Download Writing Clinic – Session 1

Formal and Informal 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.
 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
Formal

Your suggestion is appropriate and timely.
Informal
- It works for me.
 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 can’t wait to hang with him.
A
word or phrase used in everyday
conversation
 It is sometimes used in writing which may
contribute to vagueness..
 Example


Sara couldn’t put up with the hassle of weekday
babysitting.
Steve seemed really zonked after finals were
over.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Guido is really tapped out and running on
empty this semester.
Molly couldn’t get cranked up to clean her
room
Recent research suggests that pasta came
to Italy from North Africa before the
thiteenth century.
The laughter in comedy is often based on
hostility.
 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
 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.
Revise the word order in the following
sentences so that each makes sense:
1. The cold hose garden from water trickled
2. Angora boy held the rabbit squeaked as the
tiny it.
3. The flood muddy engulfed of the waters
quickly the town.
4. Air car as would well jams as pools reduce
traffic pollution.
Learn some new words kids
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.
 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
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
After intercepting the telegram, Britain
discovered Germany’s real intentions.
Convoys effectively reduced troopship
losses during the war.
Returned to London.
Tories pursue conservative policies.
An ill-advised strategy to end the war.
Take this report to the field marshal.
Boarded the dreadnaught while the band
played.
Neville addressed the sailors about Royal
tradition
 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.
 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.
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.
 Consists
of one independent clause and one
or more subordinate clauses.
 Subordinate clauses – has a subject and a
verb but doesn’t express a complete thought
and can’t 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.
 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.
 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.
Identifying and etc.
 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.
 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.
 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.
 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.