carefully the
introductory paragraph
and try to make
predictions.
✓ Read carefully the topic
and concluding sentence
of each paragraph.
✓ Try to avoid looking up
SCANNING:
✓ Skimming to see whether
the text mentions a
subject that you’re
researching.
✓ Keep a specific set of
goals in mind.

13. SUMMARIZING
✓ Include the title and identify the author.
✓ State the author’s thesis or central concept.
✓ Divide the article into sections.
✓ Omit minor details, examples and ideas that
are not really central to the text.

14. USING SOURCES
✓ Try to avoid plagiarism.
✓ Quote appropriately
✓ Paraphrase in your own words, providing a reference
✓ Summarize capturing in your own word the most important information

15. SPECIFIC TYPES OF
WRITING
✓ Book review, article critique
✓ Literature review
✓ Comparative essay

16. STYLE AND EDITING
✓ Revise and edit
✓ Use the computer
✓ Pay attention to punctuation and use unbiased language

17. ERRORS IN GRAMMAR, PUNCTUATION AND STYLE
✓ Faulty agreement
✓ Sentence fragments
✓ Run-on sentences
✓ Overuse of passive voice
✓ Faulty parallelism
✓ Vague pronouns
✓ Mixed or dead metaphors
✓ Faulty word choice
✓ Wordliness
✓ Comma splices
✓ Misuse of comma,
semicolon and colon

18. ENGLISH AS A SECOND
LANGUAGE
✓ Use articles
✓ Expressions of quantity
✓ Gerunds

19. VERBS FOR REFERRING TO SOURCES
✓ PATTERN 1: reporting verb + that + subject +
verb
✓ PATTERN 2: reporting verb + somebody/something
+ for + noun/gerund
✓ PATTERN 3: reporting verb + somebody/something
+ as + noun/gerund/adjective

20. FURTHER RESOURCES
✓ Online writing advice
✓ Online writing reference tools
✓ Online resources for students of English as a second language

21. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Writing at the University of Toronto. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2016.