The Thesis Statement Formula:

Dear All,

Here is a thesis statement formula you need to use to write your essays:


I'd like to share with you a thesis statement 
formula you should use to write good Th St-ts

Post-9: Semester Task

Dear All,

to complete the first semester you should prepare 2 essays devoted to the discussion of the issue(s) raised in the article you should choose them from the Guardian. or some other free news resource available for free. The articles you will choose should be devoted to the discussion of some problem or issue that is important from a social point of view. For example, they could be about one of the problems that worry young people or about education, support from the government or something else along these lines.

You should explain why you have chosen the articles and why you are concerned about the topic/issue they are devoted to

The word limit for your essays is 250-300 words.

Make sure you write in your own words to avoid plagiarism. Please use the plagiarism checker at http://smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker/ OR 

http://www.paperrater.com/plagiarism_checker

OR http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/ to make sure your work doesn’t contain plagiarized parts, In addition, you can use one of the tools listed in the blog post I’d like to share with you: http://elearningindustry.com/top-10-free-plagiarism-detection-tools-for-teachers.

Google “free plagiarism checker” if you cannot use any of these plagiarism checkers they day you want to check your works, which might be because they have used all their free limit.

Please remember too to include a reference to the article(s) are going to refer to in your essays. To make sure you layout your references correctly you can use the Citation Machine (http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-website?new=true).

Also, it’d be great if you used a URL shortener, a special tool which automatically shortens long web-addresses, so that your work did not look cluttered: http://goo.gl/1cSPQ1

Your essays will be assessed using the following criteria:

1. Content
2. Organisation
3. Mechanics
4. Language use
5. Reference layout

One more task you need to complete is a reflection note the purpose of which is to discuss what activities you found useful and why; also, reflect on anything you think was not that useful and explain why. Finally, suggest a couple of topics you think you'd be interested in discussing the next semester.

The submission deadline is December 22 . It would be great if you could publish your works a day or 2 earlier.

Post 8:Paraphrasing

Dear All,

We're practising paraphrasing today and doing a set of exercises to help you master this skill. First, we're going to watch a video explaining what constitutes plagiarism and how you can paraphrase the other people's words not to plagiarise:

Stop Thief. Avoid Plagiarism  by Paraphrasing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9z3EHIoa9HI

Next we'll discuss the difference between quoting, paraphrasing and summarising: 

 https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/quoting_paraphrasing_and_summarizing/index.html

After that we will discuss the steps to paraphrasing without plagiarising in more detail:

https://bit.ly/37nsKum (Douglas College exercise)

And then we'll do a number of exercises to practise paraphrasing and summarising:

a)  https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/quoting_paraphrasing_and_summarizing/paraphrasing.html

b)  Intermediate-level Paraphrase Exercises

https://owl.purdue.edu/owl_exercises/esl_exercises/paraphrase_and_summary_exercises/intermediate_paraphrase_exercises.html

c) More paraphrasing exercises (with answers): (added 25.11.2019)

http://intranet.yorksj.ac.uk/learnteach/epax/paraphrasing/Para3tryme.pdf

Do Exercise D at home, we'll discuss it first and do Exercise E in which you are asked to summarise 3 passages. Please, read them at home, so that you'd be familiar with their content.

d) https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/Paraphrasing%20Handout%20-%20Activities.pdf

Try to do the exercises yourselves first and then check yourselves against the KEY. Makes notes for us to be able to compare your answers with the key 

Post 7: Interesting topics for discussion

Dear All,

what makes writing particularly enjoyable is discussing the topics that are interesting for you, that provoke thought and enable you to consider them from different perspectives. So, what I am inviting you to do is to think about 3 or 4 topics that you personally would be interested in writing about, and sharing them with your peers and me in the thread. Add a 2-3 sentence explanation of what makes these topics interesting for you to discuss.

Also, read what 2 or 3 of your peers have suggested and comment on it by letting us know in what ways some of these suggestions can be interesting for you to discuss.

Here are the resources you should use to choose your future topics for discussion from:

1. Good research paper topics:

https://blog.prepscholar.com/good-research-paper-topics

2. More interesting topics for essays

https://owlcation.com/humanities/150-English-Essay-Topics

Students' blogs' addresses

1. 1. 1. Katya Toropkina: katyatoropkina.blogspot.com
   2. 2. Kristina Shenina: kristinakroshenina18821.blogspot.com
   3. 3. Potapova Maria: ptpvmr.blogspot.com
   4. 4. Vika Vilova: vikavavilova.blogspot.com
   5. 5. Elya Mautkazinova: elnara06.blogspot.com
   6. 6. Arina Cheusova: arinacheusova18821.blogspot.com
   7.             7. Nigyar Dzhabrailova: nigyar1.blogspot.com                                                                                        
   8.             8. Kobylkina Dasha: dariak2-06.blogspot.com
   9. 9. Maidanyuk Kate: katarina666.blogspot.com
   10. 10. Tumashova Masha: tumashova-mariya.blogspot.com 20.10. 1 submitted work
   11.         Masha, haven't found any posts. Where are they? 
   12. 11. Koseva Ulyana: ulyanakoseva.blogspot.com
   13. 12. Vasilyeva Maria: mariavasilyeva666.blogspot.com NO publications

       
       

Post 6: Interesting topics to write about

Dear All,

I'd like you to look through the list of possible topics you might be interested to write about, choose 4 or 5, explain why you are interested in writing on them, and then choose one and start developing your essay draft by listing the points you want to discuss in your essay and the supporting evidence you think you can use to support your points

1. Good research paper topics:

https://blog.prepscholar.com/good-research-paper-topics

2. Persuasive Essay Topics: https://owlcation.com/academia/Academic-Persuasive-Essay-Topics

Post-5: Your favourite learning English resource

Dear All,

Today I'd like you to share with your peers and me the information about your favorite learning English resource. You need to describe it briefly enumerating its general features first and then providing us with some more specific details.

1. Resource name with a link
2. Its general description
3. Description of its specific features
4. Your favourite features: mention several and add some examples
5. Explain why this resource can be useful for your peers and how they can benefit from using it.

On the technical side, remember to provide the links to the resources/sections of the website you are describing. This is how you can do it:
1. Click on the icon Link above
2. A new window will open1. Click on the icon Link in the form and choose the option Open in a new window
3.

Post-4: Room 101

Have you read George Orwell's novel "1984"? Do you remember what Room 101 in it was for?

What I am inviting you to do today is to discuss what you would put into this room and explain why.

You can work on your own or together with one of your peers. After you have come up with the explanation of your choice, write a post explaining it and don't forget to add some supporting evidence to substantiate your answer.

If you use some internet resources to support your opinion, do not forget to provide the necessary reference information.

Looking forward to reading your explanations. 

Post-3_Learning-blog-affordances

Dear All,

I need to apologize for a great degree of confusion on my part with your blog. 

I hope that I will be able to fix these problems today and we'll proceed with our work in the orderly manner.

Post-2:Your introductions

Dear All,

I'd like to ask you to do smth. creative to help me remember you quicker and better and also practise using this blog.

I have a couple of suggestions about what you can do but in the end, you are more than welcome to do smth different. Just remember that the main purpose of this task is to help me to get acquainted with you better and remember your names and surnames.

So, what can you do to help me?

a) publish a picture of you or a picture that is associated with you and tells a small story; explain it
                                                        

                                                    OR

b) publish your favourite YouTube clip:

it can be a clip of your favourite singer/with your favourite actress or acror/smth or smb else you consider your favourite such as one of the following

 a) a cartoon

 b)  an animal  

 c)  a book  

d) smth else: USE YOUR CREATIVE SKILLS and IMAGINATION:)

e) A note on the technical side: 

you'll have some practice today in publishing your posts and learn how to add images to them
also, I'll explain a number of rules and the conventions you should use when writing your works, including the following:

a) learning about reference styles: MLA, APA, Russian academic publications
b) providing reference details: the author's name, the title of the article, the link to the resource, the date of publication, access date, the page numbers

I'll introduce you to the tool Citation Machine to do it 
c) adding them to your post in-text and in the end of it

Hope you will find this useful and will learn to do it in no time.

Good luck!

See you in class shortly:)

PS: I'll add the explanation of what you need to do to add references to the resorces you have used later tonight (10.10.2019)

Task for 17.10.2019
Choose an article from the Guardian
Summarise it and publish it
Add 3 questions you have after having read it
Add an in-text and end of the post reference details

Post-1: Introduction to the course

Dear All,

Welcome to the course of Academic Writing which you are going to take this academic year. This blog together with yours will be our learning space where we'll discuss a variety of topics you are interested in and concerned about, we'll share some things that you find exciting/interesting/useful or all of these at the same time. I am hoping that with the help of this course you will be able to improve the skills you already have and master new ones that will help you to become a better writer in English.

Thanks for sharing your first pieces of writing with me, which I'm planning to read and comment on during this week.

Next week in class I'll explain to you how to edit and publish your works in the blog and what you need to remember when drafting, revising and editing them. Do you know the difference b/w them by the way?

I'll also give you some tips that can help you write your works easier and enjoy it more.

Overall, I hope you will find this course both interesting and useful and will enjoy taking it.