Conciseness (Exercise)

Monica has sent her summary to the evaluative committee of the magazine "TESOL Quarterly" to be considered for future publication. However, it was sent back because the word limit was 115. Help Monica to reduce it and fulfil the demands of the audience to be accepted.

(1) This study went through over 1,600 marginal and end comments written on 110 first drafts of assays by 47 university ESL students who are advanced, considering both the pragmatic goals for and the linguistic features of each comment. (2) After this, drafts of each individual essay were examined to observe the influence of the fist draft commentary on the students' revisions and assess whether the changes that were made in response to the teacher's feedback actually improved the assays. (3) The author thinks that a really significant proportion of the comments led to substantive student revision, and that there were particular types or kinds and forms of commentary that were more helpful than other commentaries. (4) The final results are suggestive of several important implications for L2 writing instruction and for future studies on a vital but surprisingly neglected topic.

The influence of teacher commentary on student revision. TESOL QUARTERLY. VOL 31, 2.

Edited text:

This study went through over 1,660 marginal and end comments written on 110 first essay drafts by 47 advanced university ESL students, considering the pragmatic goals for and the linguistic features of each comment. After this, drafts of each essay were examined to observe the influence of the first draft commentary on the students' revisions and assess whether the changes that were made in response to the teacher's feedback improved the essays. A significant proportion of the comments led to substantive student revision, and particular types and forms of commentary were more helpful than others. The final results are suggestive of several implications for L2 writing instruction and for future studies on this topic.

Finding the main idea

Read each paragraph and state the main idea in your own words. If you find the main idea stated directly in the paragraph, be sure to use the paraphrasing techniques that you practice in exercise one.

• There is plenty of water on the earth. In fact, there is enough water in this planet for everyone to have a huge lake. The trouble is that the water is not always found in the place where it is needed. In addition, much of the water is polluted or salty. Because of these problems, there are many people without sufficient water.

Main idea: Even though there is an enormous quantity of water in earth planet, some aspects limit the use of it.

• New oil supplies need to be found to replace those that have been used up. There is a constant search for new oil fields. Oil hunters sink their wells wherever there are signals of oil. Each of these drillings costs thousands of thousands of dollars, and often there is not enough oil to make it profitable. Nevertheless, the search of oil never ends.

Main idea: Oil hunters never give up because old oil supplies need to be replaced.

• Quakers, a religious group known as the Society of Friends, have always worked for human causes. Before the Civil War in the United States, they were against slavery and led the movement to help slaves escape from the southern part of the United States and seek freedom in the northern part. Today, they fight hunger and disease around the globe and still aid people fleeing tyranny and war. Their beliefs are based on the principles of pacifism and simple living.

Main idea: Quakers have always worked to protect human rights.

Paraphrasing Excercises

Paraphrase each sentence. There may be more than one way to rewrite each one. Remember to change the vocabulary, phrases and sentence structure wherever you can.

• Despite their massive size, elephants are known for being agile.

Although elephants are heavy animals, they are nimble.

• Because elephants consume up to 500 pounds of food a day, they are able to strip a forest bare in no time.

Elephants eat enormous amounts of food daily; they can strip a forest quickly.

• Over the centuries, lions have been used in art to represent power and magnificence.

For years, the image of lion has been used as a symbol of power in art.

• Lions are social animals with one dominant male in each pride.

There is only one dominant male lion in each social group.

• George Washington Carver was a dedicated teacher, in addition, he was known as a talented artist, musician, and researcher who made valuable contributions to his people and his country.

George Washington Carver was an excellent teacher and researcher who made important contributions to people; he is also remembered for his artistic gifts.

• Archibald McLeish, known for his poetry, was appointed head of the Library of Congress by President Roosevelt in 1939.

In 1939, President Roosevelt chose the poet Archibald McLeish as head of the Library Congress.