A WORD ABOUT MY FEEDBACK STYLE

Graduate DiplomaReading & Writing Spring Term Session 10Data Commentary FeedbackReporting Verbs & Patterns ReviewFinding Suitable SourcesCombining Sources

A WORD ABOUT MY FEEDBACK STYLE

Your commentary has a good opening, although I think the word “total” is missing from before “weight” and “we can informed ourselves” is both grammatically incorrect and unnecessary. Be careful when you use comparative and superlative forms. It is not possible to mix the two. For example, it is fine to say “Japan has the most ships” but you cannot continue this sentence with “than”. It is also a mistake to use “most” with superlative forms like “biggest” or “heaviest”. The –est suffix in these words means “most”. You do a good job of incorporating the data within your own sentence structures, but you should be aware that you cannot use “that” and “how” together in the same sentence. Just choose one of these. Likewise “under” and “from” should not appear next to each other in English. Overall, though, a good attempt at a data commentary. Have a look at the Economist’s version and see what differences you find:

SOME USEFUL VERBS AND VERB PATTERNS (WHICH YOU SHOULD ALREADY KNOW)

EVALUATING SOURCES

When you find an article to read, how can you tell if it is useful to you? What questions can you ask about the text? • who wrote it? • when was it written? • where and when was it published? • is any data referred to or is it just opinion? • what is the source of the data provided? • does the writer or publisher have a vested interest in the subject? • is it written in English?

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14843667 http://www.economist.com/world/middleeast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TNGSVTPR&source=login_payBarrier http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=E1_TTQVVDDG&source=login_payBarrier http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/intro.shtml http://www.amnesty.org/en/death-penalty/numbers http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7649000/7649965.stm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment http://www.corpun.com/ www.essex.ac.uk

BEFORE THE END OF THE WEEK, YOU NEED TO SHOW ME 3 OR 4 ARTICLES THAT YOU INTEND TO USE AS YOUR SOURCES

COMBINING SOURCES

Marriage • "A man is only as faithful as his opportunity." (Chris Rock) • "Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences." (Isadora Duncan) • "Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." (Oscar Wilde) • "I don't think it's the nature of any man to be monogamous. Men are propelled by genetically ordained impulses over which they have no control to distribute their seed." (Marlon Brando) • "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) • "The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people; the hardest is with one." (Joan Baez) • "When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one." (Helen Rowland)

A WORD ABOUT MY FEEDBACK STYLE