The main contents of the chapter consist of the following: What is communication? how do we communicate? what is a skill? language skills, types of communication, the communication cycle, barriers in language communication, overcoming barriers, in spoken as well as written communication.
Lecture Writing Skills Recap • What is Communication? • How we Communicate? • What is a Skill? • Language Skills • Types of Communication • The Communication Cycle • Barriers in Language Communication • Overcoming Barriers Writing Skill • • • Writing skills are an important part of communication This is a Productive Skill Good writing skills allow you to communicate your message with clarity and ease to a far larger audience than through face-to-face or telephone conversations Before Writing you should know… • • • • Who is the audience? What format is required – essay or report or reflection on experience? Styles of writing– – writing in a logical and `objective’ way – writing from personal experience Academic conventions – referencing and plagiarism Formal and Informal Writing Formal Writing Complex Informa l Writing Simple Contractions and Abbreviations Objective Third Person Full Words Colloquial Empathy and Emotion Formal Writing Style • Complex – – Longer sentences are likely to be more prevalent in formal writing – You need to be as thorough as possible with your approach to each topic when you are using a formal style – Each main point needs to be introduced, elaborated and concluded Formal Writing Style (cont…) • Objective – – State main points confidently and offer full support arguments – A formal writing style shows a limited range of emotions and avoids emotive punctuation such as exclamation points (!), ellipsis (…) etc., unless they are being cited from another source Formal Writing Style (cont…) • Full Words – – No contractions should be used to simplify words (in other words use "It is" rather than "It's") – Abbreviations must be spelt out in full when first used, the only exceptions being when the acronym is better known than the full name (BBC, or NATO for example) Formal Writing Style (cont…) • Third Person – – Formal writing is not a personal writing style – The formal writer is disconnected from the topic and does not use the first person point of view (I or we) or second person (you) Formal Writing Style (cont…) • Process– Formal writing follows a writing techniques – It follows a writing process – Material is organized on a set pattern Example • • • ORIGINAL: She had a few early successes, but she felt she could it after all PROBLEM: Illogical coordination REVISED: When she had a few early successes, she felt she could it after all Example • • • ORIGINAL: Her family transformed itself into a support system She wondered how single people could manage the workload by themselves PROBLEM: Unclear - Subordination would make the connection between ideas clearer REVISED: As her family transformed itself into a support system, she wondered how single people could manage the workload by themselves Revising for Parallelism • focus on identifying and correcting problems of parallelism Example • • • ORIGINAL: My father’s boss, losing his temper, lashed out at my father and my father quit after running out of patience PROBLEM: construction Unclear - Use parallel to emphasize the contrast REVISED: My father’s boss, losing his temper, lashed out at my father and my father, losing his patience, quit Example • • • ORIGINAL: sense He had lost his job, but his of identity was also gone PROBLEM: Improper conjunction – Need to use correlative conjunctions and parallel form REVISED: He had lost not only his job, but also his identity Writing Exercise VINCENT VAN GOGH’S FIRST STEPS FIRST STEPS: WRITING AS PROCESS EXERCISE • Van Gogh (1853 -1890), whose bright colors and bold brush strokes often bring to mind a rush of medicinal preparation, tries here to capture that excitement • Prepare to use the four process steps to write about the painting: – Planning and Shaping – Drafting – Revising – Editing Planning and Shaping • Look at the whole picture – What visual parallels you see? – What contrasts? – What happened right before this moment? – Right after? • • • Of all the milestones in a child’s development, nothing - except possibly the first smile or the first words - causes as much excitement as the first steps How you convey that level of excitement in words, without using capitalization, underlining or exclamation marks? How much can you capture with sentence structure alone? DRAFTING • • • Draft a paragraph that leads up to the climactic moment of this child’s first steps Establish the setting, then focus on the adults, then the child, then the actual first step Try to capture the parents’ excitement REVISING • Include at least one of each of the following sentence types: – • • • simple, compound, complex Include a cluster of at least three longer sentences (20+ words) followed by a very short sentence (