高级医学英语阅读与写作Chapter One
2012-06-02 22:45:32 来源：37度医学网 作者： 评论：0 点击：
Chapter One Getting Started
Before you start to write, the hardest part of writing is getting started sometimes. To get started, you are advised that you have in mind the answers to four basic questions: Who am I writing to (writing for)? Why am I writing to these readers? What do I want to say? How do I get from ideas to finished form? The first of these questions involves a sense of audience — that is, the ability to imagine the persons who will read your writing and to know what is important to them. The second question concerns your purpose. Do you want to entertain your readers, tell them a story, inform them or persuade them? Or is your purpose some combination of these aims? The last two questions deal with the writing process — that is, finding ideas, putting them down on paper, and polishing them so that your thoughts are clearly and effectively explained to your readers.
While you are thinking about your writing, you should think about your audience —your readers who read or "hear" your thoughts, either spoken or written. Developing a sense of audience is a mark of maturity and the ability to put yourself in your audience's place because your writing will be shaped by your perception of what your readers know about your topic. For example, if you are writing a story for children, you will choose a subject that interests them, use simple words and keep your sentences short. If, however, you are writing for your colleagues or your teacher, you will choose a topic of interest to adults, use a natural vocabulary and vary your sentence structures to fit the ideas you want to convey. If you want to argue that TV turns us all into consumers you will expect that your readers will readily agree instead of distrusting TV commercials. To write effectively, you must try to consider the subject to your writing, vocabulary to use and style to adopt and how your readers are likely to think and feel about your subject.
As an adult, you must write for a variety of audiences —your family, employers, consumers or clients, business associates and perhaps all the citizens of the community. You might also write for a professional journal, addressing people who share interests in your profession but you have never seen. There may be times when you write only for yourself —your grocery list, your memorandum, your diary but most of the writings you do in life is intended for others to read.
Whether your audience is a general one, such as the readers of a professional journal, or a specific one, such as your tutor, you should consider the needs and expectations of your readers or at least acknowledge before expressing yourself. These considerations will affect the ideas you include and the words you choose to express them. Until you become so accustomed to thinking about your audience that you do this automatically, your writing has become mature. Here are some questions to keep in mind as you shape your draft.
1. Who are you writing for? Are your readers similar to you in age, background, culture, and education?
2. How much do your readers know about the topic? You consider this question in order not to underestimate them that you are talking down to their heels, or overestimate them that you are talking over their head. Try to tell your readers only as much as they need to know.
3. How do your readers feel about the topic? Are they likely to have feelings for or against your topic? If they are quite different from you, you should understand and respect the feelings of readers who disagree with you.
4. How do your readers expect you to treat the topic? Another way of asking this question is, How does your teacher expect you to treat the topic? Not only students but some professional writers, especially journalists work under instructions. They work under instructions from editors who tell them not only what to write about but how to treat it. When you are given a writing assignment, you should find out as much as you can about the approach you are expected to take. For example, are you going to write in the first person I or We or in the third person He, She or They, to present a fact or opinion or both, and to shape it formally or informally? How much information (facts, details, examples, explanations) will be enough for the readers, but not too much?
To develop the sense of audience is to put yourself in your readers' place. It could enable you to plan, right from the start, to answer any questions you might have about the topic or to explain things they are not likely to know. This skill is especially important in a persuasive paper. If you hope to get your readers to agree with you, or to change their minds on a controversial issue, you must look at all sides of the issue and answer the objections of those with a different point of view. Although later lessons will focus on this point in greater detail, you should form the habit now of thinking about your audience before you begin to write.
The second important step to get started before you begin to write concerns your purpose for writing. Defining your purpose in advance will help you choose what to include and how to approach your subject. For example, if you write on “A Prospective Renewal of EFL Teaching”, you must be sure toexplain the necessities, reasons and expectations fully. If you are giving directions, you must state all the necessary information and nothing that would distract. If you want to entertain, you might choose humorous events and informal language to achieve the goal. If you intend to persuade, you might choose ideas and words that appeal to both reason and emotion.
As a student, your first response to the question is that your paper is an assignment in a required course. If you think ahead to your future, however, you will see that the assignments are intended to prepare you for some situations you will meet later on. Even if your purpose is determined by a given assignment, it will be good practice to think about it before writing, because that purpose will control what you decide to say and how you say it.
The tone of the author's writing is similar to the tone of a speaker's voice. For listeners it is fairly easy to tell the difference between an angry tone and a romantic tone by noticing the speaker's voice. In writing, distinguishing between humor, sarcasm and irony, however, may be more different. Humorous remarks are designed to be comical and amusing while sarcastic remarks are designed to cut or give pain. Ironic remarks, on the other hand, express something other than the literal meaning and are designed to show the incongruity between the actual and the expected. You may wish at some time to express some positive tones: happiness, love, delight, amazement, surprise and so on; at others you may need to express some negative ones: anger, irritation, depression, disappointment, fear, worry and so on. Take the extract from a letter for example.
and I must confess I never expected to be so charmed by Rolf —I didn’t meet him, before Lynn’s marriage to him —but he’s very charming and cultivated. In fact the whole family have been very sweet. It’s so lovely to see Lynn so happy and looking so “green and fresh”, as if life is all cream and roses. The house here is rather sweet, too —small but cosy, with a log-fire burning permanently in the old grate. The furniture is all glossy mahogany. Actually I find the house a bit over-heated, but who cares when the company is so convivial.
The extract expresses the positive tone while the following extract from a letter by someone expresses a negative tone since he is both irritated and depressed by a personal situation involving friends.
and when I got back I felt depressed about the whole ghastly situation. I hate the way Chris and Susi just refuse to talk to each other —it has an awful effect on the children. I know these days this sort of break-up is common, but being so close to it makes me feel very miserable. There’s a sinking, empty feeling in the stomach as you realize that a part of young life is being destroyed. Actually, I get very angry just talking to Chris but I don’t think that really helps anyone.
Now look at the list of pairs in the following where some qualities of two men are described by adjectives:
Mike is ambitious; John is pushy.
Mike is tough-minded; John is ruthless.
Mike is foresighted; John is calculating.
Mike is firm; John is stubborn.
The words describing “Mike” are positive and complimentary, making him seem ideally suited for high responsibility in business or government. On the other hand, the words describing “John” are loaded with negative sense, making him seem almost disqualified for any responsibility at all.
So, no matter what you are writing, you must have your tone, either factual, angry, humorous, hopeful, or optimistic. Therefore, you have to decide your tone before you make your choice of words in writing.
Apart from the tone, other differences between different types of writing are to be observed. Letters to friends, for instance, are regarded as informal personal communication. In them, words are usually those used in daily conversation, easy and even slangy, and sentences are short, simple and even incomplete. Research reports, on the other hand, are considered formal professional communication. As such, the primary goals are accuracy, clarity, and completeness. The rough draft of any research report should be edited to ensure that all data is correctly presented, that all equipment is listed, and that all results are properly detailed. Beyond checking the report for clarity and accuracy in the presentation of technical data, the author of a research report should review for basic grammatical and mechanical accuracy. Therefore, in research reports, special terms are presented, and full forms, such as does not, must not, etc. are used instead of such contractions as doesn’t, mustn’t in informal personal communication. Similarly, sentences are complete and the passive voice is preferred.
Special features like this in writing are a matter of writing style —a matter of formal or informal writing style. Before writing, you have to decide which kind of writing style is appropriate so that you can avoid using an informal writing style where a formal writing style is required, or the other way round.
The writing process can be divided roughly into five steps or stages, although these are not meant to be rigidly applied. This general description oversimplifies the complex process of writing, but it does give a framework for talking about how most writers compose. Professional writers may become skilled enough to take shortcuts, but these five steps are a good system for less experienced writers to start with.
The following are the five steps in the writing process:
1. Planning a composition: Choosing a topic; prewriting, generating ideas, deciding upon audience and focus, deciding what to include or leave out; data gathering, and organizing, deciding the order in which to make points or present information
2. Drafting: Putting ideas into sentences and paragraphs
3. Revising: Evaluating earlier drafts; rearranging to improve organization; adding, cutting, replacing, and recasting sentences to improve effectiveness
4. Editing: Checking correctness of facts, grammar, spelling, usage, punctuation, and mechanics
5. Proofreading: Reading final copy for typing errors, handwriting legibility, and words left out
Almost all kinds of writing involve the same steps, but certain kinds of writing require more attention to various stages in the process. For example, a note to your family explaining where you have gone and why you won't be home for dinner involves very little prewriting thought, and revising might be little more than checking to make sure you have included all the necessary information. A technical report, on the other hand, may require extensive preparation, data gathering, and organizing before the actual writing begins, and revisions may be quite extensive before you are satisfied that the paper represents your best work. The following sections consider only three of the steps in the writing process at greater length.
Planning a composition
Planning a composition means making preparations for the composition. Writing without sufficient preparation will spoil it. So planning a composition is the first necessity. The preparation involves the following steps:
·Choosing a topic
·Prewriting
·Data gathering
·Organizing
Choosing a topic
If you are free to choose your own topic, choose a topic you really want to think about. You can pick one in which you are genuinely interested and about which you want to know more. Or you might well try to find something from your own experience, something that will let you explore yourself, perhaps something that you have never fully described or analyzed to anyone, even to yourself. The richest moments of your experience are often born out of conflict. Suppose you recall a time when you were made or asked to do something you did not want to do. When and where did it happen? How did you feel about having to act against your will? How did you feel about the person who asked you to do so? What did you learn from the episode?
When a topic is assigned, find a way to make it your own. Most of the writing you do in college will be on assigned topics. The way to get started on an assigned topic is to discover how it connects with what you already know, with your own interests and experience. By this means you begin to make the topic your own.
Suppose you are asked to write an essay on any one of the following general topics:
computers crime
education sports
farming music
housing assembly-line manufacturing
an open-heart surgery
If you are asked to write on "Farming", start by asking yourself if you have ever had any experience in farming, what kind of farming work you did, how it affected you and how you felt about it. Any one of these personal experiences could be the wedge that opens up the topic for you.
But one of the biggest obstacles to the success of a short essay is an oversize topic and one of the commonest phenomena for a freshman writer is to choose too broad or general a topic, such as “crime”, “education”, “music”. If you were asked to write a five-hundred-word essay on the general farming, you will probably find that you have no room to make it fully developed or it is too general to get started. So you should cut the topic down to a specific one that you can manage in a short essay. Take “Crime” of the general topics listed above:
General topic: Crime
Specific topic: Shoplifting
Questions: How did the shoplifting happen, how much should shoplifters punished, and why?
You will certainly find the specific topic “Crime: a Common Shoplifting” is easier to develop than the general topic “Crime”.
Prewriting
Prewriting, as the term implies, is the activity you engage in before beginning to write your paper. You must think about your topic and explore all the possible things you might say on the subject. The simplest form of prewriting ismaking a list of the things you know about the subject or brainstorming (free association), which is similar to listing but the purpose is to generate ideas rather than a list of objects or details. With these methods, you jot down as many facts or thoughts as you can about the subject, without stopping to consider whether or not a particular idea will be useful or arranging them in any particular order. Later you can cross out the thoughts you don't plan to use, but don't rule anything out now, because even a weak idea may lead to other ideas. Your jottings need not be full sentences —just a few words to remind you of the thought.
The following is a sample of brainstorming by a class on the comparison of the similarities of doctors and teachers.
After the initial brainstorming, you decided to cross out the items about the period of time of college education, earning money because those show the differences rather than the similarities. But you found all the other items comparable, showing the similarities: they are professional, they help others, and they are important in the community. And you are then ready to organize and write your papers.
The following is an example of comparing the similarities between doctors and teachers based on the brainstorming above:
There are many similarities between doctors and teachers. First, both doctors and teachers are considered professionals by their communities. The classification of professional is the highest socio-economic rank an individual can achieve in this society. Second, both doctors and teachers help others: doctors heal the bodies of sick people and return them to health, and teachers mold the minds of young people and turn them into responsible, educated adults. Last, both doctors and teachers are essential members of a community. It is difficult to imagine a city or town that has no need of either a doctor or a teacher. Such a place would truly be primitive.
A variation of brainstorming is mapping or clustering. With this method, you write your topic in the center of a blank page and branch out all directions with various thoughts on the topic. Mapping uses the creative part of your brain, drawing on associations and seeing relationships in weblike pattern. Later you can select from the ideas generated, and use the organizing part of your brain to convert them to sentences and paragraphs.
Below you will see some first thoughts of a student who was asked to write an essay on the subject of “The Influence of Television on Young People”. These notes were made before he did any research into the subject.
Educational TV
TV and censorship TV in schools
How much TV do children TV and Children’ Programmes
watch? Youth
TV and reading habits
Violence on TV Effect of TV on children’s
behaviour
Another kind of prewriting activity is Asking questions. One useful set of questions is the “5 W's and the H” — Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Answering these questions may help you to realize that you have a great deal to say about your subject. For example, if you are writing about a change made on your campus, you might ask these questions:
Who would be affected by the change?
What exactly would happen?
When would you like to see it happen?
Where will it take place?
Why is it likely to happen, or why is it desirable?
How can it be accomplished?
You can use these general questions to generate further questions. These questions are particularly helpful for persuasive papers and reports. You might need to gather more information in order to write such papers authoritatively, and these questions can guide your research and notemaking. But you need one question to focus on, to point you toward a specific writing goal. So after you have put down all the questions you can think of, read the whole list over and look for the question that strikes you as most important, most interesting, or most unusual. It may be one of the questions you have actually written down, or it may be a new question that grows out of those you have before you. In either case, this is the basic question you will hope to answer for yourself and your reader as you write the paper. Make it as sharp and specific and pointed as you can.
Of course you will have other prewriting techniques, such as free writing, using analogies, which are also helpful to generate ideas or thoughts.
During the prewriting, you have to keep in mind your audience and purpose which were briefly discussed in Parts I and II because they will affect the way you approach your writing task.
Data Gathering
Whether you have been assigned a topic or have chosen one of your own, a good way of getting started is to read about it to gather more data. You may go to the library to get more information. In the newspapers and magazines you will find articles on a variety of subjects to enrich your thoughts on the subject. Then re-examine your earlier thoughts, to see whether you now take a broader view of your subject. In the age of rapidly expanding information, data gathering is essential for keeping up-to-date and for making informed decisions or recommendations.
Reading with a purpose is a fine way to fertilize your mind, to help you choose your topic, define it, enrich it, or enlarge it. Reading gives you not only a departure but a continuous supply of information.
Organizing
The fourth step in the writing process is organizing your ideas. As you look at the results of your prewriting, you may see certain items or ideas that seem to belong together logically. You will also see that some are more important than others. Select the most important points, and cross out the unimportant ones. You may also discover, as you focus on a main idea that some of the items do not relate to that main idea. Take those out, too. When the collected information is sufficient and you are somewhat sure of your subject, you can work out your outline to help eliminate repetition or rambling.
Your outline should begin with an indication of your writing goal — the basic question you are trying to answer. Under that question you can outline your prewriting in one of two ways: by a vertical list or by a tree diagram. The vertical list is the more common kind of outline and a simple version of it looks like this:
The vertical list
Basic question: What are the ways in which a student can acquire information?
I.From his tutors
A. By lecture
B. By tutorial
C. By handouts
II. From other experts outside his college
A. By reading
B. By listening
1. Radio
2. Cassette recordings
C. By watching educational TV programmes
III. From his fellow students
A. In seminar
B. In tutorial
C. In informal conversation
IV. From himself —can develop new ideas
An outline like this will help you to write a clear, efficient essay paper. By organizing your points in advance, you will save time and make sure that you cover everything once and only once. It also lets you see the structure of the essay you are writing.
The other way of outlining is by the tree diagram. It is so called because it spreads out under the basic question like a family tree or a tree reflected in a lake. It has many advantages over the vertical list: seeing the relationships more clearly and ensuring whether anything is missing or not. Now convert the above outline into the tree diagram:
The tree diagram
What are the ways in which a student can acquire information?
Tutors Other experts Fellow students Himself
LectureTutorial Handout Reading Listening Watching Seminar Tutorial Conversation
RadioCassette TV
Later you may write a paragraph according to the outline above as follows.
Acquiring Information
What are the ways in which a student can acquire information? Firstly, he will acquire information from his tutors, in three main ways —by lecture, by tutorial and by handouts which the tutor may give him. Secondly, he may acquire information from other experts outside his college: principally by reading but also perhaps by listening to the radio, listening to cassette recordings, or watching educational TV programmes. Thirdly, he may get information from his fellow students: perhaps in student-led seminars, perhaps in the contributions of other students in tutorial, or perhaps just in informal conversation. Lastly, he can acquire information from himself! By thinking about his subject and linking together what he has heard and seen, he may come up with new ideas, which are his alone.
At your convenience, you may combine a vertical list with a diagram like the following layout on the topic of “Malaria —a new threat” which is more flexible.
MALARIA —A NEW THREAT
Female Anopheles mosquito Malaria
Fought by
drained or
1. Breeding places
covered with oil
or detergent
2. New varieties female infertile
But many (2600+) varieties
3. Wire screens
Mosquito netting
Also
4. Drugs e.g. quinine
other new drugs
But germs becoming
resistant
5. Insecticides e.g. DDT
But mosquitoes becoming
resistant
∴ New threat
You can write an article like the following in the light of the note above.
Malaria —a New Threat
Malaria has been the scourge of humanity since the earliest times, and there are ominous signs that it is fighting back against Modern Science. The first great breakthrough in the treatment of malaria was the discovery by Sir Ronald Ross that the disease was transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. Giovanni Grassi worked out the life cycle of the human malaria parasite.
With the connection between malaria and the mosquito clearly established, steps could be taken to fight the disease.
One method was to attack the breeding places of the mosquito. It was known that mosquitoes laid their eggs in water. So, in malaria infested areas work was started on draining marshes, stagnant pools, and trying to ensure generally that there were no areas of water where mosquitoes could breed. Where areas of still water could not be drained, they were sometimes covered with oil or detergent, which made them unable by the mosquitoes.
One of the more ingenious modern methods of preventing mosquitoes from multiplying is to introduce a different variety of mosquito into an area: when the two varieties mate, the females are infertile. This kind of ‘biological engineering’ has some limited success in the field, but it is not always possible to reproduce laboratory conditions in real life. Since there are over 2,600 different kinds of mosquitoes, the research problems are enormous.
The most obvious and easiest method of prevention is to use wire screens and mosquito netting to prevent people being bitten. But this is obviously not of much use in poor areas, or when people are travelling about.
A more flexible method is to take protective drugs such as quinine. This drug was at one time extremely widely used, but during the Second World War most of the supply areas fell to the Japanese and alternative methods had to be found in the west. These drugs proved to be more effective in many ways, and the use of quinine tailed away. Recently, however, there have been indications that certain varieties of malaria germs are becoming resistant to the more modern drugs, and quinine is coming into use once more.
At one time, it seemed that insecticides, especially DDT, might wipe out malaria completely. One of the most successful DDT campaigns was carried out in India. In 1952, at the beginning of the campaign, seventy-five million Indians a year suffered from malaria. By 1965, the spraying of DDT had reduced the number of cases to 100,000.
However, as with the malaria germ and preventive drugs, there is evidence that mosquitoes are developing resistance to DDT. One of the reasons for this has been the initial success of the operation. People became careless. Also, owing to the fuel crisis, poorer countries found it impossible to maintain the eradication programme. The situation now is that malaria is staging a comeback, and there are new breeds which are resistant to DDT.
So it can be seen that there are various methods of fighting malaria. They involve: preventing mosquitoes from breeding; preventing mosquitoes from having the opportunity to bite people; using protective drugs, and using insecticides. Dangerous new developments are that some malaria germs are developing a resistance to modern drugs, and mosquitoes themselves are becoming resistant to insecticide.
1. Read the following sample readings and try to discern their audiences, purposes and styles.
Passage 1
Skin
The skin is one of the largest organs of the human body. If the skin of an adult were spread out flat, it would cover about eighteen square feet. The skin of an adult weighs about six pounds. It is an organ of the body because it performs many essential functions. Perspiration is given off through the skin. The skin also helps the body regulate its own temperature. A piece of skin the size of a quarter contains a yard of blood vessels, 4 yards of nerves, 25 nerve ends, 100 sweat glands, and more than 3,000,000 cells.
There are two basic parts to the skin. The surface is called the epidermis, corneum, or cuticle. This is the part that gets rubbed off when we skin a knuckle. Below this layer lies the dermis, or the corium. The word dermis is taken from the original Greek word for skin. The Greek word epi, meaning over, is added to the word dermis to form the word epidermis for the outer skin.
Passage 2
Skin
The whole of our body is covered by skin. In some places, such as the soles of our feet, it is very thick. In other places, our eyeballs, for example, it is much thinner. The skin protects the body against injury and germs and also gives it information about changes in temperature.
The skin is divided into two regions. The outer region is made up of many layers of cells. Underneath these protective cells there are thousands of sensitive cells. All over the skin are tiny openings called pores that give off unwanted fluids in the form of sweat.
Passage 3
Your Skin
No organ of the body is less appreciated than the skin. One of our biggest and busiest organs —and the most telltale —it mirrors the state of our health, our age, and our race. Occupation and way of life may also become indelibly imprinted for all to see. Here are some facts about our outer covering organ to show that there is more to the skin than meets the eye.
Your skin is your body's thermostat. It regulates heat gain and loss so that the internal temperature remains within the normal range of 97 to 99 degrees.
It takes about two square yards of skin to cover the average adult from head to toe. Undoubtedly the most intricate wrapping in existence, the skin contains three million cells, three feet of blood vessels, and twelve feet of nerves in each area the size of a postage stamp.
The widest difference between the darkest human skin and that of an albino is brought about by not more than 1/25 of an ounce of melanin. As far as is known, the amount of this dark brown or black pigment accounts for all our variations in racial colors, including yellow, brown, and black.
2. Read the following passages carefully and then answer the questions.
Passage 1
Sir Eric helped himself to bacon and eggs. Hester poured out his coffee, and they sat down at the breakfast table. Sir Eric unfolded The Times. Hester opened her letter. Once Hester asked her husband if he wanted any more coffee. Otherwise they did not talk.
At 8:30 Sir Eric looked at his watch.
'Well, I must be off, dear.'
He kissed Hester on the cheek and his man-servant drove him to the station. The platform was full of middle-aged men wearing dark suits and carrying umbrellas. Like Sir Eric, they all had neatly folded newspapers under their arms, either The Times or The Telegraph. A few were wearing bowler hats.
They hardly greeted each other, though most of them knew one another, at least by sight. They did not shake hands.
The train came in, and they all got into first-class compartments. As soon as Sir Eric sat down, he unfolded his Times. So did the five other men who were with him. The two walls of newspaper which stretched across the compartment were not lowered until the train approached Waterloo an hour later. Not a word was spoken.
The return journey at 5:15 as no different, except that Sir Eric and his dark-suited companions were now reading evening newspapers.
` —The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
(1) What is the topic of the passage?
_____________________________________________________________
(2) What is the author’s tone in the passage?
_____________________________________________________________
(3) Does the author use facts or opinions to tell you something about British people? Explain your answer.
____________________________________________________________
Passage 2
But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who possess the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible. Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases him and grads what he covets; like the shopkeeper, he pursues his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that come from strong religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibility. He is never at a loss for an effective moral attitude. As the great champion of freedom and national independence, he conquers and annexes half the world, and calls it Colonization. When he wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester gods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the Gospel of Peace. The natives kill the missionary; he flies to arms in defence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes the market as a reward from heaven. In defence of his island shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross on it to his topgallant mast; and sails to the end of the earth, sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas with him. He boasts that a slave is free the moment his foot touches British soil; and he sells the children of his poor at six years of age to work under the lash in his factories for sixteen hours a day. He makes two revolutions, and then declares war on our one in the name of law and order. There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles. He supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king’s head on republican principles. His watchword is always Duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost.
—Napoleon’s monologue in Man of Destinyby Bernard Shaw
(1) What is the topic of the passage?
_________________________________________________________
(2) What is the author’s tone in the passage?
_________________________________________________________
(3) Does the author use facts or opinions to tell you something about British people? Explain your answer.
_________________________________________________________
Exercise 1-1 Brainstorming
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This exercise may be done individually, in small groups, or with the whole class participating. Choose one of the following topics, and list all the things you can think of that you might mention under that topic. One benefit of listing in a group is that you may compare your ideas and opinions with those of your pairs. When you discover differences in opinions, all of you will have a reason for writing and communicating your thoughts to each other. For the purpose of this prewriting exercise, consider your audience to be other students on your campus. Your purpose is to inform them or to express your opinion. In a later exercise, you may use your lists to write a paragraph.
1. E-mails
2. Two educational patterns
3. Popular songs that you like
4. Habits that are hard to break
5. Good or bad television shows
6. Things that can ruin a friendship
7. Purposes of a college education
8. The qualities of the cross-century talents
9. Books or magazines you would recommend
10. A campus problem and a possible solution
Exercise 1-2 Brainstorming
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This exercise may be done individually, in small groups, or with the whole class participating. You might choose as a topic an issue that is being discussed in your local newspapers or newscasts. Or you may begin with one of the topics listed below.Assume that your audience will be the readers of your local newspaper. If you have a hard time getting started, you might try the questioning method, asking Who, What, Where, Why, and How. When you have finished, hand in your brainstorming list to your instructor without rewriting it.
1. Terrorist attacks
2. Nuclear weapons
3. Drug use by athletes
4. Harmfulness of fake commodities
5. Effects of unemployment on a family
6. Effects of television on children's education
7. WTO entry: double-edged sword for China
8. The increased career choices for women today
9. Effects of advertising on the choices people make
10. The problem of health care for the elderly and dying
Exercise 1-3 Limiting topics
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Think about each of the following broad topics. One general sentence about the topic is provided. Write a second, more limited sentence. The first one is done for you.
Solar energy Solar energy is useful.
Solar energy is useful in generating power._______________
Drugs Drugs are harmful.
_________________________________________________
Education It is a government's responsibility to provide accessible education for all of its population.
_________________________________________________
Housing Finding an apartment is difficult.
_________________________________________________
Teachers I have had some bad teachers.
_________________________________________________
Automobiles It is expensive to own a car.
_________________________________________________
Cities Living in cities is stimulating.
_________________________________________________
Exercise 1-4 Writing an outline
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This activity will sharpen your sense of the different parts of an essay. An essay entitled “Coping with Old Age” appears below with no paragraph indentations. Read the essay carefully, and then double-underline the thesis and single-underline the topic sentence for each of the three supporting paragraphs and the first sentence of the conclusion. Then write an outline.
Coping with Old Age
I recently read about an area of the Soviet Union where many people live to be well over a hundred years old. Being 115 or even 125 isn't considered unusual there, and these old people continue to do productive work right up until they die. America, however, isn't such a healthy place for older people. Since I retired from my job. I've had to cope with the physical, mental, and emotional stresses of being "old". For one thing, I've had to adjust to physical changes. Now that I'm over sixty, the trusty body that carried me around for years has turned traitor. Aside from the deepening wrinkles on my face and neck, and the wiry grey hairs that have replaced my brown hair, I face more frightening changes. I don't have the energy I used to. My eyes get tired. Once in a while I miss something that's said to me. My once-faithful feet seem to have lost their comfortable soles, and I sometimes feel I'm walking on marbles. In order to fight against this slow decay, I exercise whenever I can. I walk, I stretch, and I climb stairs. I battle constantly to keep as fit as possible. I'm also trying to cope with mental changes. My mind was once as quick and sure as a champion gymnast. I never found it difficult to memorize answers in school or to remember the names of people I met. Now, I occasionally have to search my mind for the name of a close neighbor or favorite television show. Because my mind needs exercise, too, I challenge it as much as I can. The mental gymnast may be a little slow and out of shape, but he can still do a backflip or turn a somersault when he has to. Finally, I must deal with the emotional impact of being old. Our society typecasts old people. We're supposed to be unattractive, senile, useless leftovers. We're supposed to be the crazy drivers and the cranky customers. At first, I was angry and frustrated that I was considered old at all. And I knew that people were wrong to stereotype me. Then I got depressed. I even started to think that maybe I was a cast-off, one of those old animals that slow down the rest of the herd. But I have now decided to rebel against these negative feelings. I try to have friends of all ages and to keep up with what's going on in the world. I try to remember that I'm still the same person who sat at a first-grade desk, who fell in love, who comforted a child, who got a raise at work. I'm not "just" an old person. Coping with the changes of old age has become my latest full-time job. Even though it's a job I never applied for, and one for which I had no experience, I'm trying to do the best I can.
Thesis statement:
I.
A.
B.
C.
II.
A.
B.
III.
A.
B.
Conclusion:
Before you start to write, the hardest part of writing is getting started sometimes. To get started, you are advised that you have in mind the answers to four basic questions: Who am I writing to (writing for)? Why am I writing to these readers? What do I want to say? How do I get from ideas to finished form? The first of these questions involves a sense of audience — that is, the ability to imagine the persons who will read your writing and to know what is important to them. The second question concerns your purpose. Do you want to entertain your readers, tell them a story, inform them or persuade them? Or is your purpose some combination of these aims? The last two questions deal with the writing process — that is, finding ideas, putting them down on paper, and polishing them so that your thoughts are clearly and effectively explained to your readers.
I. Audience
While you are thinking about your writing, you should think about your audience —your readers who read or "hear" your thoughts, either spoken or written. Developing a sense of audience is a mark of maturity and the ability to put yourself in your audience's place because your writing will be shaped by your perception of what your readers know about your topic. For example, if you are writing a story for children, you will choose a subject that interests them, use simple words and keep your sentences short. If, however, you are writing for your colleagues or your teacher, you will choose a topic of interest to adults, use a natural vocabulary and vary your sentence structures to fit the ideas you want to convey. If you want to argue that TV turns us all into consumers you will expect that your readers will readily agree instead of distrusting TV commercials. To write effectively, you must try to consider the subject to your writing, vocabulary to use and style to adopt and how your readers are likely to think and feel about your subject.
As an adult, you must write for a variety of audiences —your family, employers, consumers or clients, business associates and perhaps all the citizens of the community. You might also write for a professional journal, addressing people who share interests in your profession but you have never seen. There may be times when you write only for yourself —your grocery list, your memorandum, your diary but most of the writings you do in life is intended for others to read.
Whether your audience is a general one, such as the readers of a professional journal, or a specific one, such as your tutor, you should consider the needs and expectations of your readers or at least acknowledge before expressing yourself. These considerations will affect the ideas you include and the words you choose to express them. Until you become so accustomed to thinking about your audience that you do this automatically, your writing has become mature. Here are some questions to keep in mind as you shape your draft.
1. Who are you writing for? Are your readers similar to you in age, background, culture, and education?
2. How much do your readers know about the topic? You consider this question in order not to underestimate them that you are talking down to their heels, or overestimate them that you are talking over their head. Try to tell your readers only as much as they need to know.
3. How do your readers feel about the topic? Are they likely to have feelings for or against your topic? If they are quite different from you, you should understand and respect the feelings of readers who disagree with you.
4. How do your readers expect you to treat the topic? Another way of asking this question is, How does your teacher expect you to treat the topic? Not only students but some professional writers, especially journalists work under instructions. They work under instructions from editors who tell them not only what to write about but how to treat it. When you are given a writing assignment, you should find out as much as you can about the approach you are expected to take. For example, are you going to write in the first person I or We or in the third person He, She or They, to present a fact or opinion or both, and to shape it formally or informally? How much information (facts, details, examples, explanations) will be enough for the readers, but not too much?
To develop the sense of audience is to put yourself in your readers' place. It could enable you to plan, right from the start, to answer any questions you might have about the topic or to explain things they are not likely to know. This skill is especially important in a persuasive paper. If you hope to get your readers to agree with you, or to change their minds on a controversial issue, you must look at all sides of the issue and answer the objections of those with a different point of view. Although later lessons will focus on this point in greater detail, you should form the habit now of thinking about your audience before you begin to write.
II. Purpose, tone, style
The second important step to get started before you begin to write concerns your purpose for writing. Defining your purpose in advance will help you choose what to include and how to approach your subject. For example, if you write on “A Prospective Renewal of EFL Teaching”, you must be sure toexplain the necessities, reasons and expectations fully. If you are giving directions, you must state all the necessary information and nothing that would distract. If you want to entertain, you might choose humorous events and informal language to achieve the goal. If you intend to persuade, you might choose ideas and words that appeal to both reason and emotion.
As a student, your first response to the question is that your paper is an assignment in a required course. If you think ahead to your future, however, you will see that the assignments are intended to prepare you for some situations you will meet later on. Even if your purpose is determined by a given assignment, it will be good practice to think about it before writing, because that purpose will control what you decide to say and how you say it.
The tone of the author's writing is similar to the tone of a speaker's voice. For listeners it is fairly easy to tell the difference between an angry tone and a romantic tone by noticing the speaker's voice. In writing, distinguishing between humor, sarcasm and irony, however, may be more different. Humorous remarks are designed to be comical and amusing while sarcastic remarks are designed to cut or give pain. Ironic remarks, on the other hand, express something other than the literal meaning and are designed to show the incongruity between the actual and the expected. You may wish at some time to express some positive tones: happiness, love, delight, amazement, surprise and so on; at others you may need to express some negative ones: anger, irritation, depression, disappointment, fear, worry and so on. Take the extract from a letter for example.
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and I must confess I never expected to be so charmed by Rolf —I didn’t meet him, before Lynn’s marriage to him —but he’s very charming and cultivated. In fact the whole family have been very sweet. It’s so lovely to see Lynn so happy and looking so “green and fresh”, as if life is all cream and roses. The house here is rather sweet, too —small but cosy, with a log-fire burning permanently in the old grate. The furniture is all glossy mahogany. Actually I find the house a bit over-heated, but who cares when the company is so convivial.
The extract expresses the positive tone while the following extract from a letter by someone expresses a negative tone since he is both irritated and depressed by a personal situation involving friends.
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and when I got back I felt depressed about the whole ghastly situation. I hate the way Chris and Susi just refuse to talk to each other —it has an awful effect on the children. I know these days this sort of break-up is common, but being so close to it makes me feel very miserable. There’s a sinking, empty feeling in the stomach as you realize that a part of young life is being destroyed. Actually, I get very angry just talking to Chris but I don’t think that really helps anyone.Now look at the list of pairs in the following where some qualities of two men are described by adjectives:
Mike is ambitious; John is pushy.
Mike is tough-minded; John is ruthless.
Mike is foresighted; John is calculating.
Mike is firm; John is stubborn.
The words describing “Mike” are positive and complimentary, making him seem ideally suited for high responsibility in business or government. On the other hand, the words describing “John” are loaded with negative sense, making him seem almost disqualified for any responsibility at all.
So, no matter what you are writing, you must have your tone, either factual, angry, humorous, hopeful, or optimistic. Therefore, you have to decide your tone before you make your choice of words in writing.
Apart from the tone, other differences between different types of writing are to be observed. Letters to friends, for instance, are regarded as informal personal communication. In them, words are usually those used in daily conversation, easy and even slangy, and sentences are short, simple and even incomplete. Research reports, on the other hand, are considered formal professional communication. As such, the primary goals are accuracy, clarity, and completeness. The rough draft of any research report should be edited to ensure that all data is correctly presented, that all equipment is listed, and that all results are properly detailed. Beyond checking the report for clarity and accuracy in the presentation of technical data, the author of a research report should review for basic grammatical and mechanical accuracy. Therefore, in research reports, special terms are presented, and full forms, such as does not, must not, etc. are used instead of such contractions as doesn’t, mustn’t in informal personal communication. Similarly, sentences are complete and the passive voice is preferred.
Special features like this in writing are a matter of writing style —a matter of formal or informal writing style. Before writing, you have to decide which kind of writing style is appropriate so that you can avoid using an informal writing style where a formal writing style is required, or the other way round.
III. The Writing process
The writing process can be divided roughly into five steps or stages, although these are not meant to be rigidly applied. This general description oversimplifies the complex process of writing, but it does give a framework for talking about how most writers compose. Professional writers may become skilled enough to take shortcuts, but these five steps are a good system for less experienced writers to start with.
The following are the five steps in the writing process:
1. Planning a composition: Choosing a topic; prewriting, generating ideas, deciding upon audience and focus, deciding what to include or leave out; data gathering, and organizing, deciding the order in which to make points or present information
2. Drafting: Putting ideas into sentences and paragraphs
3. Revising: Evaluating earlier drafts; rearranging to improve organization; adding, cutting, replacing, and recasting sentences to improve effectiveness
4. Editing: Checking correctness of facts, grammar, spelling, usage, punctuation, and mechanics
5. Proofreading: Reading final copy for typing errors, handwriting legibility, and words left out
Almost all kinds of writing involve the same steps, but certain kinds of writing require more attention to various stages in the process. For example, a note to your family explaining where you have gone and why you won't be home for dinner involves very little prewriting thought, and revising might be little more than checking to make sure you have included all the necessary information. A technical report, on the other hand, may require extensive preparation, data gathering, and organizing before the actual writing begins, and revisions may be quite extensive before you are satisfied that the paper represents your best work. The following sections consider only three of the steps in the writing process at greater length.
Planning a composition
Planning a composition means making preparations for the composition. Writing without sufficient preparation will spoil it. So planning a composition is the first necessity. The preparation involves the following steps:
·Choosing a topic
·Prewriting
·Data gathering
·Organizing
Choosing a topic
If you are free to choose your own topic, choose a topic you really want to think about. You can pick one in which you are genuinely interested and about which you want to know more. Or you might well try to find something from your own experience, something that will let you explore yourself, perhaps something that you have never fully described or analyzed to anyone, even to yourself. The richest moments of your experience are often born out of conflict. Suppose you recall a time when you were made or asked to do something you did not want to do. When and where did it happen? How did you feel about having to act against your will? How did you feel about the person who asked you to do so? What did you learn from the episode?
When a topic is assigned, find a way to make it your own. Most of the writing you do in college will be on assigned topics. The way to get started on an assigned topic is to discover how it connects with what you already know, with your own interests and experience. By this means you begin to make the topic your own.
Suppose you are asked to write an essay on any one of the following general topics:
computers crime
education sports
farming music
housing assembly-line manufacturing
an open-heart surgery
If you are asked to write on "Farming", start by asking yourself if you have ever had any experience in farming, what kind of farming work you did, how it affected you and how you felt about it. Any one of these personal experiences could be the wedge that opens up the topic for you.
But one of the biggest obstacles to the success of a short essay is an oversize topic and one of the commonest phenomena for a freshman writer is to choose too broad or general a topic, such as “crime”, “education”, “music”. If you were asked to write a five-hundred-word essay on the general farming, you will probably find that you have no room to make it fully developed or it is too general to get started. So you should cut the topic down to a specific one that you can manage in a short essay. Take “Crime” of the general topics listed above:
General topic: Crime
Specific topic: Shoplifting
Questions: How did the shoplifting happen, how much should shoplifters punished, and why?
You will certainly find the specific topic “Crime: a Common Shoplifting” is easier to develop than the general topic “Crime”.
Prewriting
Prewriting, as the term implies, is the activity you engage in before beginning to write your paper. You must think about your topic and explore all the possible things you might say on the subject. The simplest form of prewriting ismaking a list of the things you know about the subject or brainstorming (free association), which is similar to listing but the purpose is to generate ideas rather than a list of objects or details. With these methods, you jot down as many facts or thoughts as you can about the subject, without stopping to consider whether or not a particular idea will be useful or arranging them in any particular order. Later you can cross out the thoughts you don't plan to use, but don't rule anything out now, because even a weak idea may lead to other ideas. Your jottings need not be full sentences —just a few words to remind you of the thought.
The following is a sample of brainstorming by a class on the comparison of the similarities of doctors and teachers.
| Doctors: Teachers: professionals professionals need a longer time of college education need a 4-year college education treat patients teach students do operations earn a little money respected by their communities important in the community earn much money respected by the community important in the community |
After the initial brainstorming, you decided to cross out the items about the period of time of college education, earning money because those show the differences rather than the similarities. But you found all the other items comparable, showing the similarities: they are professional, they help others, and they are important in the community. And you are then ready to organize and write your papers.
The following is an example of comparing the similarities between doctors and teachers based on the brainstorming above:
There are many similarities between doctors and teachers. First, both doctors and teachers are considered professionals by their communities. The classification of professional is the highest socio-economic rank an individual can achieve in this society. Second, both doctors and teachers help others: doctors heal the bodies of sick people and return them to health, and teachers mold the minds of young people and turn them into responsible, educated adults. Last, both doctors and teachers are essential members of a community. It is difficult to imagine a city or town that has no need of either a doctor or a teacher. Such a place would truly be primitive.
A variation of brainstorming is mapping or clustering. With this method, you write your topic in the center of a blank page and branch out all directions with various thoughts on the topic. Mapping uses the creative part of your brain, drawing on associations and seeing relationships in weblike pattern. Later you can select from the ideas generated, and use the organizing part of your brain to convert them to sentences and paragraphs.
Below you will see some first thoughts of a student who was asked to write an essay on the subject of “The Influence of Television on Young People”. These notes were made before he did any research into the subject.
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Educational TV
TV and censorship TV in schools |
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How much TV do children TV and Children’ Programmeswatch? Youth TV and reading habits Violence on TV Effect of TV on children’s behaviour |
Another kind of prewriting activity is Asking questions. One useful set of questions is the “5 W's and the H” — Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. Answering these questions may help you to realize that you have a great deal to say about your subject. For example, if you are writing about a change made on your campus, you might ask these questions:
Who would be affected by the change?
What exactly would happen?
When would you like to see it happen?
Where will it take place?
Why is it likely to happen, or why is it desirable?
How can it be accomplished?
You can use these general questions to generate further questions. These questions are particularly helpful for persuasive papers and reports. You might need to gather more information in order to write such papers authoritatively, and these questions can guide your research and notemaking. But you need one question to focus on, to point you toward a specific writing goal. So after you have put down all the questions you can think of, read the whole list over and look for the question that strikes you as most important, most interesting, or most unusual. It may be one of the questions you have actually written down, or it may be a new question that grows out of those you have before you. In either case, this is the basic question you will hope to answer for yourself and your reader as you write the paper. Make it as sharp and specific and pointed as you can.
Of course you will have other prewriting techniques, such as free writing, using analogies, which are also helpful to generate ideas or thoughts.
During the prewriting, you have to keep in mind your audience and purpose which were briefly discussed in Parts I and II because they will affect the way you approach your writing task.
Data Gathering
Whether you have been assigned a topic or have chosen one of your own, a good way of getting started is to read about it to gather more data. You may go to the library to get more information. In the newspapers and magazines you will find articles on a variety of subjects to enrich your thoughts on the subject. Then re-examine your earlier thoughts, to see whether you now take a broader view of your subject. In the age of rapidly expanding information, data gathering is essential for keeping up-to-date and for making informed decisions or recommendations.
Reading with a purpose is a fine way to fertilize your mind, to help you choose your topic, define it, enrich it, or enlarge it. Reading gives you not only a departure but a continuous supply of information.
Organizing
The fourth step in the writing process is organizing your ideas. As you look at the results of your prewriting, you may see certain items or ideas that seem to belong together logically. You will also see that some are more important than others. Select the most important points, and cross out the unimportant ones. You may also discover, as you focus on a main idea that some of the items do not relate to that main idea. Take those out, too. When the collected information is sufficient and you are somewhat sure of your subject, you can work out your outline to help eliminate repetition or rambling.
Your outline should begin with an indication of your writing goal — the basic question you are trying to answer. Under that question you can outline your prewriting in one of two ways: by a vertical list or by a tree diagram. The vertical list is the more common kind of outline and a simple version of it looks like this:
The vertical list
Basic question: What are the ways in which a student can acquire information?
I.From his tutors
A. By lecture
B. By tutorial
C. By handouts
II. From other experts outside his college
A. By reading
B. By listening
1. Radio
2. Cassette recordings
C. By watching educational TV programmes
III. From his fellow students
A. In seminar
B. In tutorial
C. In informal conversation
IV. From himself —can develop new ideas
An outline like this will help you to write a clear, efficient essay paper. By organizing your points in advance, you will save time and make sure that you cover everything once and only once. It also lets you see the structure of the essay you are writing.
The other way of outlining is by the tree diagram. It is so called because it spreads out under the basic question like a family tree or a tree reflected in a lake. It has many advantages over the vertical list: seeing the relationships more clearly and ensuring whether anything is missing or not. Now convert the above outline into the tree diagram:
The tree diagram
What are the ways in which a student can acquire information?
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Tutors Other experts Fellow students Himself
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LectureTutorial Handout Reading Listening Watching Seminar Tutorial Conversation
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RadioCassette TV
Later you may write a paragraph according to the outline above as follows.
Acquiring Information
What are the ways in which a student can acquire information? Firstly, he will acquire information from his tutors, in three main ways —by lecture, by tutorial and by handouts which the tutor may give him. Secondly, he may acquire information from other experts outside his college: principally by reading but also perhaps by listening to the radio, listening to cassette recordings, or watching educational TV programmes. Thirdly, he may get information from his fellow students: perhaps in student-led seminars, perhaps in the contributions of other students in tutorial, or perhaps just in informal conversation. Lastly, he can acquire information from himself! By thinking about his subject and linking together what he has heard and seen, he may come up with new ideas, which are his alone.
At your convenience, you may combine a vertical list with a diagram like the following layout on the topic of “Malaria —a new threat” which is more flexible.
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MALARIA —A NEW THREAT
Female Anopheles mosquito MalariaFought by
drained or
1. Breeding placescovered with oil
or detergent
2. New varieties female infertileBut many (2600+) varieties
3. Wire screens
Mosquito netting
Also
4. Drugs e.g. quinine
other new drugs
But germs becomingresistant
5. Insecticides e.g. DDT
But mosquitoes becoming
resistant
∴ New threat
You can write an article like the following in the light of the note above.
Malaria —a New Threat
Malaria has been the scourge of humanity since the earliest times, and there are ominous signs that it is fighting back against Modern Science. The first great breakthrough in the treatment of malaria was the discovery by Sir Ronald Ross that the disease was transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. Giovanni Grassi worked out the life cycle of the human malaria parasite.
With the connection between malaria and the mosquito clearly established, steps could be taken to fight the disease.
One method was to attack the breeding places of the mosquito. It was known that mosquitoes laid their eggs in water. So, in malaria infested areas work was started on draining marshes, stagnant pools, and trying to ensure generally that there were no areas of water where mosquitoes could breed. Where areas of still water could not be drained, they were sometimes covered with oil or detergent, which made them unable by the mosquitoes.
One of the more ingenious modern methods of preventing mosquitoes from multiplying is to introduce a different variety of mosquito into an area: when the two varieties mate, the females are infertile. This kind of ‘biological engineering’ has some limited success in the field, but it is not always possible to reproduce laboratory conditions in real life. Since there are over 2,600 different kinds of mosquitoes, the research problems are enormous.
The most obvious and easiest method of prevention is to use wire screens and mosquito netting to prevent people being bitten. But this is obviously not of much use in poor areas, or when people are travelling about.
A more flexible method is to take protective drugs such as quinine. This drug was at one time extremely widely used, but during the Second World War most of the supply areas fell to the Japanese and alternative methods had to be found in the west. These drugs proved to be more effective in many ways, and the use of quinine tailed away. Recently, however, there have been indications that certain varieties of malaria germs are becoming resistant to the more modern drugs, and quinine is coming into use once more.
At one time, it seemed that insecticides, especially DDT, might wipe out malaria completely. One of the most successful DDT campaigns was carried out in India. In 1952, at the beginning of the campaign, seventy-five million Indians a year suffered from malaria. By 1965, the spraying of DDT had reduced the number of cases to 100,000.
However, as with the malaria germ and preventive drugs, there is evidence that mosquitoes are developing resistance to DDT. One of the reasons for this has been the initial success of the operation. People became careless. Also, owing to the fuel crisis, poorer countries found it impossible to maintain the eradication programme. The situation now is that malaria is staging a comeback, and there are new breeds which are resistant to DDT.
So it can be seen that there are various methods of fighting malaria. They involve: preventing mosquitoes from breeding; preventing mosquitoes from having the opportunity to bite people; using protective drugs, and using insecticides. Dangerous new developments are that some malaria germs are developing a resistance to modern drugs, and mosquitoes themselves are becoming resistant to insecticide.
IV. Reading practice
1. Read the following sample readings and try to discern their audiences, purposes and styles.
Passage 1
Skin
The skin is one of the largest organs of the human body. If the skin of an adult were spread out flat, it would cover about eighteen square feet. The skin of an adult weighs about six pounds. It is an organ of the body because it performs many essential functions. Perspiration is given off through the skin. The skin also helps the body regulate its own temperature. A piece of skin the size of a quarter contains a yard of blood vessels, 4 yards of nerves, 25 nerve ends, 100 sweat glands, and more than 3,000,000 cells.
There are two basic parts to the skin. The surface is called the epidermis, corneum, or cuticle. This is the part that gets rubbed off when we skin a knuckle. Below this layer lies the dermis, or the corium. The word dermis is taken from the original Greek word for skin. The Greek word epi, meaning over, is added to the word dermis to form the word epidermis for the outer skin.
Passage 2
Skin
The whole of our body is covered by skin. In some places, such as the soles of our feet, it is very thick. In other places, our eyeballs, for example, it is much thinner. The skin protects the body against injury and germs and also gives it information about changes in temperature.
The skin is divided into two regions. The outer region is made up of many layers of cells. Underneath these protective cells there are thousands of sensitive cells. All over the skin are tiny openings called pores that give off unwanted fluids in the form of sweat.
Passage 3
Your Skin
No organ of the body is less appreciated than the skin. One of our biggest and busiest organs —and the most telltale —it mirrors the state of our health, our age, and our race. Occupation and way of life may also become indelibly imprinted for all to see. Here are some facts about our outer covering organ to show that there is more to the skin than meets the eye.
Your skin is your body's thermostat. It regulates heat gain and loss so that the internal temperature remains within the normal range of 97 to 99 degrees.
It takes about two square yards of skin to cover the average adult from head to toe. Undoubtedly the most intricate wrapping in existence, the skin contains three million cells, three feet of blood vessels, and twelve feet of nerves in each area the size of a postage stamp.
The widest difference between the darkest human skin and that of an albino is brought about by not more than 1/25 of an ounce of melanin. As far as is known, the amount of this dark brown or black pigment accounts for all our variations in racial colors, including yellow, brown, and black.
2. Read the following passages carefully and then answer the questions.
Passage 1
Sir Eric helped himself to bacon and eggs. Hester poured out his coffee, and they sat down at the breakfast table. Sir Eric unfolded The Times. Hester opened her letter. Once Hester asked her husband if he wanted any more coffee. Otherwise they did not talk.
At 8:30 Sir Eric looked at his watch.
'Well, I must be off, dear.'
He kissed Hester on the cheek and his man-servant drove him to the station. The platform was full of middle-aged men wearing dark suits and carrying umbrellas. Like Sir Eric, they all had neatly folded newspapers under their arms, either The Times or The Telegraph. A few were wearing bowler hats.
They hardly greeted each other, though most of them knew one another, at least by sight. They did not shake hands.
The train came in, and they all got into first-class compartments. As soon as Sir Eric sat down, he unfolded his Times. So did the five other men who were with him. The two walls of newspaper which stretched across the compartment were not lowered until the train approached Waterloo an hour later. Not a word was spoken.
The return journey at 5:15 as no different, except that Sir Eric and his dark-suited companions were now reading evening newspapers.
` —The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
(1) What is the topic of the passage?
_____________________________________________________________
(2) What is the author’s tone in the passage?
_____________________________________________________________
(3) Does the author use facts or opinions to tell you something about British people? Explain your answer.
____________________________________________________________
Passage 2
But every Englishman is born with a certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. When he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious duty to conquer those who possess the thing he wants. Then he becomes irresistible. Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases him and grads what he covets; like the shopkeeper, he pursues his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that come from strong religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibility. He is never at a loss for an effective moral attitude. As the great champion of freedom and national independence, he conquers and annexes half the world, and calls it Colonization. When he wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester gods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the Gospel of Peace. The natives kill the missionary; he flies to arms in defence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes the market as a reward from heaven. In defence of his island shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with a cross on it to his topgallant mast; and sails to the end of the earth, sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the empire of the seas with him. He boasts that a slave is free the moment his foot touches British soil; and he sells the children of his poor at six years of age to work under the lash in his factories for sixteen hours a day. He makes two revolutions, and then declares war on our one in the name of law and order. There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly principles. He supports his king on loyal principles and cuts off his king’s head on republican principles. His watchword is always Duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost.
—Napoleon’s monologue in Man of Destinyby Bernard Shaw
(1) What is the topic of the passage?
_________________________________________________________
(2) What is the author’s tone in the passage?
_________________________________________________________
(3) Does the author use facts or opinions to tell you something about British people? Explain your answer.
_________________________________________________________
V. Writing assignments
Exercise 1-1 Brainstorming
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This exercise may be done individually, in small groups, or with the whole class participating. Choose one of the following topics, and list all the things you can think of that you might mention under that topic. One benefit of listing in a group is that you may compare your ideas and opinions with those of your pairs. When you discover differences in opinions, all of you will have a reason for writing and communicating your thoughts to each other. For the purpose of this prewriting exercise, consider your audience to be other students on your campus. Your purpose is to inform them or to express your opinion. In a later exercise, you may use your lists to write a paragraph.
1. E-mails
2. Two educational patterns
3. Popular songs that you like
4. Habits that are hard to break
5. Good or bad television shows
6. Things that can ruin a friendship
7. Purposes of a college education
8. The qualities of the cross-century talents
9. Books or magazines you would recommend
10. A campus problem and a possible solution
Exercise 1-2 Brainstorming
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This exercise may be done individually, in small groups, or with the whole class participating. You might choose as a topic an issue that is being discussed in your local newspapers or newscasts. Or you may begin with one of the topics listed below.Assume that your audience will be the readers of your local newspaper. If you have a hard time getting started, you might try the questioning method, asking Who, What, Where, Why, and How. When you have finished, hand in your brainstorming list to your instructor without rewriting it.
1. Terrorist attacks
2. Nuclear weapons
3. Drug use by athletes
4. Harmfulness of fake commodities
5. Effects of unemployment on a family
6. Effects of television on children's education
7. WTO entry: double-edged sword for China
8. The increased career choices for women today
9. Effects of advertising on the choices people make
10. The problem of health care for the elderly and dying
Exercise 1-3 Limiting topics
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Think about each of the following broad topics. One general sentence about the topic is provided. Write a second, more limited sentence. The first one is done for you.
Solar energy Solar energy is useful.
Solar energy is useful in generating power._______________
Drugs Drugs are harmful.
_________________________________________________
Education It is a government's responsibility to provide accessible education for all of its population.
_________________________________________________
Housing Finding an apartment is difficult.
_________________________________________________
Teachers I have had some bad teachers.
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Automobiles It is expensive to own a car.
_________________________________________________
Cities Living in cities is stimulating.
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Exercise 1-4 Writing an outline
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This activity will sharpen your sense of the different parts of an essay. An essay entitled “Coping with Old Age” appears below with no paragraph indentations. Read the essay carefully, and then double-underline the thesis and single-underline the topic sentence for each of the three supporting paragraphs and the first sentence of the conclusion. Then write an outline.
Coping with Old Age
I recently read about an area of the Soviet Union where many people live to be well over a hundred years old. Being 115 or even 125 isn't considered unusual there, and these old people continue to do productive work right up until they die. America, however, isn't such a healthy place for older people. Since I retired from my job. I've had to cope with the physical, mental, and emotional stresses of being "old". For one thing, I've had to adjust to physical changes. Now that I'm over sixty, the trusty body that carried me around for years has turned traitor. Aside from the deepening wrinkles on my face and neck, and the wiry grey hairs that have replaced my brown hair, I face more frightening changes. I don't have the energy I used to. My eyes get tired. Once in a while I miss something that's said to me. My once-faithful feet seem to have lost their comfortable soles, and I sometimes feel I'm walking on marbles. In order to fight against this slow decay, I exercise whenever I can. I walk, I stretch, and I climb stairs. I battle constantly to keep as fit as possible. I'm also trying to cope with mental changes. My mind was once as quick and sure as a champion gymnast. I never found it difficult to memorize answers in school or to remember the names of people I met. Now, I occasionally have to search my mind for the name of a close neighbor or favorite television show. Because my mind needs exercise, too, I challenge it as much as I can. The mental gymnast may be a little slow and out of shape, but he can still do a backflip or turn a somersault when he has to. Finally, I must deal with the emotional impact of being old. Our society typecasts old people. We're supposed to be unattractive, senile, useless leftovers. We're supposed to be the crazy drivers and the cranky customers. At first, I was angry and frustrated that I was considered old at all. And I knew that people were wrong to stereotype me. Then I got depressed. I even started to think that maybe I was a cast-off, one of those old animals that slow down the rest of the herd. But I have now decided to rebel against these negative feelings. I try to have friends of all ages and to keep up with what's going on in the world. I try to remember that I'm still the same person who sat at a first-grade desk, who fell in love, who comforted a child, who got a raise at work. I'm not "just" an old person. Coping with the changes of old age has become my latest full-time job. Even though it's a job I never applied for, and one for which I had no experience, I'm trying to do the best I can.
Thesis statement:
I.
A.
B.
C.
II.
A.
B.
III.
A.
B.
Conclusion:
上一篇：大学英语四六级写作模板——辩论式议论文
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