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Файл:Английский язык для аспирантов. English for Post-Graduate Students. Учебно-методическое пособие по английскому языку для аспирантов
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Exercise 14. Use the word given in capitals at the end the lines to form a word
that fits in the gap.
1. I've given the problem a lot of thought and I think I may have found
a________ SOLVE
2. 2.Unless you have self ____________ ,it will be difficult for you to reach
your goals in life .CONFIDENT
3. His ___________ arrival surprised all his friends and family. EXPECT
4. ____________are people who don’t know how to read and write.
LITERATE
5. ____________ means “ very strange”. ORDINARY
6. A synonym for “rude” is ____________. POLITE
7. Marie Curie”s greatest ____________ was finding radium. ACHIEVE
8. All children ____________ on their families for for basic needs such as
eating and clothing . DEPENDANT
9. I told her everything and she was very _________ and said she would
help me. SYMPATHY
10. Since I am an __________ driver I think you should drive. EXPERIENCE
11. The government has been trying hard to reduce ____________ . EMPLOY
12. At the moment AIDS is ____________ disease. CURE
13. He said “Good evening!” in a most _________ way. FRIEND
14. Economic pressures tend to _________ or even destroy the family. WEAK
15. They had _____________ about politics and now they hardly speak to each
other. AGREE
Causes of Wordiness
Besides redundancy, there are some common issues causing wordiness. If
you watch for these issues, you can recognize wordiness more easily. Compare the
wordy (W) examples below to the more concise (C) examples. Discuss the
differences with your tutor. Don’t let the grammatical terminology throw you.
What’s important is to see the differences between the wordy and concise
examples.
Use of vague words which need explanation instead of precise words
W: She talked to him in a loud angry voice.
C: She yelled at him.
W: The crime wave had some bad results that cost people a lot of money.
C: The crime wave had some costly results.
Use of long expressions instead of individual words
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W: to come to the conclusion that
C: to decide
W: to put forward the idea that
C: to suggest
Under-use of listing
W: She went to the store and bought a loaf of bread. She also picked up
some milk. She also got a newspaper.
C: She bought a loaf of bread, some milk and a newspaper at the store.
W: In the experiment, he poured water in a beaker. Then he boiled the water
for 5 minutes. Then he measured the water that was left.
C: In the experiment, he poured water in a beaker, boiled the water for 5
minutes, and measured the water that was left.
Over-use of passive verbs
W: The criminal was caught by the police, and later the criminal
passive
was convicted by the courts.
passive
C: The police caught the criminal and the court convicted him.
Over-use of prepositional phrases
(for example phrases that begin with words like in, at, on, with..)
W: In Edmonton in Alberta at 11:00 p.m. in the evening on the first of June,
the northern lights gave a wonderful show to people.
C: In Edmonton, Alberta at 11:00 p.m., June 1, the northern lights gave people a
wonderful show.
Over-use of “it” and “there” as meaningless subjects
W: It was exciting to go to the New Year celebrations.
C: The New Year celebrations were exciting.
W: There were thirty-four people in the room who were waiting for the
mayor.
C: Thirty-four people in the room were waiting for the mayor.
Over-use of clauses
W: After she had baked the bread, she cleaned up the kitchen.
clause
C: After baking the bread, she cleaned up the kitchen.
phrase
W: McKenzie, who was the first person to cross Canada by land,
clause
ended his trip in Bella Coola, B.C.
C: McKenzie, the first person to cross Canada by land, ended his trip in
phrase
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Bella Coola, B.C.
W: The girl who was talented gave a concert.
clause
C: The talented girl gave a concert.
word
Eliminating Wordiness.
Exercise 15. Revise these sentences to state their meaning in fewer
words. Avoid passive voice, needless repetition, and wordy phrases and
clauses. The first sentence has been done for you.
e.g. She used her money to purchase a large-type desk made of mahogany
wood that is dark brown in color and handsome to look at. - She purchased a large,
handsome-looking mahogany desk.
1. He dropped out of school on account of the fact that it was necessary
for him to help support his family.
2. It is expected that the new schedule will be announced by the bus
company within the next few days.
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3. There are many ways in which a student who is interested in meeting
foreign students may come to know one.
4. It is very unusual to find someone who has never told a deliberate lie
on purpose.
5. Trouble is caused when people disobey rules that have been
established for the safety of all.
6. The subjects that are considered most important by students are those
that have been shown to be useful to them after graduation.
7. In the not too distant future, college freshmen must all become aware
of the fact that there is a need for them to make contact with an academic adviser
concerning the matter of a major.
8. In our company there are wide-open opportunities for professional
growth with a company that enjoys an enviable record for stability in the dynamic
atmosphere of aerospace technology.
9. This morning at 6:30 a.m., I woke up out of sleep to hear my alarm go
off, but the alarm was turned off by me, and I returned back to a sleeping state.
10. In view of the fact that it was raining down, orders were given that the
game be canceled.
Exercise 15: Revising wordy sentences. Rewrite the following sentences to be
more concise.
1. Terry Fox is perhaps one of Canada's greatest modern heroes because of the
fact that he did something amazing even though he was disabled and had lost his
leg.
2. Terry Fox was born in 1958 in Winnipeg in Manitoba.
3. At the age of 19 years old, Fox was diagnosed by doctors as having an
unusually rare form of bone cancer.
4. Doctors decided that they had to amputate most of one of his legs to stop the
cancer from spreading to other parts of his body.
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5. While he was recovering from the amputation, Fox came up with the idea of
the "Marathon of Hope", which he hoped would help him to make a lot of money
for cancer research so that cancer could be cured.
6. He began his run in St. John's in Newfoundland which he started on April12
in the spring of 1980.
7. He ran at a pace of nearly 40 km. per day and had run 5373 km. when he got
to Thunder Bay, Ontario. Thunderbay is a small city in western Ontario.
8. When he was there in Thunderbay, cancer was discovered in his lungs so he
ended up having to end his run there in Ontario.
9. It was an inspiration to a lot of millions of people when Fox with his great
bravery and devotion to his cause did his great run.
10. With his run, he encouraged Canadian people to contribute money,
almost$25 million dollars, for cancer research so that researchers could look for a
cure for cancer.
11. In the end, Fox died in New Westminster in June of 1981, but he has in no
way been forgotten.
12. A mountain in B.C. was named after him, and a high school in B.C. was
named after him, too.
13. Every year, cities across Canada hold Terry Fox runs which are named after
him and the money is put into cancer research.
14. Another important legacy is the way Fox didn't let his disability get him
down; that perhaps is the biggest hope which his marathon provided for many
people who suffer from disabilities of all kinds.
Exercise 16: Revising a more difficult wordy paragraph
Underline the wordy parts of the following paragraph. Then re-write the paragraph
on a separate page. Eliminate the wordiness, but be sure you include all the
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information from the original. Count how many words are in the revised version.
Compare the word counts of the original and revised versions.
The Foot-in-the-Door Technique
Psychologists have identified a number of techniques which are aimed at
helping people to persuade others of something. One of these techniques is the
"foot-in-the-door" technique. The idea behind the "foot-in-the-door technique" is
that if you get someone to do something small for you, they will be more likely to
do something bigger for you than if you had started with the request for the bigger
thing first. In a pioneering study, researchers went door-to-door and pretended to
be members of a non-profit service organization. The researchers asked two groups
of people to put a large ugly unattractive sign which said "Drive Carefully" in their
front yards. Members of one of the groups of people had been approached
previously by different researchers who asked them to perform one of a number of
lesser tasks. For example, they were asked to sign a petition which urged
politicians to work to get safe driving legislation to make driving safer. Members
of the other group of people were being approached by the researchers for the first
time. As you might expect, the people who had already expressed a willingness to
do the smaller task responded a lot more favorably to the second request than
people who had not already been approached on the issue beforehand. Over 55 per
cent of those people who had agreed to the initial small request agreed to post the
ugly sign, and less than 17 per cent of those who were being approached for the
first time agreed to put up the sign. Since this first initial study, other investigators
have been examining what kind of initial request is most likely to lead to people
complying with the bigger request. Some of the theorists suggest that an initial
request only has a real effect on the later request if the initial request changes
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people's perceptions about themselves. For example, in the initial study, after
complying with the first request, people may have seen themselves as "doers", out
to improve driving in their communities. As a result, the second request did not ask
them to change their self-concepts; it just asked them to put their preformed selfconcepts as "doers" into action. Psychologists' work on the "foot-in-the-door"
technique has been used very widely by people who want to sell things to others.
(382 words)
Exercise 6: Revising your own writing
For this exercise, you will revise some of your own writing.
1. Find a paragraph you have written that seems wordy. Alternatively, write a
paragraph now about the reasons you chose to come to take a post graduate
course. As you write, don't worry about wordiness; that is a concern best left
until after you have the ideas on paper.
2. Revise the paragraph to increase its conciseness.
3. Rewrite the paragraph on a separate page. Compare the word counts of the
original and revised versions.
Pre-reading task
1. What is “brain drain?” Does this phenomenon exist in Ukraine?
2. Which professions and qualifications are demanded abroad? Why?
Read the following text and define its main problems.
Text 2
Immigration Reform: Stop Ejecting the Brightest Minds From America
Let's hope Congress does not flinch as it begins the debate about
immigration reform because the future is passing through security – in the wrong
direction. It leaves the United States on every departing airplane carrying a foreign
born student who has graduated from an American university with an advanced
degree in the sciences, technology, engineering and math. The majority of these
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people want to stay in the United States but because of existing immigration laws,
they have no choice but to leave.
In Silicon Valley, which has always been blind to any attribute other than
ability, everyone knows that the remarkable achievements of the foreign born have
led to the formation of companies such as Google, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Nvidia
(1), Yahoo!, PayPal and scores of others that are less well known. Of the last
eleven early stage companies that have allied themselves with Sequoia Capital (2),
seven have had immigrants among their founding lineup. This is not a sudden or
recent phenomenon; it has been the leitmotif of our business since the 1970s.
However, the number of startups would be even higher if we weren’t ejecting
foreign-born students and if we welcomed their contemporaries who have been
educated overseas. Today, it is impossible to satisfy Silicon Valley's appetite for
engineers and scientists with people born in America.
The xenophobia underlying current immigration policy has three
consequences for the U.S. technology industry. First, the know-how for all sorts of
new companies is being expelled from America. Second, it makes it even harder to
fill the job vacancies at existing U.S. based semiconductor, biotech, networking
and software companies. Third, it means that University labs, which have sown the
seeds for so many commercial breakthroughs of the past seventy-five years, are
deprived of the young faculty members who can be counted on for bursts of
inspiration and originality. In the massive global IQ competition, the United States
is shooting itself in the foot.
Today – while the Internet has made it simple for companies to identify the
most capable prospects anywhere in the world – it is harder than ever to obtain the
necessary paperwork. At Stripe, a young payments company in San Francisco
(where I am a Board Member), the founders are a pair of Irish brothers, the senior
business executive was born in Honduras and 14 of its 23 engineers were born
outside the United States. Stripe’s engineering department would be at least twice
as large if we could get working papers for the programmers we are eager to hire.
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Unless we do something quickly, our nation’s hiring problem will get more acute
as U.S. educational standards continue to decline while they improve elsewhere.
Other countries are making it easier, not harder, for talented immigrants to
enter. Canada will kickoff a “Startup Visa” program in April and its Immigration
Minister has vowed to come to California to tell foreign entrepreneurs and
engineers that they can gain permanent citizenship north of the border. Even Chile
– in its effort to compete for highly educated immigrants with other countries such
as Singapore and Israel – has a special visa program to lure programmers.
This year, three in ten students at MIT (3) and four of every ten of its
graduate students are either not U.S. citizens or permanent residents. These ratios
are echoed at the best engineering and medical schools in the country. Our
universities brim with opportunity for America and it would only take a few
modest tweaks to improve the situation. This is a case where a small number of
people bring a disproportionate benefit to millions.
In 2010 – the most recent year for which data is available – U.S. universities
awarded doctorates to about 13,000 students in all disciplines. (The largest number
study in California, New York and Texas.) This is a tiny proportion of the roughly
1.1 million people who were granted legal residency each year between 2009 and
2011.
In the immigration debate that’s getting underway it would be useful to
consider a few things. It would be wonderful to provide foreign-born students with
advanced degrees in STEM subjects from U.S. universities a clear path to
permanent residency. It would be good to massively increase the percentage of
green cards given to foreigners with advanced degrees and special skills. And it
would also make a big difference if the per country caps on green cards were
removed.
The United States is still luring and educating many of the best and the
brightest from foreign countries. We just must keep them. We also need to make it
easier for their soul mates who have been educated overseas to pass through
security – in the right direction.
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(1) Nvidia Corporation is an American global technology company. It
manufactures graphics processing units (GPUs), as well as system-on-a-chip units
(SOCs) for the mobile computing market.
(2) Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm. Sequoia's diverse
portfolio includes companies in energy, financial, health care, mobile and
technology sectors. Lineup- процедура опознания ( в полиции)
(3)MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Answer the questions:
1. What is the main idea of the first paragraph?
2. What is common for Google, Intel, Sun Microsystems, Nvidia,
Yahoo!, PayPal and other companies?
3. What are the three consequences of xenophobia for the USA?
4. What does the author call for in the 4th paragraph?
5. What steps did other countries undertaken to attract t most talented
immigrants?
6. What is the ratio of foreign students in American Universities?
7. What steps does the author propose to improve the situation?
8. How does the author start and finish the article? Why?
Exercise 3. Find in the text Immigration Reform: Stop Ejecting the Brightest
Minds From America abbreviations and acronyms and explain their meaning.
Text 3
Before reading the text in detail look it through and say what the following
abbreviations mean: Gen X, Gen Y. What other abbreviations are used in this
article?
What Companies Need to Develop Women Leaders
Women are in the majority of those now earning college and graduate
degrees. Here's what business can do to train them for leadership roles.
By Anna Marie Valerio
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