19 May 2014

Today we undertook another peer read-and-feedback activity. We continued to provide comment on the writing of short paragraph that addressed the topic of how cultural norms and conventions influence how we greet the people we meet. Writers were asked to ensure that the paragraph they wrote clearly communicated a main point or argument. In our general feedback session some of the following points were raised for discussion

• using conjunctions
• the use of and the importance of punctuation 
• whether one could use metaphor or idioms in formal, academic writing
• paragraph structures (how to ensure that the sentences that make up a paragraph are somehow linked together)
• the value of understanding the writing process

We also starting to talk and think about the Communication Skills assignment. Everyone did a short 5 minute freewriting exercise. Each writer selected one of the essay topics and had to write non-stop for 5 minutes about that topic (you were suppose to only write and not think about grammar, sentence construction, spelling, editing). Next week the writers will bring along a reworked version of this freewriting piece and we will work on brainstorming the requirements for the essay assignment.

A new page has been added to the blog - this contains links to interesting and useful online resources about academic writing, the English language and grammar.