2020-04-10 TOEFL: writing practice

Greg Malivuk
gmalivuk@staffordhouse.com
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - notes from all classes
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https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-mysterious-life-and-death-of-rasputin-eden-girma
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Last week’s writing might have been a bit difficult for a couple of reasons:
- the points aren’t in the same order in the reading and the listening
- the two points about meerkats are in the same paragraph (the sentinel meerkat gives up food, and the sentinel meerkat is at greater risk from predators)
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Remember that some spelling mistakes are more “unlucky” than others:
*The act was very valuable to same people.
	- When one word is misspelled as another real word, the meaning of the other word can be distracting and make it harder to guess what you meant.
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parallel structure / parallelism = using the same grammatical structure for each thing you connect

*It is more important to keep your old friends than making new friends.
	- not parallel because the verbs at the head of each phrase aren’t the same form
	- In addition, after “it is” and an adjective, we always need the infinitive form of the verb.
-> It is more important to keep your old friends than (to) make new friends.
If you want to use “making”, you need to restructure the sentence to make a gerund phrase the subject:
-> Keeping your old friends is more important than making new friends.

Across two or more sentences, parallelism is more a matter of style than of grammar. It can make a paragraph easier to follow and more interesting, but it isn’t really incorrect if you don’t do it.
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When you join things with a conjunction, both of them need to fit with the rest of the sentence.

*Kim and me will meet after class. (“Me will meet after class” is incorrect, so this sentence is incorrect.)
-> Kim and I will meet after class.

*Kim will meet with Kevin and I after class. (“Kim will meet with I” is incorrect, so this is incorrect.)
-> Kim will meet with Kevin and me after class.
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Independent writing: Remember, if you go with “both” or “it depends”, make sure you have sufficient suport for both sides. (In addition, “First” and “Second” don’t really work as paragraph transitions in this case.)

Don’t write a long introduction unless you’ve already written the rest of your response and have the time for it.
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Timing
3-5m    prewriting
    - brainstorm a few possible reasons for both sides of the question
    - try to think of details and/or examples to support some of those reasons
    - pick the side with better reasons/examples, and write a short outline with ideas in order
< 1m    thesis/lead-in
    - Write a thesis statement (explaining your opinion in your own words) and lead-in
15m body paragraphs
    - limit yourself to 5m each (or 7 if you have two) for your supporting paragraphs
    - you can come back later to finish ideas, but it’s best to at least start each paragraph first
5m  intro and conclusion
    - write a conclusion sentence (restate your thesis and summarize your reasons)
    - add to the introduction (background, summary of the options you’re chooosing between)
    - add to the conclusion if you want to give a recommendation or prediction
5m  finish up and make corrections
    - finish any incomplete ideas from your body paragraphs (but don’t add new ideas now)
    - check your entire response for mistakes that you can fix
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It’s a good idea to write down the reasons you chose during prewriting, because otherwise you might trick yourself into thinking you have more support than you really do. (And even if you aren’t tricking yourself, you might simply forget what reasons you were going to write by the time you write that paragraph.)

You can generally support your reasons better with specific “real-life” examples (and remember that nothing needs to be real).
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Supporting paragraphs have three jobs:
- State a reason that supports your main idea.
- Show that the reason is true (How does sharing insecurities help built a bond of trust?)
- Show that the reason supports your main idea (How does this bond of trust make old friends better than new friends?)

When the prompt is a comparison between two things, it’s probably a good idea to refer to both sides of the comparison in each supporting paragraph.
(Imagine that the reader is imagining that you are an idiot. You need to explain everything clearly or you might lose points for failing to connect your ideas.)
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“In my opinion I disagree with this statement because both are important.” - It’s probably better (and can be more clear) if you write your introduction as if the audience didn’t read the prompt.
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BREAK
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Writing Practice ETS 2.2
- The independent task about video games is a good example of one where the anti-game view might be more “accessible” to you, even if you disagree with it, because that’s a message you’ve heard many times from other people.
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Homework: if you want extra feedback, send me your own self-evaluation about how well you responded to these tasks.