2019-08-26 Writing: interviews

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk - Notes from all classes
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p. 3 practice 1 - Decide with your partner whether each topic is generally okay to ask about with a new classmate. Then add some additional topics that ARE okay.
1 yes
2 yes
3 yes
4 maybe (probably fine for class)
5 no
6 no (suburb, neighborhood, or train line is probably fine)
7 yes
8 yes
9 yes
10 yes
11 no
12 yes
13 yes
14 yes
- brothers and sisters
- pets
- favorite food
- what they like about English / Boston / the US
- music / other entertainment
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How can you politely say that a topic is not okay for you?
- I don’t really want to talk about that topic right now.
- I’d prefer not to say. / not to talk about that.
- It’s hard for me to talk about that.
- Are you sure you want to know?
(More directly: That’s none of your business. You don’t need to know about that.)

How can you politely ask about a topic that might be sensitive?
- May I ask about your religion? May I ask you how old you are?
- If you don’t mind me asking, …?
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Ask your partner about the okay topics. Give false answers to every question.
Write your partner’s answers for each question.
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(Academic) English Writing Structure
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Most (academic) writing in English has a very similar structure: paragraphs, essays, articles, books
- Introduction: introduce the topic and what you’ll say about it
- Body: say that stuff about the topic (support what you said in the introduction)
- Conclusion: summarize what you said, give an opinion

In a single paragraph, the introduction is just a topic sentence, which includes the topic and a controlling idea.
The controlling idea is what the paragraph will say about the topic.
	“Boston is a recognized academic city.”
	“Boston is a very unfriendly city.”
	“Boston has an extensive public transportation network.”
- These have the same topic (Boston) but different controlling ideas and the paragraphs will include very different information.
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Homework: p. 5-6 - Answer the questions about the two model paragraphs.