Week 2 Review

In Thursday's class, we learnt about the different kinds of paragraphs and the components that constitute them. It was very interesting, as we had always been assigned paragraphs at school, but had never been given an in-depth analysis of the constituents of a paragraph and how to write an efficient paragraph. We had a look at the different types of paragraphs, and were asked to identify the different elements of a paragraph in the sample paragraphs given to us.  

In the next class, we had a look at how to write in an academic setting. We were made familiar with certain rules regarding academic writing, such as the avoidance of contractions. It is important to keep the tone informal in academic writing and thus, idioms and colloquial expressions are to be strictly avoided. We saw what distinguished good writing from bad writing, and learnt how to avoid errors in order to make our writing more coherent. We were advised to avoid the usage of passive voice and '-tion' words wherever possible, as they tend to complicate the sentences. We learnt about the importance of proofreading, and how it helps give the essay a better rhythm and flow by getting rid of grammatical errors, word repetitions and ambiguous sentences. We also discussed the tendency of academic writers to use complex vocabulary and sentence structures, which takes away the very essence of research by making it inaccessible to the common public.