Task-2:Thesis_statement_exercises collection

Dear All,

I've collected a set of YouTube tutorials and exercises to help you understand better the features of a good thesis statement and practise writing them

A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hjAk8JI0IY

B. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TotaRoYh60Y


C. Developing a strong thesis statement:
https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/writingsuccess/chapter/9-1-developing-a-strong-clear-thesis-statement/

D. More on writing good thesis statements: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/thesis-statements/

E. http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb/thesisexercise.html

F. http://blog.wilmu.edu/writing/category/writing/thesis-statements/exercises-thesis-statements/

G. https://www.csun.edu/~bashforth/098_PDF/ME3_Argument/Thesis/05Sep04ThesisStatementWannabes.pdf

Semester 2: Task-1: Writing your own story

Dear All,

hope you had a good semester break and are ready to start studying again. Today, I'd like you to create your own stories using a tool called a Random Plot Generator: www.writingexercises.co.uk/plotgenerator.php

It'll give you a series of prompts regarding character names, a setting, a situation and a theme, and provide you with key nouns and adjectives around which you are going to create a story.

Referencing

Dear All,

s       Let me remind you how to format the references to the resources you have used in your works correctly. The thing is that it's not enough to provide the link to the article(s) you have referred to in your work. You need to add the following information:
Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Date of publication). Title of the article. Title of Online Periodical, volume number (issue number if available). Retrieved from: https://www.someaddress.com/full/url/. Date of access. Date of publication. Example:S   Smith, B. (2015, July 15). Commenting on the current situation. Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com, K. Klein, M. (2018, June 29). The Negative effects of Facebook on communication. Social Media Today RSS. Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com

N-gram viewer

I'd like to share with you an interesting tool N-gram viewer that shows the frequency of words use over a period of its existence

https://books.google.com/ngrams]


I'll add more information about this tool and how you can use  if you like it:

here is a short video that explains how it works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiDlNkqufbU

Here is a link to a course on Text Analysis (https://bmw9t.gitbooks.io/introduction-to-text-analysis/content/introduction/for-students.html), which has a section about N-gram viewer. You can look through it when you have time and share with us in the thread smth interesting you learned from this book.

Post-9: Semester Assignment

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. 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 350-400 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 (? NEED to discuss it). It would be great if you could publish your works a day or 2 earlier.

Post-8: Paraphrasing

Dear All,

We're practising paraphrasing with you 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 from the resource above under c) 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: Dealing with plagiarism

Dear All,

I thought you had a good idea what constitutes plagiarism, and thus there is no need to discuss this question with you. However, when reading your works I discovered an example of blatant plagiarism in one of the works written earlier by one of your peers. Thus I think it is necessary to return to the discussion of this issue to make it clearer to you what it is and how to avoid it.

Below is a short test which I am asking you to complete on your own before we'll discuss the answers together. Read the descriptions of the situations that refer to how smth was written and decide which of the situations presents a case of plagiarism. Also, explain why if you can.

1. An article is copied from some source (e.g. Wikipedia) and is submitted as the student's piece of writing.

2. Some portions of the student's writing are copied from some source (e.g. Wikipedia).

3. A sentence or a phrase in the student's piece of writing is copied from some source (e.g. Wikipedia).

4. Some information from Wikipedia is quoted in the student's essay and the article reference information is given.

5. Some information from Wikipedia is summarised by the student and a reference is provided.

6. Some information from Wikipedia is summarised by the student in his own words but no reference is provided.

7. Some information from Wikipedia is paraphrased in the student's work but no reference is provided.

8. The information from Wikipedia is quoted and properly attributed.

9. The information from Wikipedia is summarised and properly attributed.

10. The information from Wikipedia is paraphrased and properly attributed.

When you finish, we'll discuss your answers and will do a number of exercises to help you have practise in writing without plagiarising.

Here is a presentation we're going to watch to learn more about what to do and how to avoid plagiarising:

http://library.acadiau.ca/research/tutorials/you-quote-it-you-note-it.html

Next, let's do the exercise the link to which is provided below:
https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/jennifer.vacca/engl1301/argument-research-essay/purdue-owl-quoting-summarizing-and-paraphrasing-handouts-and-exercise

Write your version of paraphrased sentence 1 in the thread

I'll also add another exercise to help you practise paraphrasing later today (13.11.2019)

You should practise paraphrasing the other excerpts from the exercise from the Purdue University (the link is above)

More materials (added 25.11.2019)

Dear All,

We're practising paraphrasing with you 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 from the resource above under c) 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