Writing Skill Material

8/2/2019 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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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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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


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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Exercise


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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Exercise


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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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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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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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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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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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



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Writing Skill: Composition Stage

writing definitions


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




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writing definitions


writing definitions

Practice Write extended definitions about these topics

electricity, television, electric coffee pot,

refrigerator, microwave oven, and building.




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writing processes


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 processes


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 comparison and contrast


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 analysis


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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Exercise


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

Documents

Writing Skill Material