Writing Clinic

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Writing Clinic Session 1

• Formal and Informal English

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Formal English

• Contains carefully constructed and complete
  sentences
• Avoids contractions
• Follows standard English usage and grammar
• Uses a serious tone
• Uses sophisticated vocabulary
• Is appropriate for school essays, oral or written
  reports, interviews and debates.

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Informal English

• Contains everyday speech and popular expressions
• Uses contractions
• May include sentence fragments
• Is appropriate for conversations with friends,
  personal letters or notes, and journal entries

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Examples

• Formal
• Your suggestion is appropriate and timely.
• Informal
• It works for me.

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Slang

• This is a form of speech made up of invented
  words or existing words that are given new
  meaning
• Not appropriate for Formal writing
• Example
• Yo, LOL my bff haz just got his lysense. He is so
  hott! I cant wait to hang with him.

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Colloquialism

• A word or phrase used in everyday conversation
• It is sometimes used in writing which may
  contribute to vagueness..
• Example
• Sara couldnt put up with the hassle of weekday
  babysitting.
• Steve seemed really zonked after finals were
  over.

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Identify Is it Formal or Informal?

1. Guido is really tapped out and running on empty
   this semester.
2. Molly couldnt get cranked up to clean her room
3. Recent research suggests that pasta came to Italy
   from North Africa before the thiteenth century.
4. The laughter in comedy is often based on
   hostility.

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The Importance of Grammar and Syntax

• Grammar the rules and convections for
  organizing words into meaningful sentences.
• Syntax refers to the order of the words in the
  sentences, or word order.
• When words in a sentence are reorganized
  according to grammar and syntax the sentence will
  convey a clearer meaning

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Example

• Consider how the different word order affects the
  meaning
• The mother pig nursed the nine chubby piglets.
• The nine chubby piglets nursed the mother pig.
• The use of modifiers is also ruled by grammar and
  syntax. In the English language, adjectives
  usually come before the noun or pronoun they
  modify
• The superficial remarks of the guests filled the
  room with meaningless noise.
• Rusty zinnias and blackened snapdragons announced
  the beginning of winter.

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Your Turn!!

• Revise the word order in the following sentences
  so that each makes sense
• The cold hose garden from water trickled
• Angora boy held the rabbit squeaked as the tiny
  it.
• The flood muddy engulfed of the waters quickly
  the town.
• Air car as would well jams as pools reduce
  traffic pollution.

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Vocabulary Break!Quagmire

• Learn some new words kids?

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THE SENTENCE BASIC BUILDING BLOCK OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE

• EVERY SENTENCE HAS TO HAVE A SUBJECT AND A
  PREDICATE
• SUBJECT TELLS WHOM OR WHAT THE SENTENCE IS
  ABOUT
• PREDICATE TELLS INFORMATION ABOUT THE SUBJECT
  WHAT THE SUBJECT IS, DOES OR WHAT HAPPENS TO IT

• Sentence Fragment A group of words that does
  not have both a subject and a predicate. It also
  does not express a complete thought.

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Sentence fragments

• Dr. Vollan (The fragment does not have a
  predicate. The group of words does not answer the
  question, What did Dr. Vollan do?
• Quizzed the students. (The fragment does not have
  a subject. The group of words does not answer the
  question Who quizzed the students?)
• On quantum physics (The fragment does not have a
  subject or predicate. The group of words does not
  tell what the sentence is about or what the
  subject does.)
• Complete Sentence Dr. Vollan quizzed the
  students on quantum physics

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Identifying Sentences and Sentence Fragments

1. After intercepting the telegram, Britain
   discovered Germanys real intentions.
2. Convoys effectively reduced troopship losses
   during the war.
3. Returned to London.
4. Tories pursue conservative policies.
5. An ill-advised strategy to end the war.
6. Take this report to the field marshal.
7. Boarded the dreadnaught while the band played.
8. Neville addressed the sailors about Royal
   tradition

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Understanding Subjects and Predicates

• Write a sentence for each subject or predicate
  listed, adding the missing part and any other
  details to create a clear complete sentence.
• Sipped iced champagne.
• The door to the drawing room
• A steep straight staircase
• Loomed before us forebodingly
• Pirouetted across the dance floor.

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Sentence Structures Simple, Compound, complex
and compound complex

• Simple Sentence consists of one independent
  clause

• Ex. Parliamentary government has its foundations
  in the thirteenth century.
• Aristocrats forced King John to sign the magna
  carta in 1215.

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Compound Sentences

• Consists of two sentences joined by a semicolon
  or by a coordinating conjunction preceded by a
  comma.
• Each part of a compound sentence has its own
  subject and verb.

• Common coordinating conjunctions are and, or,
  nor, for, but, so and yet.
• The English Renaissance started during the
  sixteenth century it continued into the 1600s
  with the works of Milton and Newton.

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Complex Sentences

• Consists of one independent clause and one or
  more subordinate clauses.
• Subordinate clauses has a subject and a verb
  but doesnt express a complete thought and cant
  stand alone. The subordinate clauses in the
  examples below are underlined.
• If you study the American Revolution, be sure you
  also read historians who present the British
  perspective on the war.

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Compound complex sentence

• If you combine a compound sentence and a complex
  sentence you form a compound complex sentence.
• This sentence must have two or more independent
  clauses and at least one subordinate clause.
• Americans often use the term tyrant when they
  discuss King George III, but he and most British
  subjects did not believe the colonies were being
  treated unfairly.

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Identify the different types of sentences

• The red velvet material was hard to work with, it
  pulled, and the style my mother had chosen was
  not easy wither. She was not really a good sewer.
  She liked to make things this is different.
  Whenever she could she tried to skip basting and
  pressing and she took no pride in the fine points
  of tailoring, the finishing of buttonholes and
  the overcastting of seams as, for instance, my
  aunt and my grandmother did.

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Parts of Speech

• Identifying and etc.

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The Verb

• Verbs are expressers of English language.
• They tell whether the action is completed,
  continuing, or will happen in the future. Verbs
  can be from one to four words long

• Example
• Field mice seek shelter indoors in cold weather.
• Field mice are seeking shelter indoors in cold
  weather.
• Field mice have been seeking shelter indoors in
  cold weather.
• Field mice might have been seeking shelter
  indoors in cold weather.

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Verb Tenses

• Verbs have tenses which are used to tell the time
  in which an action takes place.
• Simplet tenses of the verb are present, past, and
  future.

• Present tense tells that an action happens now
  in present time
• Present tense singular The cat sits absolutely
  still.
• Present tense plural The cats sit absolutely
  still.

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Past Tense

• Past tenst tells that an action happened in the
  past prior to the present time.
• The past tense of a regular verb is formed by
  adding d or ed to the present verb form.

• Past tense singular The cat sat absolutely
  still.
• The cats sat absolutely still.

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Future Tense

• Tells that an action will happen in the future.
• The future tense is formed by adding the word
  will or shall before the present verb form.
• Future tense singular A cat will sit absolutely
  still.
• Future Tense plural Cats will sit absolutely
  still.