What is exposition?

The purpose of exposition (or expository writing) is not primarily to amuse, but to enlighten and instruct. The objective is to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion. Its essential quality is clarity. Most of the writing that you are required to do at school is expository (reports, tests, essays etc..) Similarly most of the writing you will do after school will be of this sort.

Examples of expository writing include:

• Reports
• Scientific reports
• Term papers
• Encyclopedia articles

Features of expository writing

The main features include:

• Informative
  Expository text is meant to deposit information
• Clarity.
  Using words that clearly show what the author is talking about.
• Organization of the text.
  A well-written exposition remains focused on its topic and lists events in chronological order
• Impersonal
  Second-person instructions with “you.” However, the use of first-person pronouns should be avoided.
• Unbiased
  Expository essays will not overtly reveal the opinion of the writer.

How to write a business letter

What kind of letter is it?

A business letter is a letter written in formal language. There are many reasons to write a business letter. It could be:

• to request direct information or action from another party,
• to order supplies from a supplier,
• to identify a mistake that was committed,
• to reply directly to a request,
• to apologize for a wrong
• or simply to convey goodwill.

Elements of a business letter

The parts of a business letter are as follows:

• Sender’s address
• Date
• Inside address
• Attention line
• Salutation
• Body of the letter
• Complimentary close
• Signature
• Enclosure

Positions of the elements

Styles of business letters are of two main types:

1. Full block style:
   In this type you align all elements on the left margin.
2. Modified block:
   In this style, some elements are on the left page margin.

The following is an example of the modified block style.

Example

[SENDER’S NAME] [SENDER’S ADDRESS] (optional[SENDER’S PHONE] (optional[SENDER’S E-MAIL] [DATE] [RECIPIENT W/O PREFIX] [RECIPIENT’S COMPANY] [RECIPIENT’S ADDRESS] (Optional) Attention [DEPARTMENT/PERSON], Dear [RECIPIENT], [CONTENT.] [VALEDICTION (Sincerely, Respectfully, Regards, etc.)], [SENDER] [SENDER’S TITLE] Enclosures ([NUMBER OF ENCLOSURES])

Punctuation

Generally speaking, a comma follows the salutation/greeting, but in the United States a colon is often preferred. The valediction/closing is followed by a comma.

Source: Wikipedia

Hotels

When traveling, we almost always stay at hotels. That’s why it is advisable to pay attention to the following:

• Book a room in advance.
• On arrival, confirm your reservation. Check in at the reception.
• At large hotels you may ask for services by phone. For example, you may call for room service when you want a drink or a meal.
• Let the hotel manager know well in advance when you will leave.

Booking a room

To book a room you need to do one of the following:

• to make a phone call,
• to write a letter,
• or to write an email.

Writing an email to make a reservation

1. Include all relevant information in your email:

• your complete contact information,
• date and time of arrival and departure,
• number of days of your stay,
• type of room and any special needs or requests such as a smoking or nonsmoking room.

2. Be to the point. don’t include any unnecessary details.

3. Be polite and start your email by “Dear sir or Madam”

4. Example:

Dear Sir or Madam,Would you mind reserving a nonsmoking room for me and my wife for this date (…) We will be spending three nights. We will arrive on August 4th at 5 o’clock in the morning. Please charge my credit card for the initial deposit required. Include any discounts that my early registration permits. Credit card number: Name: Expiration date: I look forward to receiving a letter confirming my reservation. Thank you. Name

5. Don’t forget your name, address, email, phone, fax or any contact details.

Narration

In a narrative, essay we basically tell a story that is related to your own life. It can be a narration of a personal experience or the events that happened to someone you know. The narrative essay should have a purpose. It must make a point and the reader must learn a lesson or gain insight.

Tips to write a narrative essay

• Tell a story based on one of your own experiences.
• Use concrete details so that your readers can visualize what is happening. Give as many sensory details and vivid descriptions to involve the reader.
• You may use dialogue.
• Make sure that your narrative essay communicates a main idea or a lesson.
• Spend some time drafting what you can remember about the experience.
• Create an outline of the basic parts of your narrative.
• Write your first draft and don’t pay attention to mistakes at this stage.
• When writing a narrative essay you may use the tools of descriptive writing.
• Edit the essay:
  1. Does the writing effectively recreates the experience for your readers?
  2. Are there any more details and descriptions are needed?
  3. Are there any information that has to be removed?
  4. Is your narration effectively written to help your readers visualize events?
  5. Is there any logical or chronological order in your narration?
  6. Are there any grammatical or spelling mistakes?
  7. Have you used appropriate cohesive devices?
• Write your final draft.

Writing a descriptive essay

Learn to write a descriptive essay.

Pre-writing

Write down notes

Try to be specific

Remember things we describe are what we

• feel: happy, angry, cold, hot …
• see: big, large, small, tiny …
• touch: coarse, hard, soft, smooth …
• taste: sweet, sore, bitter,
• hear: loud, quiet, silent …
• smell: bad, moldy, unpleasant, pleasant …

Describe your feelings, your thoughts, your actions, …

Writing:

You can organize your description:

• from general to specific or vice versa
• from the outside to the inside or vice versa
• from the least important to the most important or vice versa
• from the start (e.g. of a journey) till the end …

Post writing

Edit your essay

Writing an argumentative essay

Pre-writing

State the “controversy” in the form of a yes/no question.

Should guns be made legal?

Is television harmful to children?

Divide your paper into two parts:

Pros	Cons
Guns can be helpful to defend ourselves from dangerous criminals… …	Guns can be harmful, especially at the hands of irresponsible people… …

• Decide which side of the argument you will defend.
• Remember to support your opinions with facts, statistics, examples, quotes …

Writing

Include an introduction, a body and a conclusion:

Introduction:

State the problem: a clear thesis statement.

Body:

Paragraph: topic sentence

a. argument 1

b. argument 2

c. argument 3

d. …

Paragraph: topic sentence

a. argument 1

b. argument 2

c. argument 3

d. …

Conclusion:

a. Give a balanced view.

b. Give your opinion.

Post writing

Edit your essay.

Writing a Personal Experience Essay

Pre-writing

Choose one experience from your life that is interesting enough to be told.

Introduction

Think of an introduction that will make the reader eager to know more about the experience.

Body

Use simple past or past continuous tense. If something happened previous to the personal experience, use past perfect.

Write down some quick notes about the experience.

Don’t worry about grammar. Take five minutes at the end to proofread your essay.

Remember every detail and try to visualize it.

• Your feelings
• Your thoughts
• Objects around you (their shape, color, size, …)
• The smell
• The taste
• Actions

Include the setting: place, time. (Give specific details about the place and the time.)

Tell the events:

• in chronological order
• or using a flash back technique (depicting / recalling a set of events that occurred before the scenes immediately proceeding)

Conclusion

Conclude by telling what you learned from the experience.

Post writing

Edit your essay.

How to write a cause and effect paragraph

What makes something happen is called a cause. An effect is what happens as a result of the cause. Here are a few basics on writing a coherent cause and effect paragraph.

Pre-writing

Decide whether to write about a cause or an effect or both. You can choose to discuss only the causes or only the effects of an event. Alternatively, you can discuss the causes AND effects of a certain event.

Make a list of causes or effects. Then narrow down that list to include only the most important causes or effects.

Writing

Write a draft explaining each cause or effect in the paragraph in as much detail as possible. Don’t forget to use transitional words in your paragraph, such as: also, as a result, because, first and finally.

It is very important to include a clear topic sentence in your paragraph. This sentence should state the main idea of your paragraph.

Support your topic sentence with supporting details.

Post writing

Edit your paragraph.

Writing a book/film review

Follow these steps to write a book or film review.

Pre writing

Remember and take notes of the plot of the story. What impression did it produce on you?

Writing

• Introduction: give the title and author of the book. If you’re reviewing a film mention the director or actors.
• Body:
  1. Summarize the plot in a few sentences.
  2. Mention the setting: the place and time of the plot.
  3. Say something about the main characters.
  4. Say something about the content.
• Conclusion:
  1. Comment on the book or film.
  2. Let others know whether or not you liked the book/film.
  3. Why do you like it? Why don’t you like it?
  4. Is the author’s style good or bad, is the book / film interesting or boring etc.
  5. Do you want to recommend the book/film?

Post writing

Edit your writing.

Useful Expressions:

  Title, Author / Director, Actors

The film is directed by
The film is produced by..
It is starred by…
The book is written by …

Setting

The action takes place in … (setting)
The action of the film is set in …
The story takes place in…

Characters and Plot

The main characters are …
The story is about ….
The novel tells the story of …
In the course of the novel the action develops dramatically.
The novel / film begins with…
The novel has an unexpected ending.
The end of … is …

Reaction

I am impressed by
I think ….
The book is terribly / beautifully written
The film is terrible / exciting.
What surprised me is …
What I liked is…
What I didn’t like is…
I liked/didn’t like the film / novel because …

Useful Academic Expressions

These are some useful expressions used in academic writing:

1. Stating your own position on a Subject or Topic

• This paper aims at…
• This paper will be concerned with…
• The aim of this paper is to…
• The point of this article is to…
• It shall be argued in this paper/essay/review that…
• The view presented in this paper/essay/review is that..

2. Presenting your own point of view

• I strongly believe that…
• To my mind…
• As I see it….
• It seems to me evident/obvious that…
• I feel that…
• I think/contend that…
• There are many reasons why…
• It is important/necessary to point out that…
• The first thing to be considered is…
• It is a fact that…

3. Supporting your view and adding more information:

• The first/second reason why…is…
• Firstly/Secondly…
• not only …but also…
• The most important…
• In addition, …
• Furthermore, …
• What is more, …
• Another reason is …
• A further point is …

4. Stating the view of Another Person on a Subject or Topic

• Harris’s approch (1970, p. 1) can be described as follows…
• Chomsky (1965, p. 133) maintains/argues/asserts/claims/points out that…
• Th authors views ca be stated as follows…
• The opinion of Chomsky (1965, p. 133) is that…
• Chomsky (1965, p. 133)) has suggested that ….
• According to Smith (1992, p. 123), …
• It is thought by some theorists, for example, Chomsky (1965, p. 133) and Harris (1970, p. 1) that…

5. Agreeing with the Views of Others

• I don’t agree with the authors ideas/thoughts…because…
• I don’t think the author’s views are accurate…because…
• Chomsky (1965, p. 133) is certainly/may be correct/accurate in saying that … because…
• As Chomsky (1965, p. 133) says/states …
• Like Chomsky (1965, p. 133), it can be agreed that …. because…

6. Disagreeing with the Views of Others

• Chomsky (1965, p. 133) fails to address the issue when he says “…” because …
• When Chomsky (1965, p. 133) argues that …. his reasoning is questionable because….
• One of the main arguments against Chomsky (1965, p. 133) and Harris (1970, p. 1) is that …
• Harris (1970) approach/position/methods is/are somewhat inadequate/inaccurate/insufficient because…
• There is some doubt that…

7. Indicating a Lack of Knowledge in a Particular Topic or Subject

• Despite the book’s attempts to… it lacks accuracy…
• What I find lacking in the research is…
• Although the research has tended to focus on…..rather less attention has been paid to…
• Most studies, such as Harris (1970, p. 1) and Chomsky (1965, p. 133) have emphasized/concentrated on/focused on inadequate /insufficient….

8. Drawing a Conclusion Using the Work of Others

• To sum up, …
• In a nutshell, …
• As a conclusion, …
• As a summary, …
• All in all, …
• To conclude, …
• Based on these authors, a connection can be made between…
• It can be concluded from what Jones (2004, p. 2) and Smith (2002, p. 1) have stated that… is …
• When Smith’s (2001, p.52) work/paper is looked at closely, it is seen that…
• One outcome of Smith’s (2001, p.52) work/paper/research is …