1. Content
- Does all your writing refer to the topic of your seminar?
- Have you included the main points you discussed in the seminar, and any other relevant
points?
2. Organisation, coherence and cohesion
a. Organisation
- Have you got an introduction and a conclusion?
- Have you put each main point in a separate paragraph?
- Have you got an empty line between each paragraph?
Book in CILL: Hefferman, J & Lincoln, J (1996) Writing: a concise handbook
New York, Norton pp12-20 (Writing Shelf, Intermediate Level)
b. Coherence
- Does each paragraph have a topic sentence containing the main idea of the paragraph and
your opinion about it?
- Does each paragraph explain why you believe the opinion that you have written in the
topic sentence?
Book in CILL: Reid, J. (1998) The Process of Composition New Jersey, Prentice
Hall, p.69-70 (Study Skills Shelf, Upper-intermediate Level)
c. Cohesion
- Do you use logical connecting words such as ‘and’, ‘but’,
‘however’, ‘so’, and ‘therefore’? (Don’t use
‘moreover’.)
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, Chapter 11 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Do you use ‘a’ to write about a countable subject for the first time, and
‘the’ to write about the same subject later?
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, page 38 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Do you use ‘It’, ‘They’, ‘This’ and ‘These’ to
refer back to a subject in the previous sentence or paragraph?
3. Register
- Is your writing formal?
e.g. write ‘did not’ instead of ‘didn’t’, and ‘a great
deal of’ instead of ‘a lot of’.
- Is your writing polite?
e.g. Don’t write, ‘It is foolish to believe that …’. Use, ‘It is
questionable whether …’.
4. Accuracy of Grammar and Vocabulary
- Does each sentence have a subject and a verb?
Book in CILL: Hefferman, J & Lincoln, J (1996) Writing: a concise handbook
New York, Norton pp59 - 73 (Writing Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Have you checked each noun to see if it is countable, uncountable, or abstract, and used
the correct article ( a / an / the / no article) ?
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, Chapters 3 & 4 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Have you checked the noun before each verb to see if it is third person (he, she, or it)
and changed the end of the verb to ‘+s’ for present tense regular verbs; e.g.
‘Hong Kong changes quickly.’ ?
- Do you use the present simple tense to describe things you think are true all the time;
e.g. ‘Hong Kong is an international city.’ ?
Book in CILL: Potter, J. (1994) Common Business English Errors in Hong Kong Hong
Kong, Longman, Chapter 5 (Grammar Shelf, Intermediate Level)
- Do you use the present perfect tense to describe experience or the results of
experience; e.g. ‘I have been a university student for 2 months and I have become a
more independent learner.’ ?
.
- Do you use the simple past tense to describe things that finished in the past; e.g.
‘Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997.’ ?
5. Range of Grammar and Vocabulary
If there are things that you don’t know how to say in English, have you checked
how to say them in a dictionary, or with your EAP teacher or a CILL teacher?
6. Academic-style writing (see Unit 6 of the blue EAP book)
- Is your conclusion based on evidence and facts?
- Have you defined terms and words that your teacher might not know?
- If you have described something as ‘good’ or ‘better than…’,
have you given reasons why?
- Have you avoided asking questions, then answering them?
- Have you used academic-style writing to show how sure you are of your information
(see pages 111-2 of the blue EAP book)?
- Have you replaced phrasal verbs such as ‘look at’ with more formal words such
as ‘examine’?
- Have you avoided using ‘you’ to refer to your reader; e.g. ‘You must
agree that …’?
- Have you avoided over-generalisations; e.g. ‘Everyone knows
that…’?
7. Number of Words
a. Is your writing 400 – 500 words long?
b. Is your text double-spaced (i.e. one empty line between each line of writing) ?
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Yes/No |