LENGUA Y CULTURA INGLESA I

PROFESORA: JULIETA CARMOSINO

Dear student,

These notes are intended to help you improve your writing skills. You can carry out the
activities and send them to the teacher to be checked. The activities are NOT
compulsory but are meant to help you solve the difficulties you may have when writing
essays.

Kind regards,

Julieta Carmosino

ESSAY WRITING

How do I go about writing an essay? You may have wondered this many times, as the
answers to most of the questions posed by teachers require that you write them in the
form of an essay.

DEFINITIO
N
An essay is any organised, self-contained piece of writing written for a special
purpose. Writing a good essay requires the mastery of several skills. It requires
grammatical accuracy and acceptability, so that relationships between words are clear,
and understanding is made easier. It requires that the mechanics of punctuation,
capitalisation, spelling, and footnoting follow acceptable conventions. Additionally, it
requires vocabulary appropriate to the subject matter and to the level and tone of
writing. Finally, a good essay requires a careful and planned structuring of ideas.

Also, you must bear in mind the fact that the basic purpose of writing, and of any form
of communication for that matter, is to convey ideas, thoughts, and feelings to someone
else. All writing, as well as speaking, can be roughly classified in one of four main
categories: exposition, argument, description and narrative. For the purpose of this
handout, we will focus on the first two.

Exposition: This category includes most of what we write and read: textbooks,
magazine articles, newspaper editorials, etc. Its purpose is to explain something, make
an idea clear, convey a fact or a related series of facts, explain a process or a method,
an organization or a system. It includes either a presentation of factual material or an
analysis of it, or both. A typical expository essay question would be: What were the
main problems faced by the Tudors when they ruled England?
Argument: The central purpose of argumentative writing is to convince, to persuade
the reader to adopt a certain idea, attitude, or course of action. A typical argumentative
essay question would be: Is present-day America in any way similar to the British
Empire of old?

Before you start writing essays, it is useful to remember that the unit of the essay is the
paragraph. All the paragraphs you write must contain introducers, which are
sentences that establish the topic focus of the paragraph as a whole. Second, there are
paragraph developers, which present examples or details of various kinds that support
the ideas set forth by the introducers. Third, there are viewpoint or context
modulators, which are sentences that provide a smooth transition between different
sets of ideas. Fourth, there are paragraph terminators, which logically conclude the
ideas discussed in the paragraph in psychologically satisfying manner. Not all pieces of
writing will conform to this analysis; however, most successful paragraphs usually
contain some combination of these four sentence types.

Activity 1: Read the following expository essay and note that each paragraph is
developed using a different technique: some paragraphs enumerate elements, some
others give examples to prove a point, others may compare and/or contrast
elements, still others may define elements, classify elements, describe processes or
cause and effect relationships, or move through generalization. 1) Which of these
techniques is used for each paragraph? What words or structures within each
paragraph have led you to that conclusion? 2) Concentrate on any one paragraph. How
is it constructed? What order do sentences follow? Identify introducers, modulators,
developers and terminators

Speech communities

There is no denying that English is a useful language. The people who speak English
today make up the largest speech community on the world with the exception of
speakers of Mandarin Chinese. Originally they were small tribes of people living in
northern Europe who left their homelands and settled in England. Isolated in their
island community, the various tribes used languages which became more and more
similar to each other and less and less like the other languages of Europe. Eventually,
the language had enough uniformity to be used by all speakers in England. The people
were united into a speech community through their shared language. In time, people
moved from the small island to many parts of the world, taking their language with them
and thus still remaining members of the English speech community wherever they
settled.

A speech community is similar to other kinds of communities. The people who

make up the community share a common language. Often, they live side by side as
they do in a neighborhood, a village or a city. More often they form a whole country.
Many nations are composed of a single major speech community, for example, Italy,
Sweden, and Japan. National boundaries, however, are not always the same as the
boundaries of a speech community. Some nations (for example, Russia and India) are
made up of many speech communities. Some speech communities (for example,
Arabic, Spanish and English) extend across national boundaries. A speech community,
then, is any group of people who speak the same language no matter where they
happen to live.

We may say that anyone who speaks English belongs to the English speech
community. For convenience, we may classify the speaker into two groups: one in
which the speakers use English as their native language, the other in which the
speakers learn English as a second language for the purposes of education,
commerce, and so on. In the former group we, obviously, would include England,
Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. Naturally, not all people in
these countries speak English natively, but a large majority do. In the latter groups we
would include, among many others, India, Denmark, Kenya, Burma, Turkey, Ethiopia
and the Philippines. Not all these countries use English for the same purpose or to the
same extent, but each uses English for important social and commercial activities.

English serves as a functional alternative language in several areas of public

activity for the many nations of the world which use it as an international second
language. Because of its widespread use geographically, and because of the large
number of people who speak it, it has been adopted as the language of aviation and air
traffic. English has continued as one of the important languages of commerce, as the
sphere of political and economic influence of the English-speaking nations has
extended beyond the boundaries of England. The use of English in international
diplomacy is strengthened by its acceptance as one of the official languages of the
United Nations. And as a final example, English is the language of the majority of
published materials in the world so that education, especially specialised higher
education, has come to rely on an understanding of English very heavily. In no sense
does English replace the cultural heritage and emotional ties of the first language, but
for many speakers throughout the world, it provides a means of communicating with
people of similar training and interests who would otherwise not comprehend them.

Learning a second language extends one’s vision and expands the mind.
Looking at the world or oneself through a different language system shows the limits of
one’s own perception and adds new dimensions to familiar objects or events. A second
language teaches us different ways of labelling and organising our experiences. The
history and literature of a second language record the real and fictional lives of a
people and their culture; a knowledge of them adds to our ability to understand and to
feel as they feel. Learning English as a second language provides another means of
communication through which the window of the entire English speech community
becomes a part of your heritage.

Activity 2: read the following argumentative essay and decide 1) what arguments the
writer presents in favor of his case; 2) whether the writer presents any arguments
against and if so, whether he refutes them in the essay; 3) what balance there is
between the arguments for and against his point; 4) what words are used to present
the arguments and the lines of reasoning and the counterarguments and 5) whether
the paragraphs are clearly structured and in keeping with the patter presented above.
What conclusions can you draw from the above questions?
 The “Bug” or the “Bomb”?

Having spent almost six years in the service and being a married man of twenty-five, I
do not think that I am a typical freshman. I believe that I am more mature, more
worldwise, and know the value of a dollar. My father-in-law, however, does not think
that I know what I am doing, particularly when it comes to buying a car to replace the
antique I am now driving. I want to buy a Volkswagen. He wants me to buy an
American car. So our argument is for the “bug” or the “bomb”.

Why do I want to buy a VW? First of all, it is my money. The VW I have priced costs
about $1700.00, and that price includes everything I want on it. Once I have a VW, the
cost of running it is very low. It gets 32 miles to the gallon, takes 5 pints of oil, and uses
no antifreeze because it is air-cooled. The cost of insuring it is less than half of that of
an American car. Repairs, if any are needed, are much cheaper, and the tires will last
the life of the car in one rotates them and keeps them properly inflated. License plates
are one-third the cost of a big car. These figures are facts, not fiction.

Then, too, the VW depreciates at a much lower rate than an American car. I have
studied the prices in the papers for the past few months. A one-year-old VW
depreciates about 300 dollars, a two-year-old about 400, and a three-year-old about
500. in other words, I can drive a VW for three years and still get about two-thirds of my
purchase price for it.

Furthermore, I want a car to drive to school, to church, to the grocery store. I do not
plan to tour the United States with it. I want cheap, dependable transportation.

Now, there is nothing wrong with American cars. But in my situation, I have to look at
the following facts. The car my father-in-law suggests that I buy will cost at least
$2,500.00. It gets about 20 miles to the gallon, takes 8 quarts of oil and needs
antifreeze. Insurance will cost well over 100 dollars, repairs are expensive, license
plates cost 18 dollars. In short, the initial cost and the running expenses will be at least
one third more than with a VW.

How much does an American car depreciate? Too much, to my way of thinking. In the
paragraphs above, I mentioned that a VW depreciates about 500 dollars in three years.
An American car depreciates that much the moment it is driven out of the garage! And
in three years, it will depreciate about 40%, perhaps even more.

The American car, of course, does have advantages. It is roomier and more
comfortable, especially for long trips. It is possibly safer and it is also a status symbol
for Americans, but I can do without status for a while.

In short, there is a place for the VW and a place for the American car, and as long as I
am a married college student I insist that my place is in a VW, father-in-law
notwithstanding.
Sources: Mc Call, John, How to Write Themes and Essays, New York: Prentice hall,
1966; and Imhoof Maurice and Herman Hudson, From Paragraph to Essay, Harlow:
Longman, 1975.

Essay writing do’s and don’t’s

DO Create a Thesis Statement and Present It Clearly at the Beginning of Your

Essay.

DO Make sure each paragraph in the body of your essay begins with an
Introducer/Topic Sentence.
Each topic sentence (= introducer) should support the argument you set forth in your
thesis (i.e. "Mel's love for his wife is based on his fear of her ex-husband"). Every
sentence within the paragraph that follows should support the claim made in the topic
sentence.

DON’T Use the 2nd person.

Keep "you" out of your essay. There is always another way to phrase a sentence like
this: "From the preceding example, you can see that . . ." For instance, you could say:
The preceding example demonstrates.... or In the preceding example, the author
suggests that... .

DO acknowledge your sources when you use quoted material from a Text
Punctuation always comes after the page citation. For example: "But my body was like
a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires" (164). or
The narrator believes that his "body [is] like a harp" (164). Question marks and
exclamation marks, if they are part of the text, stay within the quotes, but you should
still punctuate your sentence after the page citation:
The narrator asks, "is my body like a harp?"
Written by R. Newberry & N. Langer

DON’T apologise for what you say. It goes without saying that the views and
interpretations you offer are yours, doesn't it? So there's no need for such boring
phrases as "It seems to me" or "In my opinion."
This does not mean you must avoid the first person singular.

DON’T use reduced forms

This is not a conversation

DO proofread your essay

Student writers should make some effort -- or at least be aware of the desirability of an
effort -- towards achieving a more than pedestrian style. Grammatical competence is
something to be assumed as present, at this level of study.
 What about your punctuation?
 How often have you had occasion to use the semicolon?
 Or even better, the colon?
Be duly embarrassed if you make more than an occasional blunder such as lack of
subject-verb agreement. Aim for standard educated English -- but let's all remember
that educated speakers and writers make such "errors" often enough, and correctness
of this kind is a secondary consideration. Almost anyone can make slips on occasion in
a first draft. They should not survive the careful proofreading that writers who care
about their writing subject each piece to. If you are in doubt about any of them, look
them up in the dictionary and read the entry carefully. If necessary, write yourself a
reminder note and stick it above your desk.
For on-line help with style and mechanics, consult Elements of Style by William Strunk,
perhaps the most famous style manual in English.

Material taken from the following sources:

http://unix.cc.wmich.edu/~cooneys/tchg/lit/adv/lit.papers.html

http://www.duq.edu/coned/scresourcectr/scfaculty/nlangert2b.htm

http://southwest.mpls.k12.mn.us/sites/ad26dc17-c8bc-4970-8795-
bae99167aab3/uploads/Random_suggestions.doc

Michael J. O'Shea www.assumption.edu