Writing

Task 1

Coherence and Cohesion

Coherence: A piece of writing is coherent if it is clearly organised and has a logical sequence of ideas.

Cohesion: A paragraph or section of text is cohesive if the sentences are well constructed and well linked together, and there is no unnecessary repetition.

1.1. Which of these paragraphs has a problem with coherence? Which has a problem with cohesion?

A

The book I would choose to take to a desert island is a called ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. It’s an amazing book about a man called Gulliver who travelled to different places. Everу place Gulliver went was unusual, unexpected, unbelievable. In one place horses could talk and think like people. People lived like primitives. Gulliver lived with horses for a couple of months. He learned many things from horses. In the horses’ society everyone was equal to each other. There was justice. No one had any advantages.

B

There are many good bookshops for students in my town. If I was going to live on a desert island, I would take a book on wildlife. That book gives you advice about how to survive in a desert place. It’s a beautiful island with sandy beaches and palm trees. You probably have many questions such as where you could live, what you can eat and how. You will read a real story of 15 children who were lost on a desert island until they finally succeeded in making a new society for themselves.

Note. Writers use a variety of methods to make a text cohesive. These include the use of:

- reference words like relative pronouns and personal pronouns or expressions like the one, the person or the company to avoid repeating names;

- linking devices like and, although, while and however to provide a logical link between sentences and paragraphs;

- synonyms and parallel expressions, e.g. people/human beings;

- ellipsis or omission – leaving out part of a sentence to avoid repetition, e.g. John got 98% in the exam but I only got 70. (= I got 70% in the exam); I didn’t want a big wedding, but my parents did. (~ my parents did want a big wedding).

1.2. Find three linking devices from the following list to match each of the headings below.

while because although

during (that time) so as to in addition to

despite (the fact that) since finally

owing to (the fact that) as well as whereas

in order to both ... and however

on the other hand so that as soon as

Addition Concession Cause Contrast Purpose Time

1.3. Rewrite Text a using reference words and linking devices to link the sentences more successfully and avoid unnecessary repetition.

Task 2

Book reviews

2.1. You are going to read five reviews of popular science books. Answer the questions by choosing from the reviews (a-e). The reviews may be chosen more than once.

Which review mentions ... ?

1. a recent technological development that has become important for many people

2. scientists who had the ability to imagine the future accurately

3. an ability to think in general terms

4. the unexpected effects of scientific developments

5. a scientist who began an area of scientific investigation important today

6. experiments conducted over a long time with great attention to detail

7. an author’s view that some people are likely to disagree with

8. explanations that are basic and undeveloped

9. someone whose most influential work was done in the early part of their life

10. a book aimed both at people who approve of technology and those who don’t

11. scientific investigations whose value was only later understood

12. a book that both entertains and makes the reader think

13. an author who combines practical experience with an ability to write well

14. a skill that people are born with rather than learn

15. a book criticising scientists for making exaggerated claims

A ‘A Monk and Two Peas’ by Robin Marantz Henig

The work of an Augustinian monk from Brno laid the foundations of the science of genetics. Gregor Mendel was born in what is now the Czech Republic in 1822 and entered the monastery at the age of nineteen. In the mid-1840s he began to conduct a series of experiments with pea plants grown in the monastery garden and he continued these for twenty years. Over this period, by crossing pea plants which had clear differentiations in height, colour etc and by carefully logging the results, Mendel was able to formulate the basic principles behind heredity. Mendel's work was only published in obscure journals, he was eventually led away from science by administrative duties at the monastery and it was only some years after his death that the significance of his work was appreciated. Mendel's life was a quiet one, but a very important one to the science of the twentieth century. ‘A Monk and Two Peas’ tells the story very well, explaining clearly Mendel's experiments and drawing out their significance.

В ‘The Maths Gene’ by Keith Devlin

For those who are mathematically challenged it's an attractive notion that everybody possesses a latent talent for maths and that it is just a question of finding the right key to access it. Devlin, despite the title of his book, is not suggesting that there is a gene for maths that the Human Genome project might identify but he is saying that we have a natural ability to do maths, that it exists in everybody and there are sound evolutionary reasons why this is the case. The ability to do maths, clearly, means an ability to handle abstract ideas and relationships and this provides advantages in evolutionary terms. As human language emerged, so also did a new capacity for abstraction and this formed the foundations on which mathematical thought has been built. Some readers might find Devlin's account of the evolution of language debatable but his ideas about the nature of our mathematical powers and his practical suggestions about how to improve them are constantly stimulating.

С ‘Why Things Bite Back’ by Edward Tenner

Subtitled ‘Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences’, Tenner’s book is an entertaining look at the myriad ways in which advances in science and technology seem to recoil against us. What we gain on the roundabouts we lose on the swings. Antibiotics promise release from the perils of major diseases and end up encouraging microorganisms to develop resistance to them. Widespread use of air conditioning results in an increase in the temperature outdoors, thus requiring further cooling systems. American Football safety helmets become more efficient but this heralds an increase in more violent play and injuries actually rise. Tenner mounts up the evidence in a book designed to appeal to technophile and technophobe alike. And remember, the disaster at Chernobyl was triggered during a safety test. Ironies like that just aren’t funny.

D ‘The Undiscovered Mind’ by John Horgan

How close are we to a full understanding of the workings of the human brain and of human consciousness? If you listened to, and believed, many of those working in the neurosciences, you would imagine that answers lay just around the corner. Not so, according to John Horgan, former journalist on ‘Scientific American’ and author of ‘The End of Science’, another witty and provocative examination of the pretensions of some scientists. To all the important questions about the mind – what processes in the brain allow us to see, hear, learn, remember, reason, etc – only the most rudimentary answers have been offered. A unified theory of consciousness, far from being just within our grasp, seems a long way off. Our attempts to heal the troubled mind are equally hampered by a lack of true understanding. Using the same mixture of sharp, informative prose and incisive pen portraits of many of the people involved that characterised ‘The End of Science’, Horgan has produced another immensely readable study of science, its practitioners and their all too human hubris.

E ‘A Brief History of the Future’ by John Naughton

So rapidly has the Internet become an integral part of many people’s lives that it is easy to forget that only a few years ago it was known to the general public, if at all, as a playground for nerdy academics and that it is one of the most astonishing of all man's inventions. John Naughton, fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge and regular journalist on ‘The Observer’ and other newspapers, has been on the net for many years himself and is the ideal person to write a history of what he calls this ‘force of unimaginable power’. Starting with three little-known visionaries at MIT in the 1930s, Naughton traces the story through the engineers like Tim Berners-Lee who realised their vision, and on into what the future may hold. Written with the skill one might expect from a fine journalist and informed with the knowledge of an engineering professor, this is among the first histories of the net but is likely to remain among the best for some time to come.

2.2. Read the following short reviews of ‘Snow Falling on Cedars’ by David Guterson and answer the questions.

• What kind of book do you think this is?

• Would you like to read it? Why/why not?

‘A skilfully constructed, deeply affecting story of love and death... This is a hugely attractive book, written in clipped, elegant prose’ Sunday Times

‘Superb... the writing is wonderfully observed and the main characters all exceptionally well-drawn’ ‘Paint it Red’

‘A thoughtful, poetic first novel... packed with lovely moments – at the same time, a page-turner full of twists’ Kirkus Reviews

‘A beautifully written book, it is in essence a whodunit, but it is so rich a read that if far outstrips its form’ Scotland on Sunday

‘Nail-biting courtroom drama ... a page-whizzing narrative – minutely plotted, eloquently delivered’ Independent on Sunday