There are many ways to explain it but perhaps the best and simplest way would be to say that I never imagined that you did not understand what I was talking about when I talked about collating information to put into your Essay OUTLINES.

 

When I made you do outlines it was for the purpose of making your writing more coherent.

 

I did not imagine that you did not know HOW TO COLLATE information or HOW TO DECONSTRUCT a story or other writing.

 

 

 

 

A Chinese friend of mine is an English Teacher in Wuhan and I had a long discussion with her about your essays and what is in your Chinese minds when you write essays.

 

She explained to me that the Chinese think that it is better to copy a sentence or part of a sentence written by a foreigner, because the foreigner will have expressed an idea better than a Chinese person could.

 

OK - now I understand what was in your heads!   BUT!  There is a problem that occurs when you do this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός - rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement, symmetry") is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds

 

Tone (literature), the mood or feeling of a literary work, as the author gives

 

Tone is a literary technique that is a part of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, condescending, or many other possible attitudes.

 

An Example:

 

The soiree was simply magnificant if not somewhat overly ostentatious, but everyone had a great time.

 

The two halves of this sentence do not match, even if the grammar is correct.  The section in red is formal 'high brow' language whilst the section in blue is common language.  To the foreigner, reading that sentence is really like seeing it in two different colours.

 

When language in writing does not flow right - when the rythm is not correct, it is just like seeing different parts of a sentence being written in different colours.

 

When I was reading Essays it was like trying to read this announcement that is written in different colours:

 

When you take sections of work from one or more authors, or you join sentences from different places within a body of work, the end result can be 'not normal'.

 

 

 

 

In order to prepare an outline of the essay you will write, you first have to gather information.  If your topic is JAPAN, you might find a series of books on the subject, and each book may concentrate on one aspect of Japan, it's people and its culture.

 

6 books about Japan may have 6 different perspectives:

From each of these books then you need to Extract (to draw out) some pertinent information that you will use in your essay. (PERTINENT = having precise or logical relevance to the matter at hand; "a list of articles pertinent to the discussion"; "remarks that were to the point")

 

From the various books, articles or other sources, you draw out the facts that you want to write about.

 

But rather than joining phrases and sentences, you write your own sentence using all those facts and you do so as grammatically as possible.

 

 

 

Deconstruct: to break something down into its component parts

 

 

 

Collate  From Latin collatus, past participle of conferre, = to bring together :

 

 

 

The first lesson on Collating and Deconstructing is found on the page entitled: 2nd Semester Writing

 

 

I am away on holidays, but I have already begun copying and correcting Essays to put on this site so that you might have a better idea of how to write.

 

Writing requires some basic skills.   But if you just copy phrases and sentences, then you are missing the most important part of learning to write:  You are not learning to write for yourself.

 

 

 

 

Class 07-5 have already begun to learn about Citations, References and Bibliography, and all classes will need to learn something about these things.

 

When you copy from another person's work, you MUST cite / reference that work and provide a bibliography for it.  Otherwise it is plagerism / plagiarism.  In Australia, when you hand in university work, you are declaring that it is your own work unless otherwise indicated.  If you do not identify another person's writing, then you commit an offence and your work is rejected.  Too many Chinese students studying in Australia have discovered the hard way,  just how seriously the offence of 'plagiarism' is.

 

 Now maybe some of you will not be my students in writing class this semester.  Not a problem!  You can continue to follow what I will publish here about writing classes, and it will benefit you.

 

You can find some information on Bibliography on Basic Report Page - Right Side column