Tips for Writing an Essay

What is an essay?

An essay is a piece of writing done by students at different levels of education. An essay is longer than a composition, more serious and includes hundreds or even thousands of words.

An essay is made up of a group of paragraphs about one subject which are organized into three parts:

1. A introductory paragraph – Introduction

2. Body paragraphs – Main Part

3. A concluding paragraph – Conclusion

How to organize an essay?

The Introductory Paragraph – Introduction

This paragraph consists of two parts: a few general statements about your subject to attract your reader’s attention and a thesis statement to state the specific subdivision of your topic and/or the “plan” of your paper. The thesis statement (or main idea) should be developed in the body paragraphs.

The Body Paragraphs – Main Part

The body consists of two or more paragraphs.The number of paragraphs in the body depends on the number of ideas or points you want to discuss. Each paragraph develops the subdivision of your topic and is related to your thesis statement in the introductory paragraph. The body is the longest part of your essay.

You can organize the paragraphs by chronological order, logical division of ideas, and comparison/contrast, etc.

The Concluding Paragraph – Conclusion

This paragraph comes at the end of the essay. It restates your thesis statement in the introduction and summarizes the main points made in the body. In fact, the concluding paragraph acts as a reminder to the reader and is also the place to add some personal views.

Hints for Success

· Use normal word order.

· Write sentences of 12-25 words.

· Use parallel structure.

· To achieve coherence and ensure a smooth forward movement from one piece of information to the next use transitions: conjunctions and linking words.

· Build each paragraph around a central idea. This idea is expressed in a topic sentence – often the first sentence of the paragraph – and developed in supporting sentences.

· Check your essay carefully for correct spelling, good style, clear thesis and strong supporting details.

Appendix 4

The Group Charter Samples

Appendix 5

Vocabulary Map

When one plans to communicate effectively, s/he, first of all, thinks about the topic or the subject of communication and answers to the question ‘What should communication be about?’ Then s/he tries to evaluate the situation of communication answering the questions ‘What is my own role in communication?’, ‘What is my audience?’, and ‘What are time circumstances, motive, and goal of communication?’ Only after getting this holistic vision one can choose the vocabulary items that will not only suit the topic but also match the audience, goal and physical settings of communication.

Where from does a communicator take vocabulary items? Of course s/he takes them from personal vocabulary that is being built throughout the person’s life. One's life experience influences the vocabulary that one uses. Think of yourselves. When you get to know something, you immediately try to name it, finding different words – nouns – for the new concept. You also try to characterize the phenomenon that you named, describing it with some other words – adjectives. You may even want to tell others about your experience with this named phenomenon, so for this you need words that express actions – verbs – and their characteristics – adverbs. It is necessary to make your story relevant to the situation of communication, so you need specific conversational formulas and set expressions. All the words and expressions reflect your experience and feelings toward the phenomenon. This is the way a personal vocabulary is being built both in your native language and in a foreign one.

To facilitate your learning of English we recommend you to build your personal vocabulary consciously. To do it efficiently you can make a Vocabulary Map for each concept that you find important to discuss in English. A Vocabulary Map is a list of words and expressions that describe one concept, are divided according to the purpose of their usage and are graphically organized in the way you like it. One of the ways to organize a Vocabulary Map is given in the picture.

The Map in the bottom-right corner gives you an example of how to fill the Vocabulary Map with the words relevant to the notion 'University'. However you can organize your personal vocabulary in lots of different ways: as a graph, as a table, as a tree, etc. In this book we propose you a form of a table (see Suggested Vocabulary for Unit 1, pp. 132-133, 143-145) and a list (see Suggested Vocabulary for Unit 2, pp. 150, 159, 168). Try several variants and you will definitely find the most suitable one.

Appendix 6

An extract from The New American Roget’s College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form

 

In the given article pay attention to the following:

ü at the very beginning of the article one sees the word in bold letters that organizes the article itself – one of the meanings of this word unites this word with a number of others. As far as the word might have several tints of meaning it can be grouped in different ways so that to make different thematic groups;

ü each new paragraph signals the start of a new thematic group;

ü within each paragraph commas and semi-colons signal the distance in semantic relationship among the words: the words that are closer in meaning are separated with a comma, and the ones that are not so close have a semi-colon between them.

Appendix 7

Cognitive Map

A Cognitive Map is a kind of a ‘crib’ (a slang word for the Russian ‘шпаргалка’) which you build in order to ease a text retelling. In other words, it is a thematic skeleton of the text. It names all the important themes of the text, shows how each of them is being developed by the author, and depicts how the themes are interconnected. Cognitive Maps contain phrases: noun phrases are used to formulate each theme, while verbal phrases show their development.

For example the following Cognitive Map is one of the possible ways to represent the themes of the definition for the word ‘university’ taken from Encyclopaedic dictionary (see Task 1, p. 60):

‘Universities are higher educational establishments and research institutions in which the whole set of courses that form the basis of scientific knowledge is being studied. U. train specialists for different branches of economy, science, culture, and carry out research activities. A distinguished trait of u. is their thirst to closely connect education and research.’

As you see this Cognitive Map shows the main theme (‘University as an institution’) of the text and one more theme(‘Activity’) that develops the main one. The arrows point at the development of each theme. We highlighted the main words in these developments with bold italics. Provided that the text were longer, these words could become separate sub-themes. The blue double-edged arrows show the interdependence of the notions denoted by the phrases.

You can read this Cognitive Map in different ways. Below we give you just one possible variant:

The dictionary entry ‘University’ pays special attention to its institutional nature. Universities are defined here as both social and educational institutions and are characterized through their activities. As educational establishments Universities carry out research and teach different courses that cover all the fields of economy, science and culture. These activities contribute to the fulfillment of Universities' social functions. As social institutions they provide the society with highly qualified specialists and with the basis for scientific knowledge and, thus, further progress.

Appendix 8

Semantic Map

You have already studied how to build your personal vocabulary with the help of a Vocabulary Map (see Appendix 5). You can use your Vocabulary Map when you speak up your ideas about this or that topic. However, from Appendix 7 you have learnt that topics (= themes) can be subdivided into minor themes. So, it is just logical to suggest that when you plan a speech on a topic, a specific map that combines a Cognitive and a Vocabulary ones can be of use. In this book we call such a map, that represents a topic through several concepts and wordings for them, aSemantic Map.

For example, if you are asked to speak about University teachers you can present this concept as a combination of four minor ones – status of University teachers, their professional and personal qualities, teaching formats and scientific work:

If necessary, it is possible to further develop the map and subdivide each concept into even smaller ones. In this case they become similar to themes and you get an extended Cognitive Map. Anyway, your next step is to fill in this scheme with suitable vocabulary units, that is with proper wording for each concept that you mention:

You can group the words and expressions in each sub-theme according to the rules of Vocabulary Map building. In this case you will get an extended Vocabulary Map.

The Semantic Map given above can be read as follows:

The teaching staff of my University can be described in terms of their status, personal and professional qualities, teaching formats that they use, and their scientific activity.

According to their status teachers vary greatly. Among them there are professors with a doctoral degree and international recognition, associate professors with a PhD degree, senior teachers and teachers who just started their University career. ...

Our teachers are special. Their professional and personal qualities are beyond reproach. They are competent and experienced, though some of them are very young…

Scientific work is an inseparable part of a University teacher's job.So, many of our teachers are scientists, experts in this or that field. They carry out their research, write articles and deliver reports at conferences. They are of demand not only in this country but also abroad. ...

As a student I had lots of opportunities to evaluate the repertoire of the teaching formats that the teachers at my University use.Professors and associate professors deliver lectures and conduct seminars. Teachers and senior teachers are responsible for practical classes. As the teachers are highly qualified they can mix formats, providing the students with interactive lectures and workshops. Besides group activities, students gain all the possibilities to get individual tutorials from the teachers, which is very helpful. …

As you can see, a Semantic Map is a tool for you to plan your own speech on the given topic. It helps to present the topic in terms of constituent concepts and to find proper wording for each of them.

Appendix 9

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 607