- •Т. А. Бойцова, а. В. Соснин
- •© Т.А. Бойцова, а.В. Соснин, 2012
- •Part II English Punctuation
- •Capitalization.................................................................................................44 Part III Structural Aspects of Writing
- •Part IV Some Notes on Style
- •Using Jargon Appropriately.........................................................................88
- •What kind of skill is writing ?
- •Exercises
- •Insert the missing letters for [f]:
- •The Phoneme [k] – (c, k, ck, ch, qu(e))
- •Exercises
- •Insert the missing letters for [k]:
- •Exercises
- •Insert the missing letters: (tch, ch, t)
- •The Phoneme [g] – (g, dg(e), j)
- •Exercises
- •Insert the missing letters:
- •The Reduplication of Consonants
- •Exercises
- •Insert the missing letters:
- •Insert the missing letters for the sounds given in brackets:
- •The Final Letter “y”
- •Exercises
- •Insert the missing letters “y” or “I”:
- •The Mute Final “e” The mute Final “e” and its Functions
- •Exercises
- •Insert the letter “e”where necessary:
- •Affixation (Prefixation and Suffixation)
- •I. Prefixation
- •Negative prefixes
- •Exercises
- •II. Suffixation
- •The Suffix -tion, -sion
- •To scan – scansion
- •Write corresponding nouns from the following verbs by adding the suffixes -tion, -sion:
- •Exercises
- •Insert the missing letters “a” or “e”:
- •The Suffixes -able, -ible
- •Guiding Principles
- •If the stem ends in [s] -c or [d] -g, the final mute letter “e” is retained before -able:
- •Exercises
- •The Suffix -ous (-ious, -eous, -uous)
- •Study and Memorize the Following List
- •Exercises
- •Insert e or I :
- •Insert the proper vowel wherever necessary:
- •General Review
- •Part II English Punctuation Punctuation marks
- •Exercises
- •Apostrophe
- •Quotation Marks
- •Punctuation of Compound and Complex Sentences Comma and Semicolon
- •Capitalization
- •Exercises
- •Part III structural aspects of writing paragraph
- •2. A) Read the following passage.
- •Description
- •Technical description a Sitting Room
- •Description of a place or scene (Suggestive Description)
- •1. A) Read the above passage carefully paying attention to the choice of the
- •Vocabulary.
- •Character Sketch
- •Description of an Old Man
- •1. Study the passage below and describe the impression Charles Strickland produced on the author at their first meeting.
- •4. Write a descriptive sketch of a) your relative; b) an interesting person whom you know. Summary
- •How to Avoid Foolish Opinions
- •2. Study the following article carefully and make an outline of its essential points. Modern Constitutions
- •3. Consider a summary of this article written in Russian. Does it cover all the key points of the article? Write a summary in English.
- •Words and Phrases to Use in a Résumé
- •1. Make a résumé of the article below. The following questions might help you:
- •How to find true love Or, Rather, How It Finds You
- •Composition and essay
- •Technical / scientific essay
- •Important Development Projects in Russia: their Impact on the Area and People’s Lives. The Shtokman Gas Field – Thinking the Unthinkable
- •References
- •Part IV some notes on style active or passive voice ?
- •Avoiding male-only pronouns
- •Writing With Finesse
- •Suggestions on self-assessment
- •Supplement Words Frequently Misspelt
- •Wednesday
- •Word List For Special Study
- •References
- •Татьяна Алексеевна Бойцова
Suggestions on self-assessment
The following are some techniques for improving your writing style, and for assessing how well your efforts are succeeding. Not all these strategies will work for everyone, but many writers find them helpful.
READ YOUR TEXT ALOUD TO YOURSELF
This strategy may be particularly helpful if your writing is intended for oral presentation, but can be useful for other genres as well. Hearing your own words, as opposed to looking at them, may provide you with a very different impression of them and expose weaknesses such as pretentious-sounding terms, wooden dialogue or rambling sentence structures.
FOCUS ON THE WHOLE AS WELL AS THE PARTS
Any time you add or revise an element, reread what surrounds it to ensure that everything still fits. Often, a change in one place will necessitate a change in another. Naturally you must focus on each line as you create it, but as soon as you have the first draft in place, back up a few lines and read through the earlier text again. You will frequently find that the latest addition does not fit in quite as it should – perhaps it restates a point already made, or does not make a smooth enough transition from what came before. As you form each new sentence, keep going back and rereading it from the start to ensure that all its elements mesh together. As you form each new paragraph, keep rereading it from its first line to see how its sentences fit together: Perhaps the topic shifts enough that the paragraph should be broken up, or perhaps a particular word is repeated too many times within a short space.
PUT YOUR WORK ASIDE FOR A WHILE AND THEN COME BACK TO IT
You may feel you have polished your arguments into their final form, only to find that when you look at them a little later, problems jump out at you: illogical connections, clumsy sentence structures, a strained-sounding tone, subtle grammatical errors. A lapse of time enables you to come back to your work with a more objective eye. A day or more away is ideal, but even a few hours can make a difference.
HAVE SOMEONE ELSE LOOK YOUR WORK OVER
Any writer – no matter how skilled – can benefit from getting a second opinion, because by definition one is always too close to one's own work. Given that your writing is ultimately intended for other people's consumption, it only makes sense to find out how other people perceive it. The individual whose opinion you seek need not be a better writer than you: The goal is not to have this person correct or revise what you have done. Rather, it is to provide you with feedback on how your points and your tone are coming across. If your critic does not get your jokes, or finds a character you meant to be funny and sympathetic merely irritating, or cannot follow some instruction because you left out a step you thought would be perfectly obvious to anybody – take all this seriously (and do your best to remain on speaking terms afterward). A professional editor is ideal, but if this is not practical or affordable, try to select someone whose opinion you respect and who represents your intended readership as nearly as possible.
And finally, draft, draft, draft. Write and rewrite. And then rewrite again. This strategy is not an option or a suggestion, but a basic part of the writing process. No professional writer expects to get away without revision; the only question is, how much will be necessary. The act of writing, after all, does not involve simply transcribing ideas inside your head into words on paper: It involves developing and articulating those ideas in the first place. As you write, you can expect to shift your priorities; to change your mind about what information goes with what; to choose a different tack in order to drive some point home. Resist the temptation to hang onto passages that you laboured long and lovingly over, if they no longer fit.