writing skill material
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Writing Skill
Writing Skill
Background
As our current world has entered the era of
international communication and advanced
technology, there are more and more chancesforengineers and technical professionals to
convey technical information in English for
various purposes. Engineering students need to be equipped with
adequate writing ability so they can
communicate technical information clearly on atleast a basic level.
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Writing Skill
Writing Skill
The goal of this topic (writing skill) is
to train students in writing clear, concise and
effective English.
Syllabus Outline, this topic consists of four
stages:
Preparation stage
Tools Acquisition Stage
Summary writing stage
Composition stage
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Writing Skill: preparation stageWriting Skill: preparation stage
Make a journal
To see your own progress
This journal is to be submitted in the end of this
writing skill topic
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition StageWriting Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Many grammatical constructions are important for
writing good English. The principle of this stage,
however, is to make students get familiar with a
few basic essential tools that can enhance theirsentence clarity in technical writing.
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition StageWriting Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Use ofSubordinate Clauses
Definition: A group of words that has both a
subject and a verb but (unlike an independent
clause) cannot stand alone as a sentence. Alsoknown as a dependent clause.
Example:
"Memory is deceptive because it is colored bytoday's events." (Albert Einstein)
"If a free society cannot help the many who are
poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." (John F.
Kennedy)
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition StageWriting Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Formally, subordinating conjunctions can be
grouped as follows:
simple conjunctions: when, whenever, where,
wherever, because, if, unless, until, while, as,although
conjunctive groups: as if, as though, even if,
even though, even when, soon after, no sooner
complex conjunctions:: there are three
subclasses:
derived from verbs : provided (that), granted (that),
considering (that), seeing (that), suppose (that),
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Exercise
Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Exercise
1.Below is a list of complex sentences, identify
the subordinate clauses and the subordinating
conjunctions, then explain the relationship
expressed in each sentence.
1) Since Jim arrived early, he didn't have to wait.
2) When Constance sighed, the other people in
the room turned to see who had done it.3) Because the dog barked incessantly at night,
the neighbors finally lodged a complaint with the
town board.
4) As motor racing goes green, Formula 1 is
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Exercise
Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Exercise1.Combine two sentences or a set of isolated
ideas into one sentence by using appropriate
subordinating conjunctions.
1) New racing bicycles have disc wheels. Windresistance is reduced.
2) Copper is highly conductive. It is used for
electric wiring.
As copper is it is used for electric wiring.
1) The water is heated. It reaches a pre-set
temperature.
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Exercise
Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Exercise1.Study about Relative Clauses.
2.Study about Parallelism.
3.Write an essay about the metamorphosis of anyinsect by using subordinate clauses, relative
clauses, and parallelism.
Do not forget the rule, that you have to make a
journal of your writing practice.
Submit your work today to Mr. Dayat in the
Lecturer and Administration room.
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition StageWriting Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Relative Clauses. Relative clauses can be useful tools
for defining and qualifying nouns instead of putting a
long list of technical nouns or adjectives before a noun.
Example:
A girl is talking to Tom. Do you know the girl?
Do you know the girl who is talking to Tom?
relative pronoun
I was invited by the professorwhom I met at theconference. relative pronoun
That is the reason whywe met him. relative
adverbs
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Writing Skill: Tools Acquisition StageWriting Skill: Tools Acquisition Stage
Parallelism. By convention, items in a series appear inparallel grammatical form: a noun is listed with other
nouns, an -ing form with other -ing forms, and so on.
Failure to express such items in similar grammatical
form is called faulty parallelism. Example:
"They are laughing at me, not with me."
(Bart Simpson, The Simpsons)
"Today's students can put dope in theirveins or hope in their brains. If they can
conceive it and believe it, they can achieve
it. They must know it is not their aptitude but
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Writing Skill: Summary writing stageWriting Skill: Summary writing stage
A summary is condensed version of a largerreading. To write a summary, use your own
words to express briefly the main idea and
relevant details of the piece you have read.Many benefits from summary writing practice:
Students can focus on language skill in spite of
the content of the text. The chosen texts can also serve as sort of
model writing, grammar guides and sources of
new vocabulary.
Several techniques that are important in summary writing:
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Writing Skill: Summary writing stageWriting Skill: Summary writing stageA good paragraph is a mini-essay, should
demonstrate 3 components:
1. Introduction, i.e., a topic sentence
2. Body, i.e., supporting details
3. Conclusion or a transitional sentence to the
paragraph that follows.
A good paragraph is characterized by unity, coherence,
and adequate development.
Unity:
State the main idea of the paragraph in a clearly
constructed topic sentence. Make sure each sentence
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Writing Skill: Summary writing stageWriting Skill: Summary writing stageHow to write a summary?
Students tend to copy sentences exactly from the
original article and put them together when they write
summaries
lose opportunity to practice their writing skills.
Most likely can not include all the important
ideas mentioned
A better way to make a summary is
to jot down the main points in note form and
then link them clearly into concise sentences in
the students' own words.
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Writing Skill: Summary writing ExerciseWriting Skill: Summary writing Exercise
Summarize the following article about Thais and their
cuisine in not more than 120 words.
Thais give a great deal of thought and time to
the planning and preparation of their meals.
There is an infinite variety of recipes from
which they can choose, and rarely would a
household repeat the same dish within afortnight.
The staple food is rice which is the base for
most meals. The most commonly-used meats
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Writing Skill: Summary writing ExerciseWriting Skill: Summary writing Exercise
A possible answer:
Thais have such a great variety of food to choose from
that a typical household
rarely cook the same dishes in a fortnight. A variety of
meat, fish and vegetables are
used in different ways with rice as the basis for most
meals. A typical household
would serve a simple breakfast of egg or porridge,
followed by noodles and
dumplings for lunch. Dinner is more elaborate where
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Writing Skill: Summary writing ExerciseWriting Skill: Summary writing Exercise
Summarize this article about Man and his destruction
of wildlife habitat in not more than 120 words
Man is forever changing the face of nature. He hasbeen doing so since he first appeared on the earth.
Yet, all that man has done is not always to the
ultimate advantage of the earth or himself. Man
has, in fact, destroyed more than necessary.
In his struggle to live and extract the most out of life,
man has destroyed many species of wildlife;
directly by sheer physical destruction, and
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Writing Skill: Summary writing ExerciseWriting Skill: Summary writing Exercise
A possible answer:
Man, in his pursuit of development has done more harm thangood. By destroying the habitat of wildlife directly or indirectly,
many species of wildlife are lost forever. Certain species are
able to withstand the changes to the land while others simplyvanish. Every form of human activity will affect the habitat of the
wildlife. The only preservation done by man is for animals that
they consider useful to man. Their predators are systematically
destroyed. Yet this has in no way increased the number of the
protected animals. By intervening, Man has created an
imbalance in the cycle. Therefore, there is a need to keep a
balance between development and preservation because man's
future depends very much on this equilibrium. (120 words )
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Writing Skill: Composition StageWriting Skill: Composition Stage
This is the stage where students practice somecommon patterns of technical writing with the
application of skills taught at previous stages.
Some common patterns including:
Writing definitions
Writing processes
Writing comparisons and contrasts
Writing analysis
W iti Skill C iti St
W iti Skill C iti St
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Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing definitions
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing definitions
Writing a definition is frequently used in technicalwriting. There are two kind of definition:
1 sentence definition
The typical form is:____ is a kind /form/category/device/type of (class)
that ( distinguishing feature.)
Example: A capacitoris an electronic device that isused to ....
Extended definition
One can write an extended definition by adding extra
W iti Skill C iti St
W iti Skill C iti St
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Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing definitions
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing definitions
Practice Write extended definitions about these topics
electricity, television, electric coffee pot,
refrigerator, microwave oven, and building.
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
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Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing processes
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing processes
A process is written to instruct or to inform. A clear description of a process involves
sequencing the stages, locating the stages,
describing what happens at each stage and
explaining what happens at each stage.
Most operational process descriptions follow a
chronological order, which can be shown by
using sequence words like first, next then,
subsequently, at this point, later, afterwards,
finally and so on.
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Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing processes
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing processes
Look at the diagram
showing how
chocolate is
manufactured.
Now you will
practice writing adescription of the
process. First, you
will need a sentence
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Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing comparison and contrast
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing comparison and contrast
We use this type of writing to relate the
similarities and differences among things. This
writing technique can be applied when it is
necessary to compare and contrast differentproposals, solutions to problems, and
improvement or design change of a
conventional product with a new product.
Here are some suggested topics for writing
comparison and contrast.
Compare and contrast two generations of a
roduct e. . com uter/ stereo/robot
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Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing analysis
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
writing analysis
Technical writing is used to convince someone of
something.
An effective approach to convince others is
to support the broad general statements with detail
by
begin with a generalization or topic sentence that cover
the whole topic and then substantiate the generalization at a more specific level
with facts, examples, statistics and other details.
Example: It is difficult for foreign students to adjust to lif
in a new country for several reasons.
First,..........Second,.......
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Writing Skill: Composition Stage
Exercise
Writing Skill: Composition Stage
Exercise
Write a technical essay about safe electrical
wiring in homes. It must be your own writing,
do not plagiarize.
The essay should include
Definition and/or extended definition
A description of process
Comparison and/or contrast
Analysis
Conclusion
Your essa is to be included in our writin skill