Structured Paragraph Writing

Structured Paragraph Writing

 

Writing Structured Paragraphs

·         -  The structure Academic Writing contains three elements: the Style (formal), Correct Punctuation and Paragraphing (that is to understand material)

·         -  A paragraph is a distinct section in a piece of writing. It’s formed by a number of related sentences and one main idea. It should start on a new line and be well organized

·          - The paragraph has three qualities: Unity, Coherence and Development.

·          - In terms of unity, the paragraph should contain a topic sentence which can be placed in any line of the paragraph. The topic sentence must not be confused with the topic. One part of the topic sentence is the topic itself and the other part is the controlling idea. The controlling idea has to be developed in the following sentences.

·          - Coherence means that the reader can easily follow what he/she is reading. It is achieved by creating logical bridges from one sentence to another. In order to achieve coherence, key words, synonyms and transition words must be used.

·          - The main point of development is to hold the reader’s interest. Also, details and evidence are important to support the topic sentence

·          - The TEE Rule as it reads topic sentence, explanation and examples.

·          - Introduction Paragraph states the topic on it importance and it states the main argument on how you intend to answer the Wh-question (what, when, why, where, how). These Wh question are necessary to generate the controlling ideas and each one creates a new paragraph.

·          - Conclusion Paragraph summarizes the main points and states the main conclusion. Also it should answer the question.

Parts of a Paragraph – English Academic Writing

·          - The parts of a paragraph are the topic sentence, the body and the closing sentences.

·          - The topic sentence introduces the topic and gives opinions but not detailed.

·          - The body is the supporting ideas (details) of the topic. The body could be organized by importance or by chronology.

·          - The Closing sentence reminds what you are writing and keep the audience thinking.

Written by Leandro Pelaez and Melany Cordeiro

 Bibliography

·         AlexESLvid (2009, May 19). Parts of a Paragraph - English Academic Writing Introduction. Retrieved May 31, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cCuExRE6N-4

·         Masseyuniversity (2009, July 22). Writing Structured Paragraphs. Retrieved May 31, 2013, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w183qB0KDFg

written by Cordeiro Melany and Leandro Pelaez

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Commonwealth Lecture 2012

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the power of realistic fiction in people's lives and its main objective beyond the simple words. She focuses on the wonderful ability of books to enlarge our imagination. After listening to Chimamanda's speech I reflected on the power of books touching people's hearts and lives. On one hand, realistic fiction is not the recording of the real it also seeks to enfuse the real with meaning. Giving a meaning to the stories is the most important goal of realistic fiction. We can read just words but that does not mean that we are reading the truth of the stories more than reading simple facts. When we read we can discover the truth through the words by giving it our emotional meaning. On the other hand,  humanity is something we must always keep searching for. To read realistic literature is to search for humanity. We can read anything we want by internet but we do not know about people's stories. However when we read humans stories we immerse ourselves in other person's story.  Finally we can see that logic can convince but  the emotion leads us to act and it is the power of realistic stories to touch people's lives.

Chimamanda Adichie is a story teller who presents a revolutionary point of view of the danger of having a single story of nations and people who belong to a specific country.Chimamanda Adichie demonstrates how   impressionable and vulnerable we are when we read a story, particularly as children. We made a generalization when we read stories assuming that the world was like we read in books.Therefore our vulnerability to believe the stories of a country begins when we were children and this conveys what we believe as a single story of a country. Having a single story does not mean that it is false but it is not the only story that exits of a country. It is important to identify different versions of the single story because in this way we are able to form a more completed one and being more objective with our perception of reality. In addition, it is important to tell the majority of the stories of a country because positive and negative stories make us who we are. On the other hand the single story creates stereotypes. The stereotypes are true but they are also incomplete. The consequence of the single story is that it drops people’s dignity. Taking into account the fact that the stereotypes emphasize people’s difference, discrimination begins to flow. Chimamanda Adichie explores both poles of the dilemma in order to give us two different perceptions. She has judged, and been judged, and has learned that only hearing one side of a story can distort accurate perceptions. Giving her personal example invites us to reflect that we can be on both sides: sometimes we can be the single story of a person and sometimes we can have a single story of a person who is full of amazing stories. Finally Chimamanda Adichie expects a change in the way we discern the stories of a country in order to reject the single story and break the stereotypes.

Citing sources in the text by MLA

In MLA style, writers place references to sources in the paper to briefly identify them and enable readers to find them in the Works Cited list. 

Give only the information needed to identify a source. Usually the author's last name and a page reference are enough.

Place the parenthetical reference as close as possible to its source. Insert the parenthetical reference where a pause would naturally occur, preferably at the end of a sentence.

Information in the parenthesis should complement, not repeat, information given in the text. If you include an author's name in a sentence, you do not need to repeat it in your parenthetical statement.

The parenthetical reference should precede the punctuation mark that concludes the sentence, clause, or phrase that contains the cited material.

Works Cited list

References cited in the text of a research paper must appear at the end of the paper in a Works Cited list or bibliography. This list provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source that specifically supports your research.

Arrange entries in alphabetical order by authors' last names (surnames), or by title for sources without authors.

Capitalize the first word and all other principal words of the titles and subtitles of cited works listed. (Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, or the "to" in infinitives.)

Shorten the publisher's name; for example, omit articles, business abbreviations (Co., Inc.), and descriptive words (Press, Publisher).

When multiple publishers are listed, include all of them, placing a semicolon between each.

When more than one city is listed for the same publisher, use only the first city.

Use the conjunction "and," not an ampersand [&], when listing multiple authors of a single work.

Pagination: Do not use the abbreviations p. or pp. to designate page numbers.

Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with the left margin, and indent all subsequent lines (5 to 7 spaces) to form a "hanging indent."

Italics: Choose a font in which the italic style contrasts clearly with the regular style.

Books:

References to an entire book should include the following elements:

author(s) or editor(s)

the complete title

edition, if indicated

place of publication

the shortened name of the publisher

date of publication

medium of publication

Basic Format

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.

Citing sources in the text by MLA

In MLA style, writers place references to sources in the paper to briefly identify them and enable readers to find them in the Works Cited list. 

Give only the information needed to identify a source. Usually the author's last name and a page reference are enough.

Place the parenthetical reference as close as possible to its source. Insert the parenthetical reference where a pause would naturally occur, preferably at the end of a sentence.

Information in the parenthesis should complement, not repeat, information given in the text. If you include an author's name in a sentence, you do not need to repeat it in your parenthetical statement.

The parenthetical reference should precede the punctuation mark that concludes the sentence, clause, or phrase that contains the cited material.

Works Cited list

References cited in the text of a research paper must appear at the end of the paper in a Works Cited list or bibliography. This list provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source that specifically supports your research.

Arrange entries in alphabetical order by authors' last names (surnames), or by title for sources without authors.

Capitalize the first word and all other principal words of the titles and subtitles of cited works listed. (Do not capitalize articles, prepositions, coordinating conjunctions, or the "to" in infinitives.)

Shorten the publisher's name; for example, omit articles, business abbreviations (Co., Inc.), and descriptive words (Press, Publisher).

When multiple publishers are listed, include all of them, placing a semicolon between each.

When more than one city is listed for the same publisher, use only the first city.

Use the conjunction "and," not an ampersand [&], when listing multiple authors of a single work.

Pagination: Do not use the abbreviations p. or pp. to designate page numbers.

Indentation: Align the first line of the entry flush with the left margin, and indent all subsequent lines (5 to 7 spaces) to form a "hanging indent."

Italics: Choose a font in which the italic style contrasts clearly with the regular style.

Books:

References to an entire book should include the following elements:

author(s) or editor(s)

the complete title

edition, if indicated

place of publication

the shortened name of the publisher

date of publication

medium of publication

Basic Format

Lastname, Firstname. Title of Book. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Medium of Publication.

Analysis

Before having read the steps for a succesful writing i had my ideas disorganized to start to write. Sometimes i had a huge brainstorming but i lost myself when i had to put the ideas into a whole composition. My focus was on the content rather than the structure of the writing. i tried to use sophisticated words and phrases, banal descriptions but the structure of the writing was disorganized.

4) paragraphs

I am very exciting to make our holidays plans but my problems come to my mind everyminute while you are talking.
Darlene is as miserable as ever, jackie never comes to visit us. Anyway, I am sure you don't want to hear my problems, so let's get back to those holidays plans...sorry again! but i can't go on with the holdiays plans without telling my family I am going to travel next month with you. perhaps we never come back and stay in California for ever. So i have the obligation to fix the situation with my family.
My sister is extremely depressed for her economical situation and Jackie decided to move and rent a house and live with her boyfriend.

I am very exciting for the good news. my job is much better after having received the most important letter of my life. I had a letter from patrick Eggli the other day. By the way i don't suppose you remember Carine Imlof? well... she is my boss in the office and Patrick Eggli is her boss. So Patrick contacted me because Carine Imholf was fired and he wanted me to take her job. Whats is more, I was very exciting because my salary would be increased. However my partners would not look at me in the same way as before.

3) I am a writer. improved version 

I am a writer

An important event took part in my life five years ago when I was enjoying an emotional perfect balance. Taking into account the state of my personal life, my relationship with my boyfriend was perfect and everything was going perfectly. So that I considered myself very lucky but I was afraid of something wrong would happen to disturb my quiet life.  So that my fears became true.

In the autumn of 2010 my life changed abruptly in a negative way.  Due to my unusual perfect life I experienced an emotional insecurity that something wrong could happen. I felt something wrong inside me as I would lose the control and do something very bad. Intrusive thoughts came to my mind. They were unwelcome ideas, memories and traumatic flashbacks that repeatedly found their way into my mind. This included uncomfortable and disturbing thoughts about losing control, fearing pain, fearing death or hurting other people.  A deep sensation of sadness seized me. However, I did not know the reason of my depression. I experienced extreme anxiety but also irrational fears were in my mind every day. I was afraid of contracting the virus of hiv. Bye casual contact. For that reason my life became a hell and I was not capable of living a normal life anymore. Three months after having the irrational fears I decided to visit a psychologist looking for answer to my problem. Sadly she diagnosed me with obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd), which is due to the lack of serotonin in the brain. OCD is typically characterized by obsessive ideas and fears that become overwhelming. Since I had an important lack of serotonin in my brain I was not capable of discriminating the real risk situation from the non-risk situations.

Nevertheless, I decided to fight against the devil inside my mind who always told me “be careful with that chair, it could have blood and you could contract hiv and die”, “be careful with that person, do not touch him/her. You could touch her/his wound and contract hiv and die”.  Every day was a challenge to “avoid” hiv in the train or the bus. My brain is hard-wired into noticing and holding on to negative thoughts. Keeping me “save” implicated buying one bottle of alcohol to wash my hands, checking my hands and face to find any stain of blood. The checking implicated multiple times, sometimes hundreds of times, and for hours on end, resulting in myself being late for work. People were my enemies if they touched me or cough near me. The list of the places or things that I avoided could be infinite. However I had the strength to find a cure to my disorder. Not only had I spent five years on cognitive-behavioral therapy I also went to a psychiatric who put me on sertraline. Apart from the medical help my family and boyfriend supported me a lot.

Even though my life was hard, I found the strength to tell my story. I published a book about my disorder which helped people around the world with the same problem. By the time my book was best-seller I had to travel around the world attending to seminaries. Nowadays I am married and I have a beautiful son. I am a writer and a famous journalist. My disorder is just a bad memory because I am cured.

I am a writer

An important event took part in my life five years ago when I was enjoying an emotional perfect balance. Taking into account the state of my personal life, my relationship with my boyfriend was perfect and everything was going perfectly. So that I considered myself very lucky but I was afraid of something wrong would happen to disturb my quiet life.  So that my fears became true.

In the autumn of 2010 my life changed abruptly in a negative way.  Due to my unusual perfect life I experienced an emotional insecurity that something wrong could happen. I felt something wrong inside me as I would lose the control and do something very bad. A deep sensation of sadness seized me. However, I did not know the reason of my depression. I experienced extreme anxiety but also irrational fears were in my mind every day. I was afraid of contracting the virus of hiv. Bye casual contact. For that reason my life became a hell. Three months after having the irrational fears I decided to visit a psychologist looking for answer to my problem. Sadly she diagnosed me with obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd), which is a characterized by the lack of serotonin in the brain. Since I had an important lack of serotonin in my brain I was not capable of discriminating the real risk situation from the non-risk situations.

Nevertheless, I decided to fight against the devil inside my mind who always told me “be careful with that chair, it could have blood and you could contract hiv and die”, “be careful with that person, do not touch him/her. You could touch her/his wound and contract hiv and die”.  Every day was a challenge to “avoid” hiv in the train or the bus. Keeping me “save” implicated buying one bottle of alcohol to wash my hands, checking my hands and face to find any stain of blood. People were my enemies if they touched me or cough near me. The list of the places or things that I avoided could be infinite. However I had the strength to find a cure to my disorder. Not only had I spent five years on cognitive-behavioral therapy I also went to a psychiatric who put me on sertraline. Apart from the medical help my family and boyfriend supported me a lot.

Even though my life was hard, I found the strength to tell my story. I published a book about my disorder which helped people around the world with the same problem. By the time my book was best-seller I had to travel around the world attending to seminaries. Nowadays I am married and I have a beautiful son. I am a writer and a famous journalist. My disorder is just a bad memory because I am cured.

welcome to my blog for writing expression 4!