Structured Paragraph Writing.

                                     Academic Writing Structure

Ø  Parts of a paragraph (North American style).

·         Topic sentenceà Subject

·         Bodyà Supporting arguments in order of importance or chronology.

        à Concrete details.

·         Closing sentenceà Restate the topic.

                                                 à Add little extra information. 

                                                 à Make audience think about the topic.                                                                                                                                  

Ø  Writing structured paragraphs (Australian style)

·         The styleà Formal.

·         Correct punctuation.

·         Paragraphingà Organized thoughts.

                      à Cohesion

                      à Well organized.

Ø  Paragraph

·         Definitionà A paragraph is a distinct section in a piece of writing, with a number of related sentences which deal with only one main idea or topic.

·         Elementsà It should be physically easy to identify

ü  Indentation, full stop       

                                       àIt should be focused on one main idea

ü  using evidences, references, examples

                                       à It must be well organized

ü  cohesion

·         QualitiesàUnity

o   Topic sentenceàControlling idea

                     àSpecific comments

                     àPlacement:

                                                                                                                                                                                                 I.            Introducer paragraph

                                                                                                                                                                                              II.            Develop paragraph

                                                                                                                                                                                           III.            Terminator paragraph

               

                                    àCoherence:

                 

o   Key words

o   Synonyms

o   Pronouns

o   Transitions words

                 

                             

                             

                                    à  Development

o   Details

o   Evidence

o   Examples  

               

Ø  T E E Rule

·         T: Topic sentence.

·         E: Explanation.

·         E: Examples or evidence.

Ø  Introductory and concluding paragraphs:

·         IntroductoryàState topic of assignment and comment on its importance.

                                            àState main argument.

                                            à How you intend to answer the question.

          

·         ConcludingàSummarize the main points.

                                          àState main conclusions.

                                          àThe questions should be answered.

                                          àDO NOT introduce new material.

                                          à DO NOT end with a generalization.

                                          à DO NOT end with a quotation.

                            

                                                                 Sources:

• Cage, K. Massey University.Writing structured paragraph.(2009) Available at http://youtu.be/w183qB0KDFg
• Parts of a paragraph. English Academic Writing Introduction. (2009). Available athttp://youtu.be/cCuExRE6N-4

STUDENTS: ARRUTI SOFIA, DONDA AYELEN.

Chimamanda Adichie, a true storyteller.

                                                                                                                 

      

Video 1:

The Nigerian writer explains in this conference, why we should not believe a “single story” about a country and how dangerous it could be. We have to go beyond a stereotyped and incomplete story to know deeply the way of living and the essence of a society. Chimamanda Adichie gives an example about the Mexicans, who in the United States are known just with the qualification of “immigrants”. It was when she visited that country that she felt ashamed of that single story that she believed for many years. Mexicans are people with values, they have a nation, they have a culture, and an identity. The writer concludes: “show a people as only one thing over and over again and that is what they become”. However, we do not need to visit a country to know its reality, because local literature is the best way to do this. Concerning her reading experiences as a child, the writer tells us that she only knew American literature, although she had no idea about the meaning of some words. In her adolescence she knew African literature, her roots and reality, and a new paradise opened in her life that made her realise about the danger of a single story.

Video 2:

Chimamanda Adichie was selected for the commonwealth lecture in 2012 where she explained why books not only enlarge our imagination, but also they are immensely powerful. Realistic literature, especially, reminds us of how similar we are in the midst of our differences. We share values; we have dignity and we have to be recognized as human beings by governments which abuse of their power. A book is truly potent to show this aspect, because though a real story you can live and feel the reality of a small town in Africa, of a village in India or of any place in the world. The writer tells an anecdote about a judge, who read the novel “things fall apart” before moving to Namibia to become a consultant to the Namibian regime. That judge changed dramatically his mind after reading that novel because he could not stand the idea of giving his services to an apartheid regime. He should have known what the situation in Africa was at those times, but living it throughout the pages of that novel made him see the situation from a humanistic perspective. We are not “a single story” and books have the power to show and keep those treasures of all the humanity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=D9Ihs241zeg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vmsYJDP8g2U

Summary of Citation Rules

American Psychological Association.

APA styling:

APA: The Basics.

•  Choosing a front: use 12pt. Times New Roman.

• Spacing, margins and headers:                                                                                                                  Spacing: all papers should have double space throughout.                                                                      Setting margins: your paper should be set to one inch on all sides.                                           Headers: Include a page header, also known as the "running head". The running head is a shortened version of your paper's title and cannot exceed 50 characters including spacing and punctuation.  Put the title on left margin, at the top of every page. The title in the first page should be different that the consequents. Be careful with capitalization and punctuation.  You may want to capitalize the whole title and put the number of each page in the right margin.

·       

• Sections of your research paper.                                                                  APA style recommends organizing your paper into the following sections:

1_ Title page: Type your title in upper and lowercase letters centered in the upper half of the page. Your title should be no more than 12 words in length and it should not contain abbreviations or words that serve no purpose.                                                           

Beneath the title, type the author's name: first name, middle initial(s), and last name. Do not use titles (Dr.) or degrees (PhD).                                                                                                                             Beneath the author's name, type the institutional affiliation, which should indicate the location where the author(s) conducted the research.

2_ Abstract: on a new page, include the “page header”. On the first line of the abstract page, center the word “Abstract” (no bold, formatting, italics, underlining, or quotation marks). On the next line, write a concise summary of the key points of your research. Your abstract should contain at least your research topic, questions, participants, methods, results, data analysis, and conclusions. You may also include possible implications of your research and future work you see connected with your findings. Your abstract should be a single paragraph double-spaced and contain between 150 and 250 words.

3_Main body: it should be double-spaced. Insert the full title of your paper (we are in page 3). Indent the first line of each paragraph of the main body.

4_References: finally, center the title “references” on a new page and capitalize it. Then, put the last name of the authors in alphabetical order. Put double-space between each reference.

Basic Rules

• ·        In “references”, double space all citations but do not skip spaces between entries. All lines after the first line of each entry in your reference list should be indented one-half inch from the left margin (hanging indentation)

• ·        Authors' names are inverted (last name first); give the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work. If the work has more than seven authors, list the first six authors and then use ellipses after the sixth author's name. After the ellipses, list the last author's name of the work.

• ·        Reference list entries should be alphabetized by the last name of the first author of each work.

• ·        For multiple articles by the same author, or authors listed in the same order, list the entries in chronological order, from earliest to most recent.

• ·        When referring to books, chapters, articles, or Web pages, capitalize only the first letter of the first word of a title and subtitle, the first word after a colon or a dash in the title, and proper nouns. Do not capitalize the first letter of the second word in a hyphenated compound word.

• ·        Italicize titles of longer works such as books and journals. Do not italicize, underline, or put quotes around the titles of shorter works such as journal articles or essays in edited collections.

Citing books:

First include the author’s name followed by a period. Then, include the year of publication in parenthesis followed by a period. Place the title of the book in italics followed by a period. Capitalize only the first word of the title and subtitle. Next indicate the location of publication, using the two letter postal abbreviation. Finally, include the publisher followed by a colon, and then include the publisher followed by a period.

Citing articles from scholarly journals:

Write the author’s name, last name; first and middle initials and a comma. Indicate the year in parenthesis and the title of the article followed by a period. List the title of the scholarly journal in italics followed by a comma. Indicate the volume in italics and place the issue number in parenthesis and regular font followed by a comma. Indicate the inclusive pages followed by a period.

Citing magazines:

Author, A.A. (date). Title of article. Title of periodical. Volume, pages.

E.g.: Henry, W. A., III. (1990, April 9). Making the grade in today´s schools. Time, 135, 28-31.

Citing newspapers:

It is nearly identical to the citation for magazines.

Author, A.A. (date). Title of article. Title of newspaper, page number(s).

E.g.: Shultz, S. (2005, December 28). Calls made to strengthen state energy policies. The Country Today, pp. 1A, 2A. (it may include either a p for single pages or pp for double pages).

Citing articles from encyclopedias:

Author, A.A. (Date). Title of article. In Title of Encyclopedia. (Volume, page numbers). City of publication, State of publication: Publisher.

Eg.: Bergmann, P.G. (1993). Relativity. In The New Encyclopedia Britannica. (Vol. 26, pp. 501-508). Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica.

Citing web-based sources:

Eg.: Wooldridge, M.B., & Shapka, J. (2012). Playing with technology: Mother-toddler interaction scores lower during play with electronic toys. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 33(5), 211-218. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2012.05.005 (link the page)

Brownlie, D. (2007). Toward effective poster preparations: An annotated bibliography. European Journal of Marketing, 41, 1245-1283, doi: 10.1108/03090560710821161

Paragraphs:

v Yesterday, I spent the whole morning riding on my bike. I am starting to get well trained until the race comes. Then, I spent the rest of the day watching the cycling on television. Talking about bikes, have you got yours mended yet? We have to train harder if we want to win the race.

v I desisted totally to the idea of inviting Darlene and Jackie to spend the holiday with us. Darlene is as miserable as ever, and Jackie never comes to visit us. Anyway, I’m sure you don’t want to hear about this again, so let’s get back to those holiday plans without them. We need to have everything organized before Friday, so please come to my home tomorrow to talk about it.

Ø Analysis: when the teacher told us to put some sentences in context, I started to write simple paragraphs just to describe the situation in which they happened. I did pay attention to the gender of each paragraph, but they are just a part of what it should be a complete dialogue, in the first case, and a complete letter in the second one.

I did not pay attention to the first sentence of my paragraphs which should contain the main topic. Apart from that, I tend to start writing without thinking about a special audience or the register.

“I AM A WRITER” (Improved version):

They say I am one of the best writers of the world, and that my imagination goes far beyond that any pagan tale or legend. Anyway, we all know that people always want to escape from reality, and what I do is just give them the tools. What any of them do not know, is that I am not the brilliant mind they think. The truth is that I just write down what I have really experienced in my childhood and adolescence times.

I lived in the countryside, there in Alabama, for many years. I used to play in cotton fields and take care of my father’s animals in the farm. My life there was hard but simple, and my family and I could experienced many supernatural events. People think that my stories are unreal and that my great mind invents everything. I have always tried to convince them of the opposite because a good writer has to be trusted. My brother has experienced some of those supernatural episodes with me. My father, among other things, assured having seen how one of the rabbits from the farm took a human shape every sunset and disappeared in the woods. My family has always believed that our farm had some kind of strange supernatural force that made us see things that could not be real. We thought that the farm was enchanted and had a special energy.

However, I changed my mind about it last year when I was in my book presentation in England. When the ceremony was over, I was captured by three aliens who just wanted to get their book signed by me. It was a great experience, but nobody believes in any of my stories when I try to get deeper on them. People think I am a professional neurotic, but the truth is that I am just a writer telling them real supernatural experiences.

Reflection about my writing:

Although we know which are the steps to follow when we start writing something, we tend to write directly an unclear draft with the ideas that come first to our minds. My first draft of “I am a writer” had disorganized ideas, bad punctuation and grammar, and poor coherence and cohesion. Then, at home, i had to think about the piece of writing itself and take down notes about ideas that i would like to include or change.

By reading once more the explanation about the 5 steps of writing, i could think clearer about  the audience, the narrative style of my draft and the main idea of my final essay. It also gave me a guide of how to organize my ideas in paragraphs. The drafting step is very helpful because i could change it many times, but my problem is that i always start my writings without a prewriting step, and i have an unclear general idea of what i am about to write in a first draft.

Donda, A., & Paparatto, C. (2013). The writing process. Retrieved from

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u-cZjqxpPINlpsSkLbLUip6-ZXYvOxNewex-Ur6crxs/edit

"I AM A WRITER"

First version.

I am a writer, i have spent years and years studying and investigating about supernatural things. All i can do with it is to write them down. I have written many books, i have sold millions of them around the world. People is fascinated with my stories, and they claim more and more. They all think that i have an incredible imagination, that is why i am one of the best writers of all times. anyway, the truth is that i just write down what i have really experienced.

I lived in the countryside for many years, i spent my childhood playing in cotton field...

Hello everybody, my name is Ayelen Donda, i study at institute ISFD Nº18 and i am in the 4º year of the teacher training college. I hope you can help me to improve my writing!